Ridley Scott’s 1982 classic, Blade Runner, is a cult classic. A dystopian exploration of humanity, artificial intelligence, free will and concepts of reality, the film sits firmly on many top movie lists around the world, and for good reason.
However, the crown for the film’s biggest fan has to go to David MacGowan – a Blade Runner fanatic (and creative genius) who is literally replicating the movie shot for shot – on MS Paint.
Are you a fan of Blade Runner? Well some genius is replicating the film shot-by-shot on MS Paint and it’s excellent.
Confined by the limitations of the primitive program, his recreations aren’t bursting with detail. But MacGowan actually has an incredibly knack capturing the mood of the film in his drawings – each slide in unmistakably Blade Runner.
Chatting with Motherboard, MacGowan revealed the reason behind his mammoth project:
“I like the idea of having a blog but basically feel as if I have very little to say about things, at least things that are original or interesting,” MacGowan said. “I gravitated to Tumblr with some idea of just posting pictures, but still felt I needed to be posting something I’d actually made myself… [Y]ears ago I used to draw really crappy basic MS Paint pics for a favourite pop group’s fan site, and they always seemed to raise a smile. The idea of doing something else with MS Paint, a kind of celebration of my not being deterred by lack of artistic talent, never really went away.”
“I finally saw it on the big screen as an adult when the final cut came out theatrically and I was just amazed. Just completely stunned,” said MacGown. “Blade Runner is a mix of the old and the new in so many ways.”
He has not quite completed the entire film just yet, but he is showing no signs of slowing down.
“I don’t really think about giving up. The idea of actually completing something I start out to do (for once in my life) is very appealing,” he said. “And it’s fun, it’s not a chore.”
Check out MacGowan’s beautifully ugly work here.
