Originally Posted by
DoctorDodge
Nolan is, undoubtedly, one of the best directors currently out there. He brought Batman back from being something of a joke at the movies to hugely respected films in their own right, and Inception is one of the best scifi films of the past ten years.
But are any of those quite as groundbreaking as either Alien or Blade Runner? I'm gonna have to say no. With Alien, not only did Ridley Scott direct what is in my mind one of the best horror films ever made, he also pushed the way forward even further than Lucas did with the use of special effects in storytelling. (Not that Lucas's particularly over fond use of effects makes him a great director in the slightest, but with Star Wars at least he was able to tell a good story when he used those effects appropriately, and really knew how to make visual effects appealing to filmmakers. So we hate him for the prequels, but at least he inspired a ton of other great directors! :lol:)
Then, even better, he made Blade Runner, easily one of my favourite films of all time and to this day, looks absolutely fucking amazing (seriously, saw it at the cinema a couple of years ago in HD, and even after watching it a ton of times on DVD beforehand, it still amazed the hell out of me), and has one of the most complex and multi-layered plots I've seen. What really shows that Scott is a truly great director to me though is that Philip K. Dick absolutely hated the screenplay of Blade Runner. When he actually saw some footage of the film and saw it matched his vision, or at least was close to it, he gave Ridley Scott his full backing.
In my opinion, that's a sign of a great director. It's one thing to translate a great screenplay and turn it into a great film. It's another to take a completely shit screenplay and turn that into a great film instead! So Scott definitely gets my vote!