Blade Runner's influence has lasted more than a generation. The 1982 film has gone through seven recuts—with or without its contentious voiceover—and its stylistic and thematic elements have showed up again and again in music, television, video games, and now, at long last, MS Paint.

MSPaint Blade Runnerpinterest
David MacGowan
MSPaint Blade Runner

David MacGowan's MSP Blade Runner Tumblr offers something many thought they would never see: Ridley Scott's seminal story, itself a reworking of Phillip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, seen through the seemingly primitive lens of MS Paint.

MS Paint Blade Runnerpinterest
David MacGowan
MS Paint Blade Runner

MacGowan tells Motherboard he has "very little to say about things, at least things that are original or interesting." But MS Paint and Blade Runner share similarities that are worth exploring. Both are creations of the 1980s: Blade Runner in 1982, while MS Paint's debut came three years later in 1985 when Microsoft released Windows 1.0. Both are still around—the program in the form of a whole new MS Paint, and the movie in the form of the sequel Blade Runner 2049 set to be released next year.

MS Paint Blade Runnerpinterest
David MacGowan
MS Paint Blade Runner

Source: MSP Blade Runner via Motherboard

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David Grossman

David Grossman is a staff writer for PopularMechanics.com. He's previously written for The Verge, Rolling Stone, The New Republic and several other publications. He's based out of Brooklyn.