Between the original Blade Runner and its belated sequel 2049, there came Soldier, a 1998 spinoff starring Kurt Russell. While he’s had a varied career, hopping between everything from romantic comedies to heavy drama, Kurt Russell’s action movies like Escape from New York or Backdraft are among his most popular.

Soldier follows in the tradition of films like Logan or Pale Rider by quietly remaking Western classic Shane. Russell’s sci-fi actioner finds his “obsolete” soldier Todd left for ᴅᴇᴀᴅ on a distant planet, and he finds his latent humanity through a surrogate family. When his old unit returns to wipe out the planet, Todd goes back to his killing ways.

Soldier was a total bomb upon release, earning less than $15 million on a $60 million budget (via Box Office Mojo). The movie also marked the end of Russell leading big budget action movies, with the actor suffering various injuries during the production.

Kurt Russell’s Soldier Is Secretly Set Within The Blade Runner Universe

Soldier’s Director Labeled His Action Movie A “Sidequel”

Soldier was written by David Webb Peoples, the scribe behind Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven and Blade Runner. Peoples penned Soldier in 1984, and while admitting in the making of book Soldier: From Script to Screen that he hadn’t planned it as a Blade Runner offshoot, that’s exactly what happened when director Paul W.S. Anderson came aboard.

During an interview with Cinescape promoting the movie, Anderson labeled Soldier as a Blade Runner “sidequel.” To that end, the movie is loaded with nods to the Ridley Scott original, including a junked Spinner and references to the battle of Tannhäuser Gate mentioned in Roy Batty’s (Rutger Hauer) “tear in rain” speech. It should be added that while the two sci-fi films share DNA, they don’t feature any crossover characters or plotlines.

That said, they’re both about what it means to be human, with Batty and his replicants yearning to be like their creators and Todd discovering his repressed inner humanity. Considering there have been efforts to link the Alien and Blade Runner movies, it could be argued that Soldier is part of both sagas. Of course, Soldier’s place within the Blade Runner series is tricky. There aren’t any boxsets containing both Blade Runner movies and Soldier, even if it’s widely acknowledged as part of the property.

How Kurt Russell’s Blade Runner Movie Changes The Franchise

Soldier Opens Up The World Of Blade Runner Even More

Blade Runner lacks the classiness of the Ridley Scott and Denis Villeneuve films and Soldier is, by design, a B-movie blockbuster. Despite its mediocre reviews, it’s also a very entertaining one with an affecting turn by Russell as the near-mute Todd. As a Blade Runner sidequel, it opens up the franchise in intriguing ways too.

It takes a look at mankind’s brutal efforts to colonize other planets, and how its soldiers had to effectively be stripped of their humanity for this mission. For this reason, the majority of the film takes place off Earth and reveals that colonists on other planets have it just as tough.

It would be nice if Soldier featured more Blade Runner elements like replicants to strengthen the ties between them, but that’s what makes it such an interesting spinoff. It explores a completely different facet of the series, and once again uses the sci-fi framework to pose some eternal questions about human nature.

Source: Box Office Mojo, Soldier: From Script to Screen, Cinescape