Blade RunnerWhat is it that uniquely defines us as human? Is it our capacity for abstract thought, or maybe a conscious collection of experiences and social structure? Is it something as ephemeral as "the soul"? Blade Runner is a science fiction film which challenges these concepts by introducing us to a world not unlike our own, where humanity has both corrupted the Earth to such an extent, that off-world colonization is a necessity, and as a result, requires the implementation of androids to handle the dangerous work resulting from such an endeavor. But as God created man in his image, what responsibility do we have toward our own tools modeled so accurately upon ourselves?
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Blade Runner stands apart from other science fiction films. An adaptation of Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Ridley Scott opted for an "edgier" (and less complicated) title, adapting the novel into a dystopian vision--perhaps "urban nightmare" is more appropriate--of the future City of Angels, where the earth has become a desiccated husk, and off-world colonization is in its infancy. But even this is simply the backdrop for an evolution of a classic film noir tale. Like all movies set in the near future, when our time catches up to it, some of the technology presented is eerily prescient, while other elements appear antiquated by comparison. Incidentally, women I know who have seen Blade Runner have expressed that they would love to own a fast hair drying device like that which Zhora (Joanna Cassidy) uses. But even when the tech seems outdated, it only further gives the film that paradoxical charm of a film noir set in the future. And while Blade Runner embodies many of the characteristics of film noir, it is evidently self-aware of this. Director Ridley Scott weaves a lattice of classic nods to Chandler-esque detective stories--Rachel (Sean Young) is a walking example of this, as a tightly-wound femme fatale--and the film both defies easy classification and embraces the tropes of the film noir style. Although this is by no means intended as derision, it is ironic that Blade Runner is more of a simulacrum of a film noir--ironic in that it is a film about simulacra like Zhora and more, including, among other things, their very real status as "illegal aliens". The film begins with a preamble, informing us about the off-world colonization prompting the creation of the "Nexus 6" model of android by the mega-corporation led by genius geneticist and emotional void, Dr. Eldon Tyrell (Joe Turkel)--and replicants are not allowed on Earth, under penalty of death. One of the first shots we see of this dark and grotesque future is of the twin Tyrell arcologies, both reminiscent of the former twin towers of the World Trade Center--Tyrell espouses his adherence to commerce--and a constructed Mount Olympus, reflected in the eye of a viewer we can presume to be the leader of the replicants, Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer), who himself is a Prometheus unbound, trying to steal the fires of life from his inscrutable creator. The eye is the window to the soul, and there are more than a few shots in the film which show the light reflected off of the pupils of the eyes of the replicants, giving them a distinctly robotic look; even our protagonist and exterminator of rogue replicants, Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), has an out of focus moment like this, which itself suggests much about Deckard himself. And how does Roy ultimately kill Tyrell? By destroying his eyes in a scene which is cringeworthy to endure in its savagery. The eye is also the means by which Deckard and other "blade runners" like him determine whether the subject of their investigation--via the utilization of a machine designed to record emotional responses, called "Voight-Kampff"--is in fact a replicant. An early scene involving one of the replicants, Leon Kowalski (Brion James) shows how he fails the test right away, and teases us with subtle hints that might identify him and others like him; but just as it is with people, some replicants take more than a hundred questions to really reveal themselves. Tyrell's assistant and niece, Rachel questions Deckard about accidentally "retiring" (read: executing) a human by mistake, indicating that it is a risk in his work, because when it comes down to it, Deckard--and those like him--are just using one machine to try to identify another. Something that is consistently precious to replicants are photographs, because they are the manifestation of those memories which, as Tyrell observes, we humans take for granted. They are slices of proof that their lives happened...even when they didn't.
As stated, the replicants are fugitives and enemies of the state--or, perhaps the Tyrell Corporation, but who can tell the difference between the two in this world--and themselves represent a clear class disparity in this future setting. There is little to no light in this world, be it in the sky or in men's hearts; it exists at a premium here, and even a flashlight is needed to investigate Leon's hotel room, even with the inadequate florescent light flickering in the destitute dwelling. Flying cars have been a part of near-future predictions in film for some time, but of course remain absent in reality today. My assessment of their role in the future world of Blade Runner is that the only people we really see operating them are the police; so it stands to reason that only the elite or protected enjoy this luxury, further evidence to the gulf in economic status between the rich and poor. This message is a bell rung over and over every time a zeppelin flies overhead, announcing the opportunity for wealth off-world, both a thinly veiled message by the ruling powers on Earth for the poor to get out, and a message that all the opportunity on this planet dried up or was exploited long ago. But while the replicants kill (or gravely threaten to kill) to survive, their struggle is just that: one of survival. Replicants, like Pris (Daryl Hannah) learn to capitalize on their strengths and exploit the weaknesses in their pursuers or oppressors as a means to their end--Roy's mission--to prolong their lives. They adapt to Earth to survive, and in effect, they take advantage of a basic truth about humanity: that we are scavengers by nature. Our instincts are those of an opportunist at our core, though through our entrenched social structure, we politely avoid these behaviors by and large. Really, civilized humanity hasn't had to worry about survival in the same sense the Nexus 6 refugees do; thus, the replicants appear villainous, when they are, as Tyrell puts it, "more human than human". The philosophical dilemma at the root of the struggle between our main character--admittedly reluctant to resume his career as a blade runner--and the fugitive androids about "what is it to live?" challenges the easy dynamic of hero-versus-villain commonplace in most action or science fiction films. Deckard struggles with his mission to retire the replicants; from the start, he is already "quit" when he is arrested by his former boss, Bryant (M. Emmet Walsh) via his "Cityspeak" uttering emissary, Gaff (Edward James Olmos), and he almost dies in virtually every encounter with his quarry, saved directly in one instance by Rachel. Deckard and Rachel appear to fall in love, but there is a stilted awkwardness to their romance. I've always wondered about the scene where Deckard confronts Rachel with her own artificially implanted memories, because it's evident that he went to the trouble to discover these moments beyond simply identifying her as a replicant via the "VK Test". She's not (initially) his assignment, so why go to the trouble? I suspect that he is interested in her more than he lets on, either as a replicant who believes she's human, as an intriguing women, or really both. Maybe he's chosen to fall in love with her from the start; or maybe, he really has only the illusion of choice here as well.
Blade Runner is a film rarity for many reasons, but especially in that it's evolved since its inception in 1982. Originally padded with an explanatory--and virtually unnecessary--narration in the theatrical release, the subsequent director's cut removed the narration and added moments which further hinted that Deckard himself might be a replicant, due to both a numerical anomaly regarding the number of escaped replicants and his own cryptic dream of a unicorn; that unicorn origami which Gaff leaves behind at the end of the movie was suddenly imbued with a mother lode of meaning as a result of that juxtaposition. The "final cut" released even later seems to dismiss this theory by "correcting" the numerical discrepancy, although the impending sequel in the works (to be produced by Ridley Scott) revisits even this canonical interpretation as suspect. Is Deckard a human or isn't he? The irony here is that this is the same philosophical question which the replicants (like Rachel--if indeed she is one as Tyrell claims, and he is untrustworthy) are constantly forced to answer of themselves. Blade Runner is a film bursting with technical detail miles beyond simple window dressing to make Los Angeles circa 2019 appear as a dirty, future city. For example touches in the set dressing between Tyrell and his mistreated protegee, J. F. Sebastian (William Sanderson) speak to their personalities, particularly in a game of chess that the two play via their respective boards. Sebastian uses a board which features animals, like the artificial ones that are predominant in the world of the future, whereas Tyrell's board shows models of people--appropriate, as artificial people are his stock in trade. That, and both the cramped high-rise apartments and the perpetually rain-slick streets tread by swarms of cyclists and pedestrians with neon-lit umbrellas--Syd Mead is credited as a "visual futurist" for the film--elicit a haunting technopolis that's enough to give anyone a sense of agoraphobia. This film's vision of a future run amok has forever influenced our vision of "street-level sci-fi" and provided a visual for the definition of "cyberpunk". It's difficult to say what my favorite scene would be, but I always recall Roy Batty's ending speech as being one of the most poignant monologues about how our experiences define us, delivered literally with the dove of peace in his hand, released only upon the moment of his passing, a metaphor for his own soul's liberation.
Recommended for: Fans of philosophy, detective stories, science fiction, or really any combination of the above--Blade Runner has it all. A vision of a dark future not so far from our own where even our humanity is not guaranteed.
As stated, the replicants are fugitives and enemies of the state--or, perhaps the Tyrell Corporation, but who can tell the difference between the two in this world--and themselves represent a clear class disparity in this future setting. There is little to no light in this world, be it in the sky or in men's hearts; it exists at a premium here, and even a flashlight is needed to investigate Leon's hotel room, even with the inadequate florescent light flickering in the destitute dwelling. Flying cars have been a part of near-future predictions in film for some time, but of course remain absent in reality today. My assessment of their role in the future world of Blade Runner is that the only people we really see operating them are the police; so it stands to reason that only the elite or protected enjoy this luxury, further evidence to the gulf in economic status between the rich and poor. This message is a bell rung over and over every time a zeppelin flies overhead, announcing the opportunity for wealth off-world, both a thinly veiled message by the ruling powers on Earth for the poor to get out, and a message that all the opportunity on this planet dried up or was exploited long ago. But while the replicants kill (or gravely threaten to kill) to survive, their struggle is just that: one of survival. Replicants, like Pris (Daryl Hannah) learn to capitalize on their strengths and exploit the weaknesses in their pursuers or oppressors as a means to their end--Roy's mission--to prolong their lives. They adapt to Earth to survive, and in effect, they take advantage of a basic truth about humanity: that we are scavengers by nature. Our instincts are those of an opportunist at our core, though through our entrenched social structure, we politely avoid these behaviors by and large. Really, civilized humanity hasn't had to worry about survival in the same sense the Nexus 6 refugees do; thus, the replicants appear villainous, when they are, as Tyrell puts it, "more human than human". The philosophical dilemma at the root of the struggle between our main character--admittedly reluctant to resume his career as a blade runner--and the fugitive androids about "what is it to live?" challenges the easy dynamic of hero-versus-villain commonplace in most action or science fiction films. Deckard struggles with his mission to retire the replicants; from the start, he is already "quit" when he is arrested by his former boss, Bryant (M. Emmet Walsh) via his "Cityspeak" uttering emissary, Gaff (Edward James Olmos), and he almost dies in virtually every encounter with his quarry, saved directly in one instance by Rachel. Deckard and Rachel appear to fall in love, but there is a stilted awkwardness to their romance. I've always wondered about the scene where Deckard confronts Rachel with her own artificially implanted memories, because it's evident that he went to the trouble to discover these moments beyond simply identifying her as a replicant via the "VK Test". She's not (initially) his assignment, so why go to the trouble? I suspect that he is interested in her more than he lets on, either as a replicant who believes she's human, as an intriguing women, or really both. Maybe he's chosen to fall in love with her from the start; or maybe, he really has only the illusion of choice here as well.
Blade Runner is a film rarity for many reasons, but especially in that it's evolved since its inception in 1982. Originally padded with an explanatory--and virtually unnecessary--narration in the theatrical release, the subsequent director's cut removed the narration and added moments which further hinted that Deckard himself might be a replicant, due to both a numerical anomaly regarding the number of escaped replicants and his own cryptic dream of a unicorn; that unicorn origami which Gaff leaves behind at the end of the movie was suddenly imbued with a mother lode of meaning as a result of that juxtaposition. The "final cut" released even later seems to dismiss this theory by "correcting" the numerical discrepancy, although the impending sequel in the works (to be produced by Ridley Scott) revisits even this canonical interpretation as suspect. Is Deckard a human or isn't he? The irony here is that this is the same philosophical question which the replicants (like Rachel--if indeed she is one as Tyrell claims, and he is untrustworthy) are constantly forced to answer of themselves. Blade Runner is a film bursting with technical detail miles beyond simple window dressing to make Los Angeles circa 2019 appear as a dirty, future city. For example touches in the set dressing between Tyrell and his mistreated protegee, J. F. Sebastian (William Sanderson) speak to their personalities, particularly in a game of chess that the two play via their respective boards. Sebastian uses a board which features animals, like the artificial ones that are predominant in the world of the future, whereas Tyrell's board shows models of people--appropriate, as artificial people are his stock in trade. That, and both the cramped high-rise apartments and the perpetually rain-slick streets tread by swarms of cyclists and pedestrians with neon-lit umbrellas--Syd Mead is credited as a "visual futurist" for the film--elicit a haunting technopolis that's enough to give anyone a sense of agoraphobia. This film's vision of a future run amok has forever influenced our vision of "street-level sci-fi" and provided a visual for the definition of "cyberpunk". It's difficult to say what my favorite scene would be, but I always recall Roy Batty's ending speech as being one of the most poignant monologues about how our experiences define us, delivered literally with the dove of peace in his hand, released only upon the moment of his passing, a metaphor for his own soul's liberation.
Recommended for: Fans of philosophy, detective stories, science fiction, or really any combination of the above--Blade Runner has it all. A vision of a dark future not so far from our own where even our humanity is not guaranteed.