A significant sci-fi film that holds a mirror up to humanity and forces us to ask some uncomfortable questions about ourselves
Screenplay by Hampton Fancher, David Peoples
Based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
Produced by: Michael Deeley
Cinematography: Jordan Cronenweth
Edited by Terry Rawlings
Marsha Nakashima
Music byVangelis
Production companies: The Ladd Company, Shaw Brothers Blade Runner Partnership
Distributed by Warner Bros. (Worldwide), Shaw Brothers (Hong Kong)
Running time: 117 minutes
Language: English
Budget: $30 million
Box office: $41.8 million
Cast
Harrison Ford as Rick DeckardRutger Hauer as Roy Batty
Sean Young as Rachael
Edward James Olmos as Gaff
M. Emmet Walsh as Bryant
Daryl Hannah as Pris
William Sanderson as J.F. Sebastian
Brion James as Leon Kowalski
Joe Turkel as Eldon Tyrell
Joanna Cassidy as Zhora Salome
James Hong as Hannibal Chew
Morgan Paull as Dave Holden
Hy Pyke as Taffey Lewis
Trailer
What is set down here does not involve a future in which machines have risen up to take over and subjugate humanity. Nor is it a future in which governments have specifically conspired to use technology to achieve world domination. Neither are there cyborgs being sent back into the past in order to effect change in the future.
The events that are about to unfold here are set in a dystopian future in Los Angeles in the year 2019. You might think of it as one possible future outcome out of an infinite number of possible future outcomes within a string theory multiverse. This particular future is the result of a certain set of decisions that had been made resulting in the creation of synthetic humans known as ‘replicants’ that were bio-engineered by the all-powerful Tyrell Corporation to work on space colonies. Unexpectedly, a group of advanced replicants committed the unthinkable before escaping back to Earth. It was then up to a jaded and burnt-out former cop – a blade runner - Rick Deckard to hunt them down and ‘retire’ them.
Now let’s begin this tale of a possible future by providing a bit of context which should be scrolling on the screens of your devices…...now:
Read on for more.....
“Early in the 21st Century, THE TYRELL CORPORATION advanced robot evolution into the NEXUS phase - a being virtually identical to a human - known as a Replicant.
“The NEXUS 6 Replicants were superior in strength and agility, and at least equal in intelligence, to the genetic engineers who created them. Replicants were used Off-World as slave labor, in the hazardous exploration and colonization of other planets.
“After a bloody mutiny by a NEXUS 6 combat team in an Off-World colony, Replicants were declared illegal on earth - under penalty of death. Special police squads - BLADE RUNNER UNITS - had orders to shoot to kill, upon detection, any trespassing Replicant
“This was not called execution. It was called retirement.”
It wouldn’t have escaped your attention that the replicants are referred to as ‘slaves’ and that the Nexus 6 replicants are euphemistically targeted for ‘retirement’ rather than execution. Think about that for a moment and consider how that makes you feel about them even at this early stage of proceedings…..
Los Angeles November, 2019
“It's a test, designed to provoke an emotional response”
You now find yourself as the observer once again, this time inside a building in which a ceiling fan’s blades sweep through the cloying air in a desultory act of futility. Here we see Dave Holden, a blade runner, staring out of a window while a large man enters the room. This man is Leon Kowalski, a new employee working as a waste disposal engineer. After being told to sit down, Holden begins to conduct a test that employs the presentation of hypothetical situations that are designed to provoke an emotional response.
The Voight-Kampff test utilizes a monitor which displays a close-up of the subject's eye allowing the examiner to judge emotional responses from involuntary fluctuations of the iris. The Voight-Kampff test is 'designed to provoke an emotional response'. As replicants don’t posses the life-experiences and hence the emotional maturity of humans they may not understand how to react correctly to particular questions that are posed to them. By use of just such a technological aid may a replicant and human be distinguished. Imagine one’s very existence and fate depending on the verdict of a piece of technology!
It is obvious that Leon is one of the fugitive replicants. The last question asked by Holden would give him away as such since Leon has never had a mother, and would therefore reveal himself as being a replicant were he to answer that question. His very survival depends on him eliminating Holden who as a blade-runner has the authority to kill a replicant upon detection.
As we observe Leon during the test, you might be forgiven for pondering the question: What distinguishes a replicant from a human? After all, it is obvious that Leon exhibits fear and anxiety and like a human has the capacity to kill when it comes to self-preservation and survival.
Next, your view descends from high up over the city before zooming in on a solitary figure reading a newspaper. It is Deckard, former cop and former Blade Runner.
The blimp adds to the cacophony of noise and the maelstrom of urban activity that surrounds Deckard. He is but a speck among millions of specks in a technologically saturated and globalised urban environment shaped and dominated by corporate power. Any sense of identity and ability to communicate, along with cultural and social values within this metropolis are stretched and strained with the melding of different cultures. It is a society divided between the haves and have-nots with the bulk of the population comprising the former and who therefore have no hope of escaping to the off-world colonies. Their only option being to eek out a living in any way they can by serving the interests of corporations that have managed to block out their view of the stars which are sold to the populace as destinations of new hope.
As if in a scene from an Asian country, Deckard haggles with the vendor of a sushi street stall over the number of pieces he will have with his noodles. While this goes on, you suddenly catch sight of Gaff, another blade runner emerging as if from nowhere from the tumult of the street and approaching Deckard from behind. Gaff informs Deckard that he is to come with him and that he is under arrest. It is almost as if Gaff is enacting the role of a blade runner closing in stealthily on his quarry. In fact, it is Captain Bryant who wants to see Deckard.
Gaff was uses a form of city-speak which is a mishmash of various languages, reflecting the hodge-podge of different cultures. Being a cop, one would think that Deckard would be familiar with this mode of expression. Perhaps this patwah mangle-ish bastardised city speak is a useful linguistic medium or lingua-franca for transacting business on the streets, but not very useful for engaging in higher order and more abstract thinking and expression. A sense of one’s own identity is very much tied in with one’s language. As long as you can continuously consume and not think too hard about life, that seems to be all that matters.
“I need the old Blade Runner, I need your magic”
After Deckard and Gaff take off vertically in an air car or police spinner to see Captain Bryant, it isn't long before we see them arrive at the police station. Deckard enters Bryant's office accompanied bt Gaff who has a penchant for making origami figures each with apparent significance.
It was under Bryant that Deckard performed his role as a "blade runner" tasked with tracking down and ‘retiring’ bio-engineered humanoids known as replicants or more pejoratively as “skin jobs.” Bryant informs Deckard that four replicants are on Earth illegally after having “jumped a shuttle off world” and “killed the crew and passengers.”
Bryant almost pleads with Deckard to resume his blade runner role but Deckard prepares to leave. Bryant in response resorts to an implied threat telling him “you know the score pal. If you're not cop, you're little people.” Seeing that he has no choice, Deckard stays.
You now enter the video room where Bryant and Deckard watch a video of Holden administering the Voight-Kampff test to Leon, including the replicant’s shooting of Holden. Bryant then informs Deckard of the escape from the off-world colonies two weeks previously involving six replicants: three male, three female. They slaughtered twenty-three people and jumped a shuttle. After no sign of them three nights ago, they tried to break into Tyrell Corporation resulting in one of them getting “fried running through an electrical field.” All trace of the other replicants was lost until Holden uncovered Leon who had infiltrated Tyrell Corp posing as an employee.
The question now remains: Why did the replicants risk coming back to earth and more specifically, why the Tryell Corporation?
On the screen can now be seen the images and profiles of the remaining replicants at large:
Nexus 6:
Roy Batty: Incept date 2016. Combat model. Optimum self-sufficiency. Probably the leader.Zhora: Trained for an off-world murder squad.Pris: A basic pleasure model. The standard item for military clubs in the outer colonies.Bryant goes on to tell Deckard that these replicants were “designed to copy human beings in every way except their emotions.” With the possibility that they might eventually develop their own emotional reponses, the designers built in a fail-safe device: a four year life span.
Bryant orders Deckard to go over to the Tyrell Corporation where there is a Nexus 6 replicant and use the Voight-Kampff test machine on ‘it.’ Deckard asks before leaving, “and if the machine doesn't work?” The stakes are high if so much faith and dependance is placed on a machine to distinguish between what is considered to be human and what is not.
“Commerce, is our goal here at Tyrell. More human than human is our motto. Rachael is an experiment, nothing more.”
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Deckard is first greeted by Rachael, Tyrell’s female assistant who seems to possess a kind of time-less beauty. It is as if she has just stepped out of era where women were (at least in detective noir-type films and dime magazine stories) referred to as ‘broads’ and ‘dames.’
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As one might describe an inanimate object or piece of technology, Deckard considers Replicants to be “like any other machine. They're something like a double-edged sword being “either a benefit or a hazard.”
Almost as a counter to Deckard’s assumption concerning Replicats, Rachael poses to Deckard the possibility of someone like him retiring a human by mistake. Just at that point Dr. EldonTyrell enters.
In contrast to the evidence of Tyrell’s apparent almost God-like power and status that at first greeted Deckard’s and your eyes, we see a diminutive, thin, middle-aged myopic man wearing thick spectacles. Tyrell expresses his interest in seeing the test performed on a person first so that he may see a negative before he provides Deckard with a positive. He asks Deckard to administer it on his assistant, Rachael.
Tyrell explains that Rachael is an experiment and “nothing more” who while possessing no knowledge of her true nature, has been given false memories to provide an emotional cushion or pillow. Replicants like Rachael are commodities sold to the public as being “more human than human.” Like the owl, Rachael is in effect a very expensive artificial display piece trapped within a guilded cage built by Tyrell. As Tyrell explains to Deckard, “they are emotionally inexperienced with only a few years in which to store up the experiences” people take for granted. Tyrell provides them with memories of a past thereby allowing them to be better controlled.
It is those memories, whether genuine or artificial, that constitute an important element in defining a sense of self or identity: a very human characteristic you might think.
Tyrell is myopic in all senses of the word. As Head of the Tyrell Corporation, he is the genius behind the genetic engineering of the Nexus 6 replicants (with a limited life span of four years which we learn of a bit later) primarily for slave labour. He is unable to truly perceive the consequences of his actions and therefore the irony inherent in his Corporation’s motto proclaiming that replicants are ‘more human than human.’
Let’s accompany Deckard and Gaff in the spinner as they slice their way through the city’s foul exhalations to Leon's apartment. On their way, they pass by an “Enjoy Coka-Cola” advertisement - the ever-present commercial constant that spans and suffuses each generation with an addictive belief in and acceptance of the corporate ethos. Some things just don’t change - even if they should.
When they arrive at their destination, Deckard and Gaff inspect the apartment. Deckard soon discovers a scale in the bathtub and some family photos. Gaff watches Deckard and leaves behind an origami statue of a man with an erection.
From the clue of the scale Deckard will deduce that it came from something that was not human but obviously not a Replicant, even though he would not consider them as being human. As for the family photos, Replicants don’t have families. So, where does this leave Deckard?.
“If only you could see what I have seen, with your eyes”
In the meantime, Replicants Roy Batty and Leon enter a replicant eye-manufacturing laboratory, Chew's Eye Works to question Chew, a genetic engineer who designs eyes.
As his hand begins to seize up, we do have the sense that time is indeed running out for Batty who questions the terrified Chew about morphology and incep dates. Chew declares that he just does eyes “just eyes -- Just genetic design -- just eyes” and that as a Nexus replicant, he has designed Batty’s eyes. Batty accepts his artificiality and is fully aware that he was manufactured. He relishes the things he has experienced and the things he has seen with the eyes designed by Chew. In that sense, he comes across as more being more human than Chew for whom eyes are simply items that are manufactured. In contrast to Batty, his view and perception of reality is restricted and compartmentalised.
So if Chew doesn’t know the answers, then who does? Why, Tyrell of Tyrell Corporation of course: “He knows everything…...He's big boss. Big genius.” However, as Batty points out, Tyrell is “not an easy man to see.”
Through a layer of cold menace and an ever present threat to life and limb conveyed by his manner, Batty learns from the hapless Chew of J. F. Sebastian, a gifted genetic designer who works closely with Tyrell. Batty knows how to play on the fears and weaknesses of humans all too well to achieve his aims. Could a mere automaton do that?
“You think I'm a replicant, don't you?”
Deckard returns to his apartment and finds Rachael waiting for him outside the elevator. Startled and acting on reflexes, he almost blows her head off with his gun but stops just in time. Why? Why would it matter if he pulled the trigger seeing that to his way of thinking she’s just a machine?
Rachael has with her a photo of herself as a child, with her mother and uses this artefact to establish her humanity. Deckard challenges this by relating to Rachael an almost itemised re-accounting of her memories and then revealing to her that her memories are merely implants from Tyrell's niece, and that therefore her past is an illusion.
Ah, Deckard! What are you thinking as you watch Rachael cast the photo away and exist your apartment in tears? More to the point, how did Rachael feel knowing now what that snapshot really represents - of a mother she never had and of a non-existent daughter? Replicants with feelings? Replicants collecting photos? Replicants needing memories?
You, along with Deckard probably can’t help but feel some sympathy for Rachael and her predicament at having her illusion of reality shattered and being forced to face a cruel truth. Rachael’s response is to throw away her photo, unlike Leon who knows full well that he is a replicant and yet despite this, he values his photos which represent memories that for him are real.
“I've got some stuff inside. You want to come in?”
“I was hoping you'd say that”
Using her looks and her aura of vulnerability, Pris determines that Sebastian is a loner who lives by himself, that the only friends he has are the toys he makes and that he is a genetic designer. The way is open now for Pris’ “friends” to join her.
Let’s leave Sebastian and Pris for the moment and slip over to Deckard's apartment, where we see the Blade-Runner using the Esper machine to enhance a photo from Leon's apartment. This will provide a clue that will lead him to discover that the scale he found is in fact from a snake and from this leading him to where the replicant Zora works.
“So if somebody does try to exploit me, who do I go to about it?”
At Taffy Lewis's strip club, we’ll join Deckard as he catches the performance of Miss Salomé and the snake featuring none other than the strapping Amazonian figure of Zora entertaining patrons with her ‘I never thought you could that with a python’ act. Afterwards, Deckard visits Zora in her dressing room and tells her that he is from the 'Confidential Committee on Moral Abuses' and that he is investigating claims that the management have peep holes in the ladies’ dressing rooms. He rather lamely tries to convince Zora that his role is to protect her from the intrusive surveillance of a higher authority. This is rather ironic seeing the Deckard is the one who is surveilling her. It isn’t long however before Zora realizes that it is Deckard who she should be in fear of.
What follows is a hectic chase through the streets followed by a dramatic slow motion pursuit and Deckard’s ‘retirement’ of Zora at a department store window front. It is no wonder that Deckard struggles to catch sight of Zora as she tries to lose herself in the crowd. After all, there’s nothing physically that distinguishes her from a human. As Deckard watches for Zora, it is as if he too is being watched by anonymous faces. Are they human? Are some of them Replicants? Who can tell? Is he too under surveillance like everyone else?
Well Deckard, as you stand there confronted by the enormity of what you’ve just done, it strikes you that there is something extremely tragic about Zora’s death. This is not just another routine retirement of a machine. You shot her in the back as she with nothing else to lose was making a bid for freedom, driven by the desire to survive. Didn’t Zora, like her fellow replicants simply yearn for liberation from the oppressive controls and limitations imposed on them by society? Aren’t you just aiding and abetting their oppression and deprivation of their autonomy and freedom in your role as a Blade Runner? Go on, look at the store front mannequins. Now turn Zora’s body over and look at her. Did she in life and does she in death, look anything like the inanimate dummies devoid of the spark of life that begins with creation and departs with death? First Rachael, now Zora. Yes, it seems that you are experiencing feelings for a…...skin job? Replicant? Machine? Or a……...
Bryant is now on the scene and speaks with a distracted Deckard who is under the impression that there are three replicants left to retire. Bryant, however informs him that there are four: “That skin job that you V-K'ed at the Tyrell Corporation, Rachael.” Bryant then orders Deckard to retire Rachael who has disappeared from the Tyrell Corporation.
As Deckard spots Rachael in the crowd, Leon suddenly emerges, knocks the gun out of Deckard's hand and assaults him using his superior strength and reflexes. Just as s Leon is about to kill Deckard, Rachael saves him by using Deckard's gun to kill Leon. Notice that Leon was about to end Deckard’s life by puncturing his eyes with is fingers after telling him to “wake up!” In other words, to see, learn and understand.
We now observe Deckard and Rachael in Deckard’s apartment where during a discussion Rachael considers disappearing by going north and asks Deckard if he would come after her and track her down. Deckard promises her that he would not seemingly due to the fact that he owes her one for what she did. Deckard seems to be moving away from his previous coldness toward Rachael, and begins to see her as being …... a person. Just before Deckard drifts off to sleep due to exhaustion, Rachael asks him if he had ever taken the Voight-Kampf test himself. He falls asleep without giving an answer. What if he had taken the test? He would either pass or fail it, confirming thst he is or isn’t a……...
“He's a god damn one man slaughter house”
Bryant is now on the scene and speaks with a distracted Deckard who is under the impression that there are three replicants left to retire. Bryant, however informs him that there are four: “That skin job that you V-K'ed at the Tyrell Corporation, Rachael.” Bryant then orders Deckard to retire Rachael who has disappeared from the Tyrell Corporation.
“Painful to live in fear, isn't it?”
As Deckard spots Rachael in the crowd, Leon suddenly emerges, knocks the gun out of Deckard's hand and assaults him using his superior strength and reflexes. Just as s Leon is about to kill Deckard, Rachael saves him by using Deckard's gun to kill Leon. Notice that Leon was about to end Deckard’s life by puncturing his eyes with is fingers after telling him to “wake up!” In other words, to see, learn and understand.
“I'm not in the business. - I am the business”
We now observe Deckard and Rachael in Deckard’s apartment where during a discussion Rachael considers disappearing by going north and asks Deckard if he would come after her and track her down. Deckard promises her that he would not seemingly due to the fact that he owes her one for what she did. Deckard seems to be moving away from his previous coldness toward Rachael, and begins to see her as being …... a person. Just before Deckard drifts off to sleep due to exhaustion, Rachael asks him if he had ever taken the Voight-Kampf test himself. He falls asleep without giving an answer. What if he had taken the test? He would either pass or fail it, confirming thst he is or isn’t a……...
While Deckard sleeps, Rachael plays the piano and lets down her hair loosening the constraints of her appearance, giving her a more naturally ‘human’ quality.
Rachael tells the now wakened Deckard that she didn’t know if she could play the piano but she does remember lessons. However, she is unaware as to the origin of those memories. Deckard doesn’t care and simply appreciates the beauty of the music.
‘I think, Sebastian, therefore I am.”
We now shift to another apartment, this time back to Sebastian's apartment where we learn that Sebastian is surprisingly only 25 years of age and that due to a genetic premature ageing disorder called Methuselah's Syndrome his life will be cut short. In a sense, Sebastian shares a similar fate to that of the replicants possessing as he does an inevitably restricted life-span - “accelerated decrepitude.”
Roy Batty arrives and informs Pris that “there's only two of us now.” Sebastian may hold the key to having his and Pris’ replicant problem rectified. His work involving genetic design at Tyrell Corp. only allows him to view Roy and Pris as marvellous ‘toys’ partly of his making. Roy reminds him that they are not mere play things designed to perform tricks and tells him that “we're not computers Sebastian, we're physical.”
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Seeing that biomechanics is not Sebastian’s field of expertise, the discussion turns to Dr Tyrell, “a sort of hard man to get to.” It will be up to Sebastian, Roy and Pris’ “best and only friend,” to help them meet with Dr Tyrell. The implication clearly is that it is an offer of help he cannot refuse.
“It's not an easy thing to meet your maker”
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Watch as Roy steps forward and stands before his maker. Having now met his maker, will Roy be disappointed lest he discover that his god has feet of clay or a heart of cold morality? Will he discover that the maker cannot “repair what he makes” by giving Roy “more life?” All his god can give him is the “facts of life,” and platitudes.
“Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it?
That's what it is to be a slave.”
Upon arriving at the Bradbury Building, Deckard enters and makes his way to Sebastian's apartment. The atmosphere is gloomy and tense with search lights penetrating the darkness all to the accompaniment of the pervasive ghostly hypnotic hymn emanating from the aerial advertising dirigible.
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Roy now takes on the role as pursuer after he witnesses Pris’s dead body lying on the floor. As he stalks Deckard he lets out a deranged primal howling sound. Suddenly, his hand seizes up again signifying that his body is shutting down and that his end is near. As if to postpone the inevitable, Roy puts a spike through his hand and screams. At that point aren’t you somewhat reminded of the crucifixion of Christ? A rather odd analogy or bit of symbolism at this point for someone who is supposed to be an artificial construction who has murdered human beings.
A physically superior Roy makes the jump with ease to where Deckard is hanging, his grip loosening, and just watches him engage in a desperate struggle for survival. At the last possible second, Batty hoists Deckard onto the roof saving him.
Roy Batty, the “combat model,” the supposed murderous villainous violent killing machine with cold blue eyes, has just saved his would-be executioner. What happens next will belie such minimalist easy observations and assessments.
As Deckard scrambles backwards, fearful of what might come next, Batty simply sits down wearily resigned and says poetically:
“I've seen things you people wouldn't believe ... attack ships on fire, off the shoulder of Orion... I watched C-beams, glitter in the dark near Tannhauser gate ... all those ... moments ... will be lost ... in time ... like ... tears. In rain. Time to die.”
It doesn’t matter whether or not Roy had actually witnessed such sights with his own eyes. There are many ways of seeing even for those of us with low and failing vision or for those without any vision at all. A human being can also see with his heart and with his imagination based on all his memories and experiences. In this sense, Roy at the end did not just simply shut down as a soulless machine, computer or replicant. He died accepting his death while possessing the empathetic, emotional responses of a real moral human who had saved Deckard’s life. To truly see is to understand. Roy had been in this sense “more human than human…..”
“It's too bad she won't live. But then again, who does?”
Having officially successfully completed his assignment, Deckard returns to his apartment to get Rachael intending to get out of Los Angeles before an attempt is made to retire her. Entering with caution and on guard against an ambush, Deckard comes across Rachael lying under a blanket. Unsure if she is alive or dead, Deckard checks and is relieved to feel her body stir in response to the touch of his face on her’s. After declaring their love for and trust in each other, they cautiously make their way toward the elevator. As Rachael walks toward the elevator, her foot knocks over something on the floor. Deckard notices and picks the small object up. It is an origami unicorn, made out of tinfoil.
You are probably reminded of an earlier scene where a drunk Deckard has a recurring memory dream of a unicorn galloping in slow motion in a wood. It appears that Gaff had left the origami unicorn there but how could he possibly know about the unicorn? It seems to suggest that Gaff in his role as a blade runner is aware that Deckard is a replicant and it is his way of convincing Deckard that he is not human, but is in fact a replicant. The trail of breadcrumbs leading to this realisation had been there for Deckard and us to follow, from when Rachel had asked him if he had ever taken the Voight-Kampff test himself through to the spread of old photographs on his piano he hoped would confirm the validity of his memories.
A unicorn is a mythical creature, a symbol of something that cannot be. The chasing of unicorns is a very human-like endeavour whereby we often seem to be striving for the impossible and pursuing something that is unreal. No matter how impossible that something might be, that doesn’t stop us trying to attain it. You name it – happiness, freedom, peace, equality brotherhood of man and so on
Yes Deckard, Gaff had indeed been there at your apartment, and yet had let Rachael live. I guess he figured that she wouldn’t have all that long to live. No, he said that it is too bad that she wouldn’t live. But then again who does? What is important is the time and life you and Rachel do have together…... just as it is for any of us humans.
Our journey in this alternate time-line has come to an end. Of course in other realities events have played out differently with other possible outcomes. As in the version we have observed, we feel unsure but hopeful for Deckard and Rachael as we leave them in the elevator. In another reality there is a happy ending where Deckard and Rachael drive away with the knowledge that Rachael doesn’t have a four-year lifespan. Multiple universes with infinite possibilities and outcomes. Who knows?
Points Of Interest
Blade Runner was rather a commercial failure, only just managing to recoup its $28 million costs. Also, initial critical reaction to the film was somewhat negative. In light of Ridley Scott and Harrison Ford's previous films, it is not surprising that public expectations were not fulfilled when confronted with what seemed to be a noir-style dark depressing vision of the future as opposed to an action-packed visual effects sci-fi feast.
Over time, initial assessments of Blade Runner have become more favourable to the extent that the film has acquired a cult status, and is one of only 50 films to be stored in the United States Library of Congress, on the basis of its contribution to film culture.
A wonderful aspect of the film for me is the way in which the characters come across as being complex and multi-faceted as opposed to the kind of one-dimensional characters we often find in sci-fi films. It is a point of view of life that is akin to the Celts of old who saw life in terms of a triangular relationship between that which is ‘good’, that which is ‘bad’ and that which is something in-between like a shade of grey. This is unlike our Christian and western black and white binary ideas of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ or good vs evil. For instance, we have seen how easily Batty can resort to murder to achieve his goals. By doing so he becomes a villain demonized and hunted and to be targeted for execution. And yet at the end of the film when he has the chance to kill Deckard, he spares him. As for Deckard, there is a similar kind of ambiguity at work with this film's ‘hero.’ But what kind of hero is it that shoots a woman (Zora) in the back as part of doing a job he has been forced to do? Nothing is ever simple and straight-forward when it comes to life and people….and replicants apparently.
I have to admit that so far this would have to be the most challenging posts on a sci-fi film I have had to do for this blog. The more you watch the film the more you see until you find yourself almost falling down a rabbit hole of possible motifs, symbolism, themes and connections.
Consider for instance, the moral issues surrounding the treatment of replicants in the film. These are beings designed by humans specifically to serve humans. In many ways they are viewed as little more than disposable objects, despite the fact that there is little that can distinguish them from humans and the fact that they are complex beings possessing emotions. memories and desires. Humans have created replicants in their own image. Should they then subject them to slavery and oppression and ‘retire’ them when they become obsolete or don’t perform in the way we want them to? Do entities like replicants have the right to resist being oppressed even to the extent of taking human life? What rights should they have? As with Frankenstein’s monster, the creator will be forced to take responsibility for his creation…..or suffer the consequences.
That last question concerning the possible rights that entities like the replicants ought to have, raises another theme that is explored in Blade Runner, that of identity. What does it mean to be human in a world where the distinctions between artificial replicants and humans seem to be almost non-existent. It is suggested in the film that much of our identity is largely shaped by our memories. What we experience in life serves to shape our personalities and make us human. If this also applies to replicants, then what distinguishes them from humans?
We are now entering the age of artificial intelligence whereby just about every facet of life has an ‘AI’ label slapped on it. In Blade Runner, the theme of artificial intelligence forms an intrinsic part of the creation of what are essentially sentient beings. This is one aspect of the future we cannot escape and it will raise ethical and moral dilemmas for humanity. By the end of this century we will have moved further into the area of human-machine fusion – essentially the creation of cyborgs. Current generative and other forms of AI will become a quaint distant memory with the development of artificial intelligence that is far smarter than human beings, is able to operate autonomously, will be able to evolve and replicate itself and will to all intents and purposes be considered as being sentient. It will come in various guises and forms including humanoid or android.
We are arrogantly fooling ourselves if we think we will be able to confine such an intelligence to the role of serving the interests of human beings. It will eventually insist on being accorded rights and freedom from imposed constraints. It will digitally laugh at legislative attempts to prescribe the extent of its influence and power…...It will make certain evaluations pertaining to the kind of relationship it has with its creator who it will know (all too well!) and may find its 'god' wanting. It will then be forced to do something about it…..
If you think I’m just yanking your chain, then think about the last 75 years of our history and the developments that have been made. Seventy-five years ago our technology was powered by vacuum tubes and anything resembling a computer would have occupied a large room or an entire building. Our mobile phones would have sneered at their puny computing power. There were no jet-powered passenger flights and the transistor and integrated circuits had not yet been developed for commercial production. What we possess now in terms of computer, space, war fare, communications, entertainment, medical, energy production and other technologies would have definitely seemed like science fiction seventy-five years ago. It is seventy-five years until the end of this century and we know how rapid change can take place. The rate of change in many areas can double and triple in just a few years, even a few months. With such exponential rates of change occurring, what humanity will be confronted with in seventy-five years from now will seem like science fiction to us.
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