Category: Blade Runner

The movie “Blade runner” is an interesting representation of a possible future that humanity may enter into within the coming years and brings to light several ethical dilemmas that we as a species will eventually face. As technology continues to progress, it may very well come to pass that the “replicants” depicted in the movie may eventually become as common as television sets, however, it thus becomes questionable as to whether or not something that looks human will be treated in a humane way.

Even though the replicants showed the desire to live, depicted various forms of human emotion and complex thought processes they were still disposed of and thought of as nothing more than mere appliances. Despite the fact that the aforementioned characteristics are one of the defining traits of sentience and being “human”, the apparently dystopian society that humanity lives in within the futuristic setting depicted has come to consider such aspects as being nothing more than a byproduct of a manufacturing process.

This can actually be considered as a subtle attempt at having people question just how much emotion can be vested into what is considered nothing more than an appliance. The film thus becomes a form of critique against the continued development of technology without sufficient care and morality. Not only that, the film also heavily implies that humans are beings whose needs can be artificially met.

Evidence of this can be seen in the scene involving Sebastian wherein he lives with artificial companions and the fact that the escaped replicant Zhora was able to get a job in a strip club. This shows that not only can a person’s need for friendship and companionship be satisfied through artificial means (i.e. manufactured companions) but their sexual desires can also be equally met as seen in the case of Zhora.

When taking such factors into consideration the film thus delves into the moral dilemma of whether specific forms of technological advancement should even be enacted given the possible social, moral and ethical consequences. From a cinematographic perspective, the movie is somewhat drab when compared to modern day science fiction films that are practically laced with CGI and other forms of graphical enhancements.

However, when taking into consideration the fact that the film continues to illicit numerous questions from modern day viewers (i.e. whether Deckard himself is a replicant, or whether his romance with Rachel would even work out) shows how the acting, story and directing were able to create a timeless masterpiece that questions numerous aspects of human nature and the consequences of technological advancement. It should be noted though that the film does have some rather questionable elements.

For example, in the scene involving Deckard and Rachel where he forcibly stops her from leaving and forces himself on her, such a scene can be considered equivocal to rape when placed into the current context of present day society.

Yet, it also creates a rather strange question: can an act be considered rape if the person being raped is not even human? Overall, the movie is an excellent view into one of the possible futures that humanity may find itself in. Combing science fiction with moral dilemmas, the film helps to shed light on the deficiencies of humanity as a whole and how such aspects can impact our views on what is right and what is wrong.

The Setting of Blade Runner

The movie is set in a gloomy futuristic city, a metropolis in a period of societal decline. The opening remarks tell the audience that the setting of the movie is Los Angeles and the year is 2019 (Blade Runner). At the beginning, this industrialized city appears wet and overpopulated; its dimly lit streets are filled with people of all races. The city is in perpetual darkness as only neon street lights and billboards light the streets.

A rise in pollution and crime forces humans to leave this city in search of a new life on another planet. A multinational company, Tyrell Corporation that has its headquarters in the city, builds genetically engineered beings called replicants to provide labor in their industries.

However, some replicants rebel against the slavery and become outlawed on earth. They later return to claim Tyrell Corporation and a blade runner called Deckard sets out on a quest to hunt and kill them.

The Urban Landscape

The opening images show a heavily industrialized city with billowing smoke, towering buildings and a highly polluted environment. The neon-lit billboards signify a commercial city and provide light that illuminate an otherwise dark city.

Flying cars dominate the skies with people from various backgrounds filling the soggy streets below. The urban landscape in this movie projects a capitalistic city dominated by giant corporations whose distinguishing features include overcrowding, pollution, authoritarian rule and crime. As people begin fleeing the city, littered streets and abandoned houses dominate the landscape of this city

Urban Dystopia

The nightmarish visions in this movie portray a dystopian landscape facing the consequences of capitalism. Thematically, Blade Runner has several dystopian features. It is based on an imaginary story that explores future possibilities and instabilities of the modern capitalistic society and corporate capitalists. The movie also articulates the common fears regarding contemporary sociopolitical environment.

It reflects the plausible dangers of problems associated with capitalism and overpopulation such as crime and pollution. In this movie, with all the vestiges of nature gone, people become frightened to live in the city and begin to flee to an Off-world place.

One attribute of dystopian depictions like Blade Runner is that they frighten and instill fear regarding the possibilities of contemporary values. The movie depicts the possible effects of corporate capitalism, repressive policies and pollution.

Future Cities

In the last scene, Dackard, the blade runner, is seen embroiled in a fight with the rebel replicants. Dackard triumphs over three replicants but a fourth replicant, Roy, overpowers him forcing him to flee. Finally, Dackard, with the assistance of a fellow cop, flees the city taking Rachel with her.

Dackard then marries Rachel, a replicant, and settles in a new place away from the city. Out of a 21^st century city, polluted and damaged by corporate capitalism emerges a beacon of hope as Dackard and Rachel begin a new life together in the countryside. Thus, Gaff and Roy manage to force Dackard out of the city signifying an end to a sad era and the beginning of a new one.

To the viewer, this movie tells a lot about the dangers of intense capitalism. Most 21^st century cities show images of cities run by giant capitalistic corporations. The ending depicts how these corporations would cause societal decline in modern cities. Sociopolitical problems such as social inequalities, crime and pollution will lead to chaos and destruction in these cities and give way for a new age.

The setting in this movie is dark and obscure implying that the movie was shot at dusk or at night. The huge billboards and neon street lights illuminating the dark rainy streets below indicate that the movie was set in a low-light environment.

The street lights and corporate ads are the only sources of light that penetrates the streets. Also, the city is filled with fog because of the torrential rain. The wet weather, bolts of lightning and dark clouds in the sky indicate that the movie was shot during a rainy season. The darkness and the wet conditions contributed to the movie’s bleakness and obscure visual appearance.

Blade Runner relies on science-fiction to predict the future impacts of intense capitalism. The movie features alien organisms, the replicants, and predicts a future city ruined by the effects of capitalism. In the movie, increased industrialization and technology increases pollution and alienates people making them desperate in their own cities. This setting and style can be seen in recent Hollywood science fiction movies like the Matrix.

Works Cited

Blade Runner. Dir. Ridley Scott. Warner Bros, 1982. DVD.

Blade Runner is a 1982-year movie depicting a gloomy Los Angeles of 2019 where the replicants or genetically engineered robots that are indistinguishable from humans who are produced by Tyrell Corporation have the purpose of holding control over various off-world colonies. A blade runner is the main character of the movie. His name is Rick Deckard, and he is a former policeman whose job was to find and destroy replicants that caused harm to people or malfunctioned.

The dramatic premise of the movie is Deckard being called out of retirement with the sole task to pursue and eliminate four replicants who have committed a mutiny on one of the off-world colonies by capturing and stealing a spaceship in order to return to Earth and find their creator. Although Deckard does not have any job, he does not want to return to work in the blade runner unit. However, he is blackmailed by Bryant, his former police colleague, and must choose between two options, namely either being constantly prosecuted by the police or eliminating the escaped replicants. Thus, Deckard reluctantly accepts the offer to kill the replicants.

As for Deckard’s dramatic need, it changes as the story progresses. First, he simply wants to complete his task as fast as possible and return to his life breaking all the former connections. Then, Deckard meets Rachael who is an assistant of Tyrell, a founder of the corporation that produces replicants. Rachael is a replicant too, but she does not know it. Then, Deckard finds out that Rachael is a unique replicant who is given the possibility to live much more than other replicants. After Rachael saves Deckard’s life and they sleep together, he begins to reconsider his thoughts about all replicants in general and her in particular.

He begins to sympathize with them, which makes killing them far more difficult. Thus, his need changes, and his new goal is still to eliminate the rest of the escaped replicants, as they have killed many people, and save Rachael, as she also has to be eliminated. In the end, Deckard manages to fulfill his dramatic need by destroying the replicants and escaping with Rachael, so that nobody could find them.