Blade Runner Film Review

The battle between man and machine has raged on through American literature and reality for over a century. Its forms range from the American folktale of John Henry going head to head with the steam-powered hammer, to the real life 2011 Jeopardy match between the IBM powered Watson and reigning Jeopardy champion Ken Jennings. We have a natural fascination of seeing man go head-to-head with its creations, and seeing how close we can get them to the real deal.

But what happens when we build too perfect of a machine? One that's too human? One that begins to look, act, feel, and think like us?

Blade Runner takes place in the distant future (2019!) where this has become a reality. In what looks like an apocalyptic second coming of the Industrial Revolution, the world is engulfed in smog and other pollutants from smokestacks powering the various industries on the ground. As a result, we are required to harvest other planets for their natural resources to power ours. Instead of using human labor, the Tyrell corporation has developed a series of robots called Replicants, designed to function in all the same physical ways as a human. Things are going well until a group of six Replicants of the latest (and most advanced) model commandeer a ship and murder its crew. They make it back to Earth and attempt to infiltrate the Tyrell headquarters, unsuccessfully.

But why? They're already free, why try and go back into Tyrell, where they would no doubt be caught? It's unclear at first, but we soon discover two key reasons as to why. First, we are told that the Replicants are not designed with emotions, rather they develop them over time themselves. This means they won't necessarily react in a logical way, and may override a logical response with an emotional one - like a human. Secondly, we are told they only have four years to live. They discover this, and the pack's leader, Roy, is desperate to find a solution.

Roy is an extremely interesting character. He looks, acts, and some could argue even thinks like a human being. He might even be more human than human in some of those regards. He is more well spoken than the millions of humans on the ground working in the factories. He is able to (and does) show all the emotions a human would; sadness, anger, intimacy, desperation, acceptance, etc.. He talks about experiences that are more meaningful and impactful than those of most actual humans. "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I've watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain." He 'lives' more like a man than most men do, and yet, he still isn't human.

The moral questions asked by Blade Runner and the Philip K. Dick book it's based on (Do Robots Dream of Electric Sheep?) are really interesting. In both we begin to empathize with the Replicants, but at the same time we're conflicted as to why. If we really think about it, the Replicants are just gears and wires. 0's and 1's behind an artificially developed body. They may appear in every way the same as us, but we know they lack the consciousness we as living beings possess. They might laugh, cry, or show excitement like we do, but we know these are all just automated responses of a piece of hardware behind a human-like frame. In the future, if androids were to become a reality, it might be that we only feel for them in the same way we feel for the characters on TV and in literature; through a projection of our own emotion onto them.

From a film analysis point of view, Blade Runner is extremely well done. Ridley Scott does an excellent job of creating a world that encapsulates the cold and industrial world of the original story through film technique and symbolism. While the movie is science-fiction, it drastically differs from the space operas that were popular around the same time (The Star Wars saga in particular). While it has some of the big budget effects that were popular at the time, Blade Runner is still at its core more of a traditional film in that it focuses on its characters and the way the story unfolds, and Ridley Scott makes this apparent from the get-go. The entire film is extremely dark in terms of contrast; sometimes it's even difficult to see what's going on. This gives the movie a gritty film-noir feel to it, unlike the vibrant colors of Star Wars and the like. To expand on this, it's rarely ever daytime in the movie. The opening scene, which sets out to establish the atmosphere of the movie, shows the sprawling city at night still busy at work. Scott's directing skills combined with the already great story makes Blade Runner a great and very important movie in American film history.

Work Cited

• Monahan, D., Barsam R. Looking at Movies. 4th Edition ed. N.p.: Pearson Education, 2013. Print.
• Coffey, Donnacha. "Blade Runner FilmGrab." Web log post. Film-grab.com. N.p., 5 Sept. 2010. Web.
• Dick, Philip. "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" 1968. Book.
• Ebert29, Roger. "Blade Runner" All Content. N.p., 29 Dec. 1988. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.
• Blade Runner Dir. Ridley Scott. Perf. Harrison Ford. 1988. DVD.
• Richards, Evan. "The Cinematography of “Blade Runner" @ Evan E. Richards. N.p., Aug. 2010. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.