Blade Runner
From LoveToKnow Sci-Fi
Blade Runnger is a movie based on Philip K. Dick's novella, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The movie was released in 1982 as a dark "film noir" look at a dystopian corporate future in 2019 (which looks remarkably like 2005). The film was significantly ahead of its time, and as such, it went unappreciated by critics and viewers alike.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Fortunately, it found new life on video and DVD, and is now considered one of the most influential science fiction movies ever made.
Ridley Scott's Blade Runner
Director Ridley Scott, who also directed the movie Alien, brought his own unique perspective to this feature. Set in a futuristic multi-ethnic Los Angeles, dominated by Times-Square-like electronic billboards, it is at once both glittering and bleak. Harrison Ford, fresh from filming Raiders of the Lost Ark, stars as former Blade Runner Rick Decker.
In this story, Blade Runners are a special kind of hunter - they find and 'retire' escaped replicants, which are artificial people created for hazardous duties that natural people are unwilling to risk doing themselves.
Replicants - The Throw-away People
Replicants are indistinguishable from natural people, except through weirdly sophisticated psychological tests. They have a build-in obsolescence, designed to keep them from getting out of hand. Because of this design, their lifespan is only four years. In this future society, the common belief is that they are unable to feel human emotions, although it becomes clear early in the film that the four-year life cycle is meant to prevent them from developing human emotions.
Made by the mega-powerful Tyrell Corporation, replicants are not allowed on Earth by law; they must be shipped immediately to their duty stations inside asteroids or other non-earth locations. Yet somehow, a group of replicants have managed to escape surveillance and return to Earth, where they have already killed one Blade Runner. Rick Decker is hauled out of retirement to track them down.
The Hunt For The Creator
As Decker, a blade runner, hunts down the infiltrating replicants, he discovers one hiding in plain sight, Dr. Tyrell's ward and secretary, Rachel (Sean Young). An experimental model, Tyrell has provided her with artificial memories of a childhood and a family, to see if replicants are capable of enjoying a more human-like emotional life. Of course, the Doctor learns that they can.
Meanwhile, the four off-earth replicants conduct a search of their own to find the scientist who created them. They believe that their lifespan is something that can be altered, and that by deactivating a component or changing a line of code, their maker can give them back a full human lifespan. Unfortunately, the reality is that their lifespans are encoded into their entire makeup. While it is possible to create new replicants with full lifespans, existing replicants are out of luck.
The replicants, led by Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer in a breakout performance) are ruthless, heartless and will torture or kill in order to get what they want. And while they ultimately earn the viewer's sympathy, their situation is so unfair and their creation and purpose is so immoral, that it's very hard to fault them for their reaction.
Box Office Failure, Now a Recognized Classic
Perhaps the movie disappointed both critics and viewers because of its complex moral ambiguity. Even Decker comes to recognize that he might be fighting on the wrong side. When Roy Batty uses the last minutes of his four-year life to save Decker's life, the irony is bitter with no leavening of sweetness. The white dove that Batty releases with his death does not begs the question, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", but instead asks, "Do Artificial Replicants have Immortal Souls?"
This film just gets better every time you view it.
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