Blade runner

Category: Sci-Fi - Fantasy  |  Tags: sci-fi - fantasy

posted by: Roger 59 days ago          

Based on the book “Do androids dream of electric sheep” by Philip K Dick, Blade Runner is set in the not-too-distant year 2019, a time when corporations rule over an Earth composed mainly of steaming asphalt and fiery skies.

Technology has advanced to a point where genetically engineered androids, virtually indistinguishable from humans, are put to work as expendable military and industrial slaves on outlying planets.

Because these “replicants” might develop emotions and become fully-fledged humans, they are programmed to live only four years.

They are illegal on Earth, and those that are caught trespassing are ruthlessly exterminated by a special force called Blade Runners.

When reports reach the police that a band of four have escaped imprisonment and are at large in the labyrinthine alleys of China Town, Los Angeles, a reluctant Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is brought in to “retire” them.

According to writer Chuck Palahniuk, on a large enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.

With a life span of four instead of the better part of 60 years, how far might one expect an intelligent human, albeit an artificial one, to go to ensure its own survival?

With an acclaimed soundtrack by Vangelis (Chariots of Fire; 1492: Conquest of Paradise), striking imagery and deeper philosophical undertones, no one could have predicted this visionary movie’s resounding failure upon its release by “Alien” director Ridley Scott in 1982.

Audiences and critics alike were appalled by its dark vision of the future, Harrison Ford’s voice-over narration and the film’s sell-out Hollywood ending. No one was having it, and the movie was pulled from theatres.

Ten years later the Director’s Cut was released with some modifications and since then it has attained cult status, rated one of the best science fiction movies ever made and influencing scores of others. Every scene has been taken apart, picked over and analysed, and volumes of papers have been written about its religious significance and its comments on the nature of humanity.

Also starring Rutger Hauer, a futuristic Frankenstein and leader of the band of outlaws, his girlfriend Darryl Hannah, a “basic pleasure model”, and Deckard’s love interest Sean Young, a replicant unaware of her own status.