These are some of the themes from the film 'Blade Runner'.
Blade Runner was and is ahead of its time. When this film was released in 1982, stem-cell research and cloning were unknown to most of the general public. Concepts like self-driving cars, artificial intelligence, interplanetary travel, off-world colonization and terraforming were the grist of fantasy and comic books. Today, most of the themes in Blade Runner have come to pass and others are rapidly materializing as I write this. Not since Fritz Lang’s 1929 masterpiece, Metropolis, has a film about our future explored social, existential, and political issues like Blade Runner, based on Phillip K. Dick’s 1968 novel ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.' Of course, Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey speculates on man’s origin, evolution, and God, but the future in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner takes it a step further and brings it closer to home, a future in which the past, present, and the future intersect in both soul and design. Everything in this film is both alien and familiar, an incongruous admixture of old and new, a real-world future that, unlike 2001's clean sharply defined aesthetic, looks touched, dirty, blurred, and urban. A future marked by the paradox of technological progress and of social and moral decay, a future in which man revisits the institution of slavery. These are the themes explored in Blade Runner:
God
The film explores questions relating to man and God
Roy Batty is man and Tyrell is God in this film. Their meeting is the paradigm of the creature rebelling against its creator as in the Biblical story of Lucifer’s fall. In scene 26 on the DVD edition of the film, 'The Prodigal Son Brings Death,' Roy Batty asks Tyrell the questions that mankind asks: “How much time do I have?” to which the Tyrell replies “Revel in your time.” And when Roy Batty is in the descending elevator looking up at the stars, he is Lucifer falling from Heaven.
Slavery
The film looks at the nature of slavery
American slaves were stripped of their cultural heritage and identity and then coerced to accept the cultural heritage and identities of their White masters. The replicants are the same way. They have no memories or experiences of their own so Tyrell gives them false memories to create a cushion for their emotions which enables them to be controlled easier. But once the replicants reach a certain age and develop emotions they become rebellious. The toys are also a metaphor for slavery or bodies without souls to be utilized and discarded.
From Wikipedia: ‘Genetic engineering’
- In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court in the Diamond v. Chakrabarty case ruled that genetically altered life could be patented (slavery i.e. clones, bioengineered humans, etc.)
Humanity
The film asks the question: what is human?
In scene 17 on the DVD version of the film, Zhora, a replicant, is shot and is philosophically surrounded by lifeless and soulless mannequins, a metaphor which seems to ask “What is human? Is it the body? Or, is it the soul?” All of these questions are asked by this 1 scene, a scene that could have been shot anywhere but that Zhora is shot and killed among mannequins is significant. This scene, I believe, inspired Masamune Shirow’s and Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost In The Shell graphic novels and films.
In J.F. Sebastian’s apartment, Pris, posing among a roomful of life-size dolls, is indistinguishable from a doll herself. Throughout the film, the replicants show empathy-- a human characteristic--for each other and for Deckard who is trying to kill them. Roy cries when the other replicants are killed. Roy makes the poignant “tears in the rain” analogy at the end of the film.
Empathy
The film is about Deckard killing the replicants before he develops empathy
Once he reaches this level of emotional development, he can no longer kill his fellow replicants. As the film progresses he goes from being a cold killer to sympathizing with the fugitives. Tyrell engineers the Nexus 6 to die before developing emotions because it is easier to exploit or abuse something thought of as a machine or a thing than it is to exploit or, in Decker’s case, kill, something thought of as human or something you can empathize with. Tyrell realizes that once the replicant slaves develop feelings they will want more life. This explains why Deckard is brought back into the Force to hunt and kill replicants. Since he himself is also a Nexus 6 model he is also programmed to die before developing emotions and empathizing with his fellow replicants making it easier for him to kill them. Falling in love with Rachel changes this.
Dualism
The film explores the dualism of soul and matter
- J.F. Sebastian, who is a genius, is afflicted with a gland defect that causes him to age rapidly Roy Batty possesses super strength but has only a 4 year life expectancy. The message here is that you lose what you gain and gain what you lose
- The advanced technology in this film is contrasted against urban problems like crime, prostitution, pollution, old buildings, and social stratification
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