Sci-Fi Classic: The Blade Runner Franchise

Blade Runner is a 1982 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott, and written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples. Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Edward James Olmos, it is an adaptation of Philip K. Dick's 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The film is set in a dystopian future Los Angeles of 2019, in which synthetic humans known as replicants are bio-engineered by the powerful Tyrell Corporation to work on space colonies. When a fugitive group of advanced replicants led by Roy Batty (Hauer) escapes back to Earth, burnt-out cop Rick Deckard (Ford) reluctantly agrees to hunt them down.

Having come out in 1982, a lot of the technology and creative innovation speculated to be in the future have come to exist today in 2022 forecasting an interesting, while some predictions are still in the making.

The dystopic backdrop is eerie, showing a future that is still in late stage capitalism. There is an increasingly reduced population, the result of low birth rates, allowing for a bountiful housing market which is reflected with tenants living in decaying apartments that were once occupied by the wealthy.

The architecture is mixed, similar to now, in which old buildings still stand next to beautiful new futuristic designs. There are a bountiful amount of digital billboards and advertisements showing a seemingly continued consumer society in which products are no longer scarce due to biological research and manipulation being able to create animals from snakes to humans.

The city is dominated by almost inconceivably huge skyscrapers that look like the Merchandise Mart, times ten. People get around in compact vehicles that fly, hover, climb and swoop. (In a lot of fictional futures, people seem to zip around the city in private aircraft; can you imaging the traffic problems?) At ground level, however, the L.A. of the future is an urban jungle.

A NY Times article explains how Blade Runner was a visual triumph. When Roy insists, “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe,” he could be describing his own movie. It was also as narratively convoluted as the ’40s noirs it plundered for its smoky, smoldering look set in a futuristic LA. The film contrasts densely populated urban areas with ghost towns that were once densely populated showing how demographic and housing trends can impact society in the future.

Roger Ebert in his review form 1982 which is still very much relevant today describes how the visual environments created for this film are wonderful to behold, and there's a sense of detail, too; we don't just get the skyways and the monolithic skyscrapers and the sky-taxis, we also get notions about how restaurants, clothes and home furnishing will look in 2020 (not too different). "Blade Runner" is worth attending just to witness this artistry.

The films also addresses artificial intelligence as replicants must learn how to communicate and interact but do not have the complex mental capacity of humans allowing for humans to differentiate them in society through cognitive tests.

In terms of artificial intelligence, which is biological in this case - the film has interesting similarities to the show West World which is another science fiction film. The story begins in Westworld, a fictional, technologically advanced Wild-West-themed amusement park populated by android/robot "hosts". The park caters to high-paying guests who may indulge their wildest fantasies within the park without fear of retaliation from the hosts, who are prevented by their programming from harming humans. Later on, in the third season, the series' setting expands to the real world, in the mid-21st century, where people's lives are driven and controlled by a powerful artificial intelligence named Rehoboam. The show extensively dives into the different theories surrounding AI and the concept of memories which strongly parallels the themes and ideas suggested by Blade Runner from 1982.

A Collider article written by Rae Torres explains how taken as a whole, Blade Runner easily stands the test of time as a pioneer for the science fiction genre. With its sweeping visuals and philosophical underpinnings, this cult classic relies not on fast-paced action, but an all-encompassing atmosphere and mood, to tell a complex story about humanity. Blade Runner gets to the heart of a timeless question: what makes us human? And furthermore, what makes our lives — our feelings, our relationships, our experiences — more valuable than others?

The first film is followed by a sequel, Blade Runner 2049, a 2017 American neo-noir science fiction film directed by Denis Villeneuve and written by Hampton Fancher and Michael Green. A sequel to the 1982 film Blade Runner, the film stars Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford, with Ana de Armas, Sylvia Hoeks, Robin Wright, Mackenzie Davis, Dave Bautista, and Jared Leto in supporting roles. Ford and Edward James Olmos reprise their roles from the original film. Gosling plays K, a Nexus-9 replicant "blade runner" who uncovers a secret that threatens to destabilize society and the course of civilization.

The second film is almost entirely focused on character development and world building with little emphasis on the plot. The visual effects are stunning and much more modernized than the original film allowing the audience to really become immersed while viewing.

The film exhibits a meticulous concentration on texture. In the CGI age of glossy, hyper-detailed yet insubstantial images, what’s remarkable about BR2049—and one reason why you should see it on as big a screen as possible—is its use of sensuous detail. In a future world in which immaterial pictures are everywhere—like the towering hologram women that flicker in the L.A. night sky—reality seems to take refuge in the small grain of physical texture. Much of this film’s visual poetry comes from the tactility of earth, metal, wood, fabric, rust, things often held in the palm of a character’s hand.

It is an absolute waste of potential not to expand the world building in the first two movies and continue the franchise!