A Study of Bladerunner

A Study of Bladerunner

In June of 1982, Warner Brothers released the highly anticipated

Harrison Ford film Bladerunner. The film was directed by Ridley Scott,

who earlier had a hit with Alien. Both films are science fiction

films. The characteristics of the science fiction genre are quite

broad. The main things science fiction films have in common are things

such as the technology being far superior than today e.g. flying cars

and bizarre, otherworldly imagery. However, Bladerunner also has

elements of a film noir love story and detective films to set it apart

from other science fiction films. Unfortunately, the film failed

miserably at the box office, contrary to most people's expectations.

It was not until years later, that the film had such an enormous

impact on the public, and a cult following grew around the film. It is

thought this was because of the fact that a lot of people had home

video players. Multiple versions of the film appeared and in 1992 the

"Director's Cut" was released. This is the version that I have studied

for this essay.

The film is loosely based on the novel by Philip. K. Dick 'Do Androids

Dream of Electric Sheep?' Bladerunner is an old fashioned detective

story, set in Los Angeles of 2019. However, the L.A we see is nothing

like the L.A we would have expected. Our expectations of L.A is a warm

and sunny city with beaches. It is also where Hollywood is. What we

see is a complete dystopia where things are have gone terribly wrong.

Rick Deckard is a former detective brought in for one more job when

one of his ex-partners is murdered. Deckard is a Bladerunner, a

specialist in tracking down and 'retiring' ...

... middle of paper ...

...g. Going into war.

Cloning is also highlighted in the film. With the recent advances in

cloning, what does it mean to be a human. Will people try to

differentiate between a clone and a human? With people now becoming

the creators of life, what responsibilities will these people have

towards their creation? The problems with nuclear war are also

highlighted, problems such as killing wildlife, destroying the

atmosphere so that the world is in darkness for most of the time, and

acid rain. If scientific progress continues to be conducted for

business and not for the best interests of humanity, then the natural

world will be exploited and damaged until there is no beauty left in

the world to revive dying spirits. So people would stay depressed and

lead a pitiful existence. All these problems are highlighted in the

film.