Blade Runner Literary Analysis

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On the other hand, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner creates a clearer divide between Dick’s novel and the silver screen adaptation; most evident with the name change from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep to Blade Runner. Scott’s adaptation has spawned a movie universe that has recently been revived by Denis Villeneuve in 2017 with Blade Runner 2049 and the three prequel digital shorts: Black Out 2022, 2036: Nexus Dawn, and 2048: Nowhere to Run. All of which, aim to expand the movie universe beyond Deckard’s journey, exploring the effects of the first film and what implications they have on the lives of others, replicants and humans alike, and the world they inhabit. Baker stated that “The screen adaptation is always judged twice: once as a film in its own right, and once against the film-watcher’s own experience of the novel” (Textual Revisions, p. 2) However, with the name change comes distance between film and source, consciously signaling that the texts are separate from one another. Film journalist Kata Kirste notes, Ridley Scott "creates a highly individual work”.and many who have seen Blade Runner over the …show more content…

That’s what it is to be a slave.

In this moment, as Deckard dangles above the city fearing for his life, Batty shows that he has indeed developed his own emotional responses, as Bryant listed previously. Kata Kirste remarks that “a philosophical subtext shines through the narrative, his central motif the problematic of being and consciousness.” With Batty’s development of a conscience comes the burdens of humanity. He realises that life is fleeting and his mission to extend it has failed. His final monologue, as improvised by actor Rutger Hauer, is delivered as he sits there dying:

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to

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