Blade Runner is a futuristic movie that shows our world crippled by economic and environmental exploitation, inhabited by an amorphous collection of people from different cultures. The year is 2019 and the main story is set in Los Angeles. Humanity is fleeing the now completely polluted Earth to new colonies on other planets. However, the exploration and colonization of other planets is difficult. Scientists have supposedly created advanced human clones known as “replicants” to work as a labor force off world. These replicants are not allowed on Earth because of a previous mutiny on a colony. The plot of the movie is mainly about a cop, or Blade Runner, named Richard Deckard who is forced out of retirement to eliminate several illegal replicants on Earth.
Some important questions the movie makes the audience contemplate include: What does it mean to be human, what is the difference between real memories and artificial memories, how does our environment affect us, and what are the ethical issues related to cloning? The movie offers these questions to us without always giving an answer. The culture and environment in the movie is very complex and is expertly illustrated by the amazing views and panoramic displays of architecture in 2019. The special effects and impressive landscapes of shifting color and texture are amazingly well done, especially when you take into consideration the time the movie was made. Ridley Scott directed most of this film in the early 1980s and most of the scenery was created in an abandoned parking lot. The culture is very futuristic in design with immense skyscrapers, giant televisions, floating cars, and neon colors everywhere. The culture in the movie is of a broken down, but advanced society similar to what I would picture the society in 1984 to look like. A select few like Tyrell have everything they could ever want while most of the masses live in slums and survive in the polluted underbelly of the city. This imagery suggests what a culture based on communism might look like a few decades down the road.
The issue of cloning as well as forced labor is brought up in the movie. If cloning was allowed in the same way it was in the movie then how should the clones be altered to make the issue of ethics not important? I think that if the clones were being produced identical to the originals then they should get the same rights as the original person. The replicants in Blade Runner were physically superior in every way to humans except their lifespan was four years. If the humans wanted to use the replicants as slave labor they should not have given them feelings, emotions, memories, and intelligence. Another problem in the movie is the difficulty Blade Runners have identifying a replicant from a regular human. To lessen the moral issue the clones should not look, think, or feel like us. Any sentient creature should not be enslaved to another. This is a common conclusion that Blade Runner tries to bring the audience to by the end of the movie.
Picture taken from: http://www.allposters.com/gallery.aspstartat=/getposter.asp&APNum=6129647&CID=68803241D3724357BE83079826BE3072&PPID=1&search=2003&f=c&FindID=2003&P=1&PP=1&sortby=PD&cname=Blade+Runner&SearchID=
Some important questions the movie makes the audience contemplate include: What does it mean to be human, what is the difference between real memories and artificial memories, how does our environment affect us, and what are the ethical issues related to cloning? The movie offers these questions to us without always giving an answer. The culture and environment in the movie is very complex and is expertly illustrated by the amazing views and panoramic displays of architecture in 2019. The special effects and impressive landscapes of shifting color and texture are amazingly well done, especially when you take into consideration the time the movie was made. Ridley Scott directed most of this film in the early 1980s and most of the scenery was created in an abandoned parking lot. The culture is very futuristic in design with immense skyscrapers, giant televisions, floating cars, and neon colors everywhere. The culture in the movie is of a broken down, but advanced society similar to what I would picture the society in 1984 to look like. A select few like Tyrell have everything they could ever want while most of the masses live in slums and survive in the polluted underbelly of the city. This imagery suggests what a culture based on communism might look like a few decades down the road.The issue of cloning as well as forced labor is brought up in the movie. If cloning was allowed in the same way it was in the movie then how should the clones be altered to make the issue of ethics not important? I think that if the clones were being produced identical to the originals then they should get the same rights as the original person. The replicants in Blade Runner were physically superior in every way to humans except their lifespan was four years. If the humans wanted to use the replicants as slave labor they should not have given them feelings, emotions, memories, and intelligence. Another problem in the movie is the difficulty Blade Runners have identifying a replicant from a regular human. To lessen the moral issue the clones should not look, think, or feel like us. Any sentient creature should not be enslaved to another. This is a common conclusion that Blade Runner tries to bring the audience to by the end of the movie.
Picture taken from: http://www.allposters.com/gallery.aspstartat=/getposter.asp&APNum=6129647&CID=68803241D3724357BE83079826BE3072&PPID=1&search=2003&f=c&FindID=2003&P=1&PP=1&sortby=PD&cname=Blade+Runner&SearchID=
And more importantly, they should not have given them immature feelings and emotions with fully formed memories and intelligence....bad mixture I say.
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