Blade Runner

This is the first time I've ever watched Blade Runner in full. I do remember specific scenes from it like when Pris grabs Deckard around the neck with her legs and Roy going after Deckard and howling at him. I think that when I was younger and tried to watch this film I must've been like "this is way too weird for me" and zoned most of it out. However, while watching the film during class I was still sort of having that same feeling. The film is a bit slow and hard to understand when you first watch it. You are left with so many questions and not enough answers. I think that the voiceover that was brought up in the reading could've helped with the confusion a little bit but I'm not sure. After the discussion we had in class the movie made much more sense to me and I could see the many deeper themes within.

The central theme of Blade Runner is the question of humanity. Who is a replicant and who is actually human? A psychological test has to be taken to discover this. The test has a number of questions focusing on empathy, being it the sign of one's humanity. The replicants in the film are shown as being much more empathetic than the actual humans, especially those who are on the streets. They are cold and impersonal to each other, not even seeming to care that a woman is getting shot at right in the middle of the streets (even if she is just a replicant how would they know?) This is juxtaposed with the replicants who obviously care about each other and have actual emotions. Pris dies in such a dramatic and emotional way and Roy is upset to find her dead. Roy is the character who has the most emotions throughout the whole film but yet he is the one who is supposed to be the robot. In comparison, the supposed "hero" of the film is Deckard and he has almost no emotions. He treats Rachael as if she's an object during the "love" scene. Basically, by the end the audience is questioning whether Deckard is a real human or a replicant. I think that this is what Ridley Scott is getting at. What makes someone a real human? And, will this be our future? Will we be totally null of emotions and empathy for other people and animals? Will there be no nature left in the world? These are questions brought up while watching the film.

I also thought that Blade Runner was very cinematic and a visually stunning film. In "Building Blade Runner",  Klein writes  that "When (Blade Runner) came out in 1982, many critics called it the success of style over substance, or style over story. But the hum of that Vangelis score against the skyline of L.A. in 2019, as the film opens, continues to leave a strange impact on artists and filmmakers." This impact can be seen so much in movies and art now a days. While watching the film the one thing I kept thinking is how familiar the dystopian like city and panoramic shots looked to me and then it came to me. It looks like Nolan verse Gotham city. The color schemes and atmospheric smoke and lighting are directly paralleled in Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy. 

 Not only that but the actor who plays Roy was also in Batman Begins. I think that this was more than just a coincidence and that Nolan was acknowledging the influence of Blade Runner on his films.