Film Critique
Blade Runner is a testament that film can combine entertaining concepts and overall moral meaning. Many in the film community have referred to this movie as a master piece for the genre. Directed by Ridley Scott and based on Philip K. Dick's novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep”, is a Sci-fi slash Noir film about a cop named Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) in a decrepit 2019 Los Angeles whose job it is to "retire" four genetically engineered cyborgs, known as "Replicants". The four fugitives, Pris (Daryl Hannah), Zhora (Joanna Cassidy), Leon (Brion James), and their leader, Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer), have escaped from an off-world colony in order to find their creator and bully him into expanding their pre-determined four year life span. This film originally flopped when it came out in 1982, but since has become a widely acclaimed cult classic with a director's cut to boot. A large part of the success that this movie has received can be attributed to its astonishing ability for raising important philosophical questions.
There is more to this film than just sci-fi, it’s a philosophical movie that revolves around real human interaction. Excusing the fact that some of the characters aren’t actually human, they still represent common human philosophical concerns. The movie itself is a detective noir quest for the meaning of life based in a science fiction environment, but the story is a commentary on what it means to be human and the questions each one of us have about life. At the end of the film Scott raises more questions than he answers, and as a result, critics are still debating the mysteries of this film today. In a sense, the ambiguity of Blade Runner is the culprit of its success. A true artistic masterpiece of a sci-fi classic, left to interpretation and what the viewer gained from the events of the film. A beautiful sci-fi film expressing the impact of technology on human society, existence, and the very nature of humanity itself.
Harrison Ford fans accustomed to the normally dynamic roles that he has played may be dissatisfied with the seemingly lifeless lead character that he portrays here as the replicant-hunting detective known as a "blade runner". They should be, for this dissatisfaction is part of the film experience, part of the dehumanized existence in the story's setting. Deckard must hunt down and kill these cyborgs whom are really in many ways more alive than Deckard himself presented initially. Their escape from an off-world colony has an explicit self-directed purpose, whereas Deckard's life appears to have none other than his job, one that he has tried to give up. By some standards, Deckard and the replicants have thin character development. However, this is a deeply thematic and philosophical film, and as such the characters are the tools of the story's themes. Each character reflects some aspect of humanity or human existence, but they lack others, for each is broken in ways that reflect the broken society in which they live and were conceived/created.
There are several dramatic moments involving life-and-death struggles, but most of these are more subdued than in a normal detective story plot. The film's power is chiefly derived through its stunning visual imagery of a dark futuristic cityscape and its philosophical themes. Among the themes explored are the following: - The dehumanization of people through a society shaped by technological and capitalistic excess. - The roles of creator and creation, their mutual enslavement, and their role reversal, i.e., the creation's triumph over its creator. - The nature of humanity itself: emotions, memory, purpose, desire, cruelty, technological mastery of environment and universe, mortality, death, and more. - Personal identity and self-awareness. - The meaning of existence. The film holds so many different underlining meanings that it leaves the viewer in a state of philosophical questioning, wondering things like: How long have I to live? Why do I have to die? What happens when I die? Doesn't my maker care? Is this all merely an illusion?
This movie is proof that any movie, no matter what the genre is, can have meaning and stick out from its processors. This film is visually stunning in that it isn’t effects based but actually story driven. Personally I could have done without the futuristic jazz, but it sets the dark ominous mood just right for the stories sake. This film will live eternal because it symbolizes the everlasting questions of humanity, through an overwhelmingly scary future where earth is all but used up and the last of real humanity is most likely all gone. Anyone who says you can’t make sci-fi artsy or meaningful should turn to this movie to be happily disproven. The kind of film a nerdy film student goes to for inspiration.