Blade Runner Review without summary

“Time…to die,” says Roy Batty, with a nail in one hand, he bows his head while sitting on the rain soaked rooftop of some old skyscraper in the middle of Los Angeles as his soul leaves his body in the form of dove flying up above the cityscape. Gaff asks Deckard if it is done, and Deckard declares, “Finished.” This religiously metaphoric end to the sci-fi thriller, Blade Runner, conveys the sense that the ‘Replicants’ could perhaps save man from his consumer depravity. But religion is only one of the themes, or should I say streams of consciousness, that mark this film.

A dark, swirling cesspool of human filth is all that’s left of Los Angeles by 2019. The decadence of Los Angeles is one of many elements in Blade Runner that are reminiscent of the noir genre. The whole film is a futuristic celebration of old film noirs. We run into this tribute in the first scene of the film. The camera is positioned above a slowly moving ceiling fan in a room where a man, wearing an old brown suit coat, sitting at a desk, is smoking. This scene is very familiar to anyone who has studied film noir at all. Another man enters the room, and the first man interrogates him, almost like a private eye questioning a suspect or witness. Such a tense interaction between two men with props such as the ceiling fan, desk, cigarettes and the man’s suit sets our mentality to film noir. We aren’t sure who is ‘good’ (human) and who is ‘bad’ (replicant) throughout the film due to ambiguous clues, such as Rachel asking, “Have you ever taken that test yourself?” There is a lot of dark and shadowy lighting throughout the film as well, such as in the room the first time Deckard kisses Rachel. Smoking and liquor were both common in film noirs and are prevalent in Blade Runner as well. This use of ‘drugs’ begs the question, “What pain are these people suppressing?”

“More human than human, that is our motto,” says Dr. Tyrell. This motto personifies another element of the film: the question of what it means to be human. The interrogation scenes in the film demonstrate that to be human there has to be some sort of emotional response toward animals. Since Replicants are the ones being tested and showing empathy for the animals, this brings up the question of how human are the real humans? Throughout the film Gaff makes a few origami animals, this may suggest he is a Replicant. At the end of the film, Deckard finds one of his origami unicorns; this furthers the ambiguity about his status as replicant or human. This question of humanity as empathy toward nature originates in the film’s portrayal that corporations have depleted the earth of any organic beauty, and that humans have become inorganic, paranoid beings. With constant police surveillance and pervasive neon advertisement as the only light in the darkness, we are led to believe that man has become wholly depraved, and is in need of a savior. Roy becomes this ‘savior’ figure in the end of the film. He says, “Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.” Roy has been in fear of death for his short life, but when he releases that fear; he becomes human and his spirit is free to escape above the dark corporate void of Los Angeles. After giving this speech, Deckard and Rachel are released from their slavery in the paranoid society, and they run away, like the unicorn spliced into the piano scene running through the forest, as they become truly human.

Portrayal of corporate destruction of organic life and humanity is a very counter culture theme today, considering the great amount of corporations and their dehumanizing practices. What would Roy ask us today? Do you live in fear? Are you free? Are you human?