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Empire Magazine (2008) Greatest Movies List - #20: Blade Runner

 



Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) is one of those movies that gets more relevant with each passing decade. Set in a (now passed) future in which Los Angeles is overrun with people and pollution, the story focuses on artificial lifeforms clashing with their human creators. As the chase for these lifeforms progresses, writers Hampton Francher and David Peoples imply they may not be so different from the humans chasing them. If this sounds topical in 2024, imagine how relevant it will sound ten years from now.

When writing these amateur reviews, I usually try to think back on the first time I watched the movie and what I felt at the time. This is tricky with Blade Runner considering there have been five versions of the film released since the 1980s. I believe the first version I did see on TV was the original theatrical version with the narration to guide the audience since executives thought that was needed. I eventually disagreed and purchased the Final Cut on Blu-Ray to see the story unfold just as Ridley Scott intended. Whichever version you choose, I always thought this is the sort of science-fiction movie that would be enhanced if watched after consuming mind-altering drugs. Not that I ever tried.

Then again, the visuals are so powerful that drugs may not be needed to go on a visual trip. Everything in Blade Runner draws you into its world. Wide shots show a Los Angeles frequently drenched in rain and smog emanating from gargantuan factories. Cars fly around buildings resembling pyramids and advertising billboards the size of houses show that capitalism is doing quite well in this world. Among the crowded masses we are introduced to Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) a former police officer who wishes to just eat his Chinese noodles in peace, but his set of skills have been requested by the higher-ups.

Deckard is a Blade Runner, an officer who specializes in hunting “replicants”, bioengineered lifeforms, and “retire” them. Four replicants have come to Earth illegally, one of them has committed murder, therefore Deckard must do what he does best. This proves to be tricky since replicants are designed, as their name implies, to replicate humans as closely as possible. During a meeting with Eldon Tyrell (Joe Turkell), the CEO of the company that builds them, Deckard learns some replicants don’t even know they are replicants. Thanks to implanted memories and seemingly human bodies, a replicant can pass as anybody.

This raises interesting moral questions that no one at Tyrell’s corporation’s seems interested in considering. If replicants don’t know they’re not human, if they feel human, if they have human desires, are they not entitled to human rights? Deckard initially is not interested in these questions either, but after gunning down one unarmed replicant in the streets, he begins to have doubts. Things get even more complicated with the arrival at his doorstep of Rachel (Sean Young) a woman who until recently believed she was one of Tyrell’s employees and not one of his creations.

The movie’s MVP is without a doubt Rutger Hauer as Roy Batty, the charismatic leader of the rogue replicants. Given his ease to dispense violence it would be easy to see him as the villain and Ford’s Deckard as the hero. Yet things are not so black and white. All that Roy wants after is for his maker to grant him more years to live beyond his programmed four-year lifespan. During those four years he has seen incredible things, as explained in Hauer’s iconic “tears in the rain” speech. Would it be so wrong to allow him and his fellow replicants more life?

These are big ideas that are explored in a science-fiction movie not filled with gunfights and explosions every ten minutes. Given its more contemplative theme and the fact Harrison Ford is not playing a straight-up action hero, Blade Runner sadly never achieved the success of more commercial science-fiction franchises such as Star Wars or Terminator. It has slowly endured though, with Denis Villeneuve’s very good sequel, an animated show, and now possibly a live-action show at Amazon. I enjoy revisiting the world of Blade Runner, as well as the sequel, and I am curious to see what’s next. As a citizen of a world in which Artificial Intelligence is frequently in the headlines, I am also curious to see if one day reality will catch up with fiction. If it does, let’s avoid making Roy mad and let’s treat these life forms with dignity.




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