Blade Runner - Final Film Blog by Julia Chadi, Ryan Haque, and Ananda Ortiz Rojas

Blade Runner – Julia Chadi, Ananda Ortiz and Ryan Haque

Is believing you are a sentient being enough to make you one?

Storyline

Blade Runner takes place in a futuristic 2019 Los Angeles. Rick Deckard is a Blade Runner, a cop that specializes in killing replicants who are artificially created human-like beings. He is requested to come out of retirement and is given an assignment by the Head Police Bryant to hunt down and eliminate four replicants that have escaped from slavery on colonies in outer space and come to earth. As a blade runner, he has orders to shoot to kill as soon as he detects a replicant. While hunting down the replicants Deckard meets Rachael, a young, attractive replicant at the Tyrell Corporation with whom he falls in love. (IMDb)

Film Information/Details

This film is entitled Blade Runner, it is 1 hour and 57 minutes long. The movie was made and released in 1982. It was directed by Ridley Scott and screen written by Hampton Francher and David Peoples. The leading actors in the film Blade Runner are Harrison Ford (Rick Deckard), Sean Young (Rachael), Rutger Hauer (Roy Batty), Edward James Olmos (Gaff), Daryl Hannah (Pris), Joanna Cassidy (Zhora), Brion James (Leon), Joe Turkel (Eldon Tyrell), and William Sanderson (J.F. Sebastian) (Shmoop, “Blade Runner: Screenwriter”).  

Dir. Ridley Scott.

Perf. Harrison Ford, Sean Young, Rutger Hauer, Edward James Olmos, Daryl Hannah, Joanna Cassidy, Leon Lawalski, Joe Turkel, M. Emmet Walsh, William Sanderson, and Morgan Paull.

Warner Bros, 1982.

(IMDb)

Trailer

Trailer Blade Runner 1982

Cinematic techniques

These are ways in which the director gives more detail to the movie. It makes it easier for the audience to understand, follow and enjoy the film

Editing

When Deckard is interviewing Rachael to see if she is a replicant, the screen dissolves in and out to showing the same place but in different times (minutes to hours probably). This is something often used in many movies to show time is passing by.

Point of view is also present in the film: when Rick is sitting next to the piano, the audience gets to see what he is thinking: a unicorn galloping through the woods. We can tell this is his imagination because the unicorn scenes are kind of blurry and the director alternates shots of this illusion and Rick´s face.   

Framing

When Rick is talking to Rachael about her past and her memories, he makes her realize that she is just a replicant and not a human. In this part of the movie we can see a close up shot on Rachael’s face designed to show her reaction to what she has just learnt about herself. The close up shows Rachael crying, giving the audience the feeling, she is sad. It also brings up the question of her “humanity” for example when she mentions the picture with her mom, up until that point, she believed she had real human childhood memories of her family but in reality the memories were not hers. She was obviously very upset to realize this.

High angle shot is used to shoot from above Deckard’s head during his fight with Roy as Deckard is hanging from the building after failing to completely make his jump. It shows how far the ground is from under him, demonstrating that if he falls he won't survive. This also demonstrates how he is in a powerless position because Roy made the jump and is now standing over him, looking down upon him. Roy is in the power position.  

Costumes

Pris. At the beginning her style is punk, it shows her as ready to fight Towards the end of the movie Pris’s clothes are like a clown/doll, it shows her as versatile, childish and immature. It also reflects some mental instability. Most different as main characters showing opposition of two forces good/bad humans/replicants.Gaff. Extravagant clothing but at the same time low-key. He seems suspicious/mysterious.

Sound

Non-diegetic sound is used when Rachael gets upset after Deckard tells her that her memories are not real but are in fact just implants. She throws her photo on the ground and storms out of the room. Sad music plays in the background, which can obviously not be heard by the characters in the film but enhances the emotion of the scene.

Diegetic. At the beginning, when Gaff is in a aircraft-kind-of we we can hear the motor of other crafts that fly next to him. This can be heard by the character and the audience. It is part of the environment and the scene, in this case it helps contextualize the scenario; he is on the outside where there is more people and movement.

Effects

When Deckard is chasing Pris as she attempts to make her escape, the way the lighting was very low key, and the area was very foggy and full of smoke allowed the audience to experience why he was having such a hard time tracking her down in a crowd of people under those conditions.

Side lighting. At the beginning Rachael’s face is half lighted and half dark. Might indicate secrets or something we don’t know about the character (that was before we knew she is a replicant)

What does the film teach us OR Three main things the film taught us(?) One of the main questions raised in this film is "What does it mean to be human?" A human is a sentient being and someone who can store really memorable memories from past experiences. The ability to fall in love, to feel love, to experience love, and to go through a whole range of emotions that only a human can experience. For example, when Deckard and Rachael have strong feelings for one another and they kiss. Examining humanity is the universal theme of the film Blade Runner. This is shown frequently throughout the film. In order to find a replicant, they go through a psychological testing process. During the psychological test they are given a numerous amount of questions to provoke emotions that indicates someone’s humanity.  

The second universal theme of the movie Blade Runner is the place of memory in terms of selfhood and identity. Memories are the key to everything. If you did not have memories of the past, you would have no idea how to behave in the present. This is the main problem that the replicants face in the movie Blade Runner. When the first ones were created, they did not have memories of the past therefore they could not experience real emotions and furthermore reacted strangely to things. But then, the Tyrell Corporation creates Rachael as an experiment to make her a more balanced replicant. They implanted fake memories into her which make her respond to things and make her acted relatively normally… more like a human; they did this with all the replicants from Nexus 6. When Deckard questions Rachael, it usually takes fewer questions to confirm that one is a replicant but in Rachael’s case, it took more that 100 questions. Rachael was raised as human, she does not know yet she is a replicant.

The third theme of the movie Blade Runner is mortality. Humans are born and they grow up to become children, teenagers, and finally adults. As they go about living their lives, they encounter many experiences that are felt through their senses which brings them an awareness of the world around them. They feel happiness and an appreciation of life when all goes well. They feel sadness when things do not go as well, and also when a sense of awareness of their own mortality creeps in when their health deteriorates or when those around them of the same age start to die. When discussing the killing of replicants, the blade runners are not murdering them but rather “retiring” them. The replicants fear death just like humans and their purpose for coming to earth is to find a way to extend their lifespan to be longer than the four-year limit they have all been given. (Shmoop, “Blade Runner: Screenwriter”).

Word Count: 1102

Review & Comments on the film ★★★★☆

Blade Runner was a film with many strengths, so we will start with pointing out its one glaring weakness, which was the lack of lighting throughout a majority of the film. It was pretty dark at certain points, therefore, it was hard to understand what was going on. It was sometimes very difficult to see anything due to the lighting that was used, along with the excessive use of fog in some cases. This was especially present in the scene where Deckard engages in a foot chase with the sex worker replicant, Zhora. As Deckard chases her through the streets, the lighting was very low and the scene was extremely foggy, which made it hard for us as an audience to even be able to tell if Deckard was going the right way. The chase was rather confusing because of this, it was simply cut between 2 people running, since it was very hard to actually tell if he was closing in on her or not. In general, the film was very good and did many things well and had some interesting twists to the story, (Like when Deckard is left with a silver origami unicorn at the end) which forced us viewers to think more critically and make connections. We would definitely recommend Blade Runner to anybody because it is a film that really only had one weakness to it but had a very engaging plot and other smaller ideas/questions that the film influenced you to develop for yourself.

Connections to the Course          

Memory

Memory is something that plays a very important role in this film, as it shows to impact multiple different characters. Since replicants have a short life-span of only 4 years and are created as adults, they possess what are called “implanted memories”. Implanted memories are exactly what they sound like, as they are simply built into some replicants when they are created to make them believe that they had experienced many things in their past and are real humans. Implanted memories go as far back to childhood as memories would for anybody. These memories can either be created or can be the memories of somebody else, placed into their mind. One character that this is strongly demonstrated in is Rachel. Rachel believes she has certain memories from her childhood and tells Deckard about them, when he doubts that she is real. After this, Deckard proves to her that these are not her memories, but in fact belong to Mr.Tyrell's niece. Memory plays a huge role in shaping who we are as individuals, and we can see this by how crushed Rachel is once she is told everything was not true. These implanted memories are what helped shape Rachel to become who she was, more than any other part of her making.

Sentience

A sentient being is any living thing that is able to have its own thoughts, emotions and reflect on its experiences. In most cases, we would argue that any type of robot or machine made by men cannot possess sentience because it is simply an object that is programmed to perform certain tasks. However, replicants in this movie are extremely sentient, to the point where in a couple of cases, it was hard to tell the difference between them and actual humans. Nexus 6 replicants are sentient beings because they are very similar to humans in ways that they show real emotions and are even capable of developing their own ideas to achieve what they want. Implanted memories, as mentioned previously can essentially make their past feel so real, that they can connect with the memories so deeply and become emotional about it. These memories also allow them to have a sense of themself in a way that they shaped who they are, which can lead to development of emotion in current situations as well, as seen in the small affair between Deckard and Rachel. Another example of sentience in replicants is how Roy desperately wanted a longer life span. He had to form that thought out of what he wanted, he desired a longer life because he had emotion and the news of having such a short life upset him. This lead him to coming up with a plan in order to get to Mr. Tyrell and ask for this to be changed.

Anthropocentrism

Some of the humans in the film have anthropocentric views, because of the way that they banned replicants, making them illegal on earth and sent them to only live on other planets because of a few crimes that some of them had committed. We believe they also feared that because the replicants were superior to humans (being more powerful and intelligent than their creators), that it scared them because they wanted to be the most significant and advanced beings who feared that they could potentially be taken over. This is probably an unmentioned reason of why they were sent off to colonize other planets and were not allowed on earth. Humans feared that they had become too powerful, both mentally and physically. They wanted to avoid being taken over by another species.

Questions raised from the film

- Would you date a replicant knowing they were a replicant? Why or why not?

- If you were a replicant, would you rather know the truth or not?

- Is Deckard's memory of the unicorn an implanted memory?

Leave on the comments what you think!

Interesting links you might check out!

How do we know if we are actual humans? Could someone give one definition that every human could fit in. Different hypotheses are shown in the following link: https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-know-if-I-am-a-human-1

Are we all humans actually humans? What if there are aliens living with us right now? This article talks about this and more, shows us some evidence and different opinions about it. https://www.gaia.com/article/are-humans-actually-aliens-on-earth

Works Cited

Shmoop Editorial Team. “Blade Runner: Screenwriter”. Shmoop, Shmoop          University, 11 Nov. 2008, www.shmoop.com/blade-runner/write.html.

“Blade Runner.” IMDb, IMDb.com, 2016, www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/.

Golden, John. “Introducing Cinematic and Theatrical Elements in Film”. Knowing the Inner Self, McKinney, Kelly, 2018, pp 9-17.

https://giphy.com/gifs/blade-runner-rachael-sean-young-rSo5JggDy5iHS (link from the gifs)