Final Project Assignment-Film-Blog

Julia Chadi, Ananda Ortiz Rojas, and Ryan Haque

Blade Runner---Make some kind of title

2.

Trailer of the Film Blade Runner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eogpIG53Cis

3.

The 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).

(IN-TEXT CITATION HERE)

Movie Reference: REFERENCES SHOULD GO AT END--WORKS CITED--BUT MAKE SURE YOU HAVE IN-TEXT CITATIONS

Blade Runner. 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.

Other Reference: MOVE UNDER WORKS CITED

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

4.  

a) 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. (in text)

Reference:

Blade Runner. 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.

Introduce the cinematic techniques section

Editing: When Deckard is interviewing Rachael to see if she is a replicant, the screen dissolves in and out to show how time is passing by. The two images are on the screen at the same time to show the connection between these two. WHAT DOES THIS SECOND SENTENCE MEAN?

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 QUESTIONOF HER "HUMANITY"--YOU COULD DEVELOP THIS A BIT MORE)

High angle shot is used to shoot from above Deckard’s head during his fight with Roy as he WHO IS HE is hanging from the building after failing to completely make his jump. It shows how far the ground is from under him and demonstrates how he is in a powerless position because Roy made the jump.   

Costumes: Deckard normally wears dress pants and a dress shirt with a tie. His costume shows the audience that he is doing business work WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?.

Rachael often wears a fancy fur coat to make her appear to the audience as being a nice delicate person. (SUGGESTS CLASS--SHE IS SUPPOSED TO BE TYRELL's NIECE--SAY MORE)

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.

When Deckard is listening to Leon’s test taking place at the beginning of the film, he is watching it through a TV/monitor and it focuses in on it because he is trying to figure out himself whether or not he is a replicant. This diegetic sounds was coming out of a machine and was portrayed in a way to where as an audience, we could focus on it as much as Deckard. WRITING

Lighting Low-key, high-key, shadows/light, etc:

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 is used often in the film, for example near the end when Roy is chasing Deckard. The building uses USES?a lot of side lighting, meaning that one side of the screen has lighting, and the other has very minimal lighting. EEFECTS This is also used when we first meet Roy, it demonstrates that he is the “bad guy” by hiding half of his face, but still wants to allow us to observe his appearance.

c)

1. One of the main questions raised in this film is "What does it mean to be human?" GO DEEPER 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 giving a numerous amount of questions to provoke emotions that indicates someone’s humanity.  

2. 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. For example, this can be seen when Leon is being tested by the Tyrell Corporation. After every question, Leon acts and reacts weirdly. I AM PRETTY SURE THESE NEXUS 6s ALL HAD IMPLANT|ED MEMORIES --REMEBER THE PHOTOSGRAPHS? CHECK ON THISBut 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. For example, 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. It took Deckard much longer because she behaved more human.

3. The third theme of the movie Blade Runner is mortality--AGAIN CONNECT TO WHAT IT MEANS TO BE HUMAN--TO HAVE SELF AWARENSS AND AN AWARENESS OF MORTALITY AND A DESIRE TO KEEP LIVING . 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. DO YOU NEED IN TEXT CITATIONS IN THIS SECTION?

Reference:

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

Word Count: 1034

5. ONLY SAY VERY ONCE

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 very dark at certain points, it was very hard to understand what was going on because the visual support was very weak. 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, it raised questions. 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.

6. ☆☆☆☆☆4/5

1. Speciesism:Speciesism is demonstrated in the views of the humans in the film, when in the beginning of the film it makes us aware of what replicants are and why they are not allowed to trespass on earth. This is speciesism because after a few replicants were part of a violent mutiny, they were declared illegal on earth due to prejudice which made the humans not want any of their kind around. FIND ANOTHER COURSE CONNECTION
2. Cognition:The Replicants in Blade Runner demonstrate certain levels of cognition. Cognition is “the mental processes involved in gaining knowledge and comprehension”. (T2 Study guide) It goes on to mention how this includes higher mental processes such as thinking, knowing, imagination, and planning. The cognition of replicants were demonstrated when the film showed how Roy was able to realize he had a very short lifespan, and then planned how he wanted to reach Mr.Tyrell in order to hopefully get that changed. Planning is also demonstrated when Leon tries to pose as a new employee. Although he failed, those were ideas that the replicants developed and planned on their own, which proves that they have high level functions in their brain which can make it hard to tell the difference between them and humans. NOT THE STRONGEST COURSE CONNECTION
3. 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 had evolved DID THEY EVOLVE OR WERE THEY ACTUALLY CREATED BY HUMAN WITH THOSE CAPACITIES? into being 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.

7.

- Can we be sure all humans living on Earth are actually humans and not other kind of beings? THINK OF ANOTHER QUESTION
WOULD YOU DATE A REPLCIANT KNOWING THEY WERE A REPLICANT?

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

- Do you think Gaff could be the one that invented/created replicants in the first place? THINK OF ANOTHER QUESTION

8.

How do we know if we are actual humans? Could someone give one definition that every human could pass REWORD THIS? 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

Word Count: 713

WORKS CITED