Alberto's Blade Runner Review
Utopias and dystopias. Both have been covered extensively by several forms of media; from Sir Thomas More’s iconic novel Utopia to Nine Inch Nails’ grim vision of a future world in their album Year Zero. The wide variety of media dedicated to a vision of our world in the near future hints at our obsession of learning where our technologies and our tendencies will lead us. And though there are various similarities between all the futuristic forms of media, particularly movies, there are vast differences in the way most authors believe technology will affect humanity. This is why it was so fascinating to watch Blade Runner, it captures that permanent unease that so many people feel when technology seems to advance beyond our control. It does not condemn digital advancements, but it certainly does not praise them either; rather, it lets the viewer see a tale of a unique vision of our world and make their own decision about the dangers and possibilities of an exponentially growing digital culture.
This exponential growth of digital culture has undoubtedly brought countless benefits upon society in the real world, from cellular phones with video teleconferencing to video game consoles that simulate real world physics. And yet all these advancements also bring uncertainty for some. Uncertainty about how far is too far and how much is too much for us to control. This seems to be one of the many themes permeating throughout the movie; our reaction to systems beyond our control. The blade runner units where created to maintain control of a dangerous technology; the lead designer of all the Nexus replicants, Dr. Tyrell, was unable to compromise his wish for a perfect artificial being with his obligation to maintain a safe protocol in their design; and even the replicants themselves were trying to seek a solution to something they could not control: their own limited lifespan.
What is truly refreshing about this film is that it is the artificial intelligence that finally gains that measure of control in the end; almost becoming in a sense, more human than even the humans that were trying to terminate them (which coincides with Dr. Tyrell’s motto – “More human than human”). When Roy saves Deckard in the final chase sequence after all the fighting between them, the audience is legitimately stunned – or at least I was. To see Roy actually showing compassion in his final hours, in spite of having lost the ones closest to him at the hands of Deckard, was the most iconic and humane action in the whole movie. His final speech, where he repeats that no one could understand what he has experienced and that all his memories will fade like “tears in the rain”, is truly heart-wrenching and caused me to sympathize with him more than anyone else in the film, in spite of the brutalities he committed throughout the film. Roy ends up becoming the bigger “man” in the end by showing compassion. What a twist.
And even with this brilliant twist in the end, the movie did not rely on this twist to be an effective tale. The imagery and especially the music set a dreamlike tone of cautioned wonder at how technology has affected the city life that truly separates this film from the other science fiction stuff that crowds this genre. The landscapes of industrial Los Angeles immediately bring a somber ambiance into the film, where you can see that the city itself has almost lost its touch with nature, punctuated with the synth tones of Vangelis that fully envelop the viewer in this grim setting. It was easy to note a few things about the environment in this film: that it was almost never daylight, and in the few cases the sun was up it was at dawn; that there was never a single tree in the entire movie; and that it rained constantly throughout the film. This all results in a very cold, isolated feeling that permeates the city and the viewer. It’s apparent even before knowing about the conflict of the replicants that this city has problems, and that it may have grown a bit faster than it was able to handle. The city always seems busy, and yet no one ever seems happy at all. All the multicultural underpinnings of this city resulted in a place where people have a hard time understanding each other and it seems that even something as simple as getting food has become a lesson in maintaining your temperament as the other person mistakes the order. So even in this sense, you can see the theme of loss of control permeate the environment itself in a deep way.
And yet, this theme of failure to gain control is just one of the many messages this movie provides. One could argue that the ultimate message of this film regards the true value of life, regardless of whether it’s human or artificial life. It was more than coincidence that all the replicants seemed to value their life and experiences more than the emotionless humans chasing after them. Take this one step further and one can ask what’s of more value: humans without emotions, or machines with? This continues into the notion of how important it is to do the most with what you have. This idea is delineated in the constant mentioning of characters with a shortened lifespan, and yet they still experience things that few others will. The four years that each replicant lived still merit the passage of their memory to others since each one apparently had so many unique experiences, but their enslavement confines them to a solitary death where their experiences simply fade away. It was this painful truth that seemed to drive the replicants on a search for a modification on their life span. Any human in their position would have likely done the same thing.
On a different note, there are quite a few disagreements I have, not with the movie itself, but with the general trend that science fiction movies about technology have had ever since their inception. The vision that our knowledge of science will grow exponentially in the future and allow us to do unimaginable feats is fine, but the notion that we will always choose to create a thinking, living artificial intelligence that can question their own existence is deeply rooted in a religious belief that everything complex has to be designed by an intelligent being. And this is not an argument against the capability of humanity to create technology so advanced that it will have its own intelligence, but rather an argument about a religious tendency to lump everything into a creation story where we take the place of god and the machines bite the proverbial apple in the garden. It just seems abundantly arrogant to consider that humanity will be in a position where we control a whole new race of created beings. The largest leaps in technological advancements simply have not taken that trajectory; they have taken a much more positive route by means of interconnecting the world through a digital culture that appreciates the humanity in our society. Websites like Facebook and Twitter showcase how people use technology to become more interconnected, not to create new artificial beings in their own image. Arguably the largest advancement in technology within the past ten years has been the cell phone. And that’s exclusively used for communicating with other human beings. Digital culture has simply taken a different route than what most media believes will actually happen.
This exponential growth of digital culture has undoubtedly brought countless benefits upon society in the real world, from cellular phones with video teleconferencing to video game consoles that simulate real world physics. And yet all these advancements also bring uncertainty for some. Uncertainty about how far is too far and how much is too much for us to control. This seems to be one of the many themes permeating throughout the movie; our reaction to systems beyond our control. The blade runner units where created to maintain control of a dangerous technology; the lead designer of all the Nexus replicants, Dr. Tyrell, was unable to compromise his wish for a perfect artificial being with his obligation to maintain a safe protocol in their design; and even the replicants themselves were trying to seek a solution to something they could not control: their own limited lifespan.
What is truly refreshing about this film is that it is the artificial intelligence that finally gains that measure of control in the end; almost becoming in a sense, more human than even the humans that were trying to terminate them (which coincides with Dr. Tyrell’s motto – “More human than human”). When Roy saves Deckard in the final chase sequence after all the fighting between them, the audience is legitimately stunned – or at least I was. To see Roy actually showing compassion in his final hours, in spite of having lost the ones closest to him at the hands of Deckard, was the most iconic and humane action in the whole movie. His final speech, where he repeats that no one could understand what he has experienced and that all his memories will fade like “tears in the rain”, is truly heart-wrenching and caused me to sympathize with him more than anyone else in the film, in spite of the brutalities he committed throughout the film. Roy ends up becoming the bigger “man” in the end by showing compassion. What a twist.
And even with this brilliant twist in the end, the movie did not rely on this twist to be an effective tale. The imagery and especially the music set a dreamlike tone of cautioned wonder at how technology has affected the city life that truly separates this film from the other science fiction stuff that crowds this genre. The landscapes of industrial Los Angeles immediately bring a somber ambiance into the film, where you can see that the city itself has almost lost its touch with nature, punctuated with the synth tones of Vangelis that fully envelop the viewer in this grim setting. It was easy to note a few things about the environment in this film: that it was almost never daylight, and in the few cases the sun was up it was at dawn; that there was never a single tree in the entire movie; and that it rained constantly throughout the film. This all results in a very cold, isolated feeling that permeates the city and the viewer. It’s apparent even before knowing about the conflict of the replicants that this city has problems, and that it may have grown a bit faster than it was able to handle. The city always seems busy, and yet no one ever seems happy at all. All the multicultural underpinnings of this city resulted in a place where people have a hard time understanding each other and it seems that even something as simple as getting food has become a lesson in maintaining your temperament as the other person mistakes the order. So even in this sense, you can see the theme of loss of control permeate the environment itself in a deep way.
And yet, this theme of failure to gain control is just one of the many messages this movie provides. One could argue that the ultimate message of this film regards the true value of life, regardless of whether it’s human or artificial life. It was more than coincidence that all the replicants seemed to value their life and experiences more than the emotionless humans chasing after them. Take this one step further and one can ask what’s of more value: humans without emotions, or machines with? This continues into the notion of how important it is to do the most with what you have. This idea is delineated in the constant mentioning of characters with a shortened lifespan, and yet they still experience things that few others will. The four years that each replicant lived still merit the passage of their memory to others since each one apparently had so many unique experiences, but their enslavement confines them to a solitary death where their experiences simply fade away. It was this painful truth that seemed to drive the replicants on a search for a modification on their life span. Any human in their position would have likely done the same thing.
On a different note, there are quite a few disagreements I have, not with the movie itself, but with the general trend that science fiction movies about technology have had ever since their inception. The vision that our knowledge of science will grow exponentially in the future and allow us to do unimaginable feats is fine, but the notion that we will always choose to create a thinking, living artificial intelligence that can question their own existence is deeply rooted in a religious belief that everything complex has to be designed by an intelligent being. And this is not an argument against the capability of humanity to create technology so advanced that it will have its own intelligence, but rather an argument about a religious tendency to lump everything into a creation story where we take the place of god and the machines bite the proverbial apple in the garden. It just seems abundantly arrogant to consider that humanity will be in a position where we control a whole new race of created beings. The largest leaps in technological advancements simply have not taken that trajectory; they have taken a much more positive route by means of interconnecting the world through a digital culture that appreciates the humanity in our society. Websites like Facebook and Twitter showcase how people use technology to become more interconnected, not to create new artificial beings in their own image. Arguably the largest advancement in technology within the past ten years has been the cell phone. And that’s exclusively used for communicating with other human beings. Digital culture has simply taken a different route than what most media believes will actually happen.
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