Blade Runner

Although this was actually my first (second and third) time watching Blade Runner, I was immediately struck by how familiar all the scenes looked. Ridley Scott's sets seemingly have a distinctive theme that I have seen demonstrated and replicated through a lot of more recent sci-fi films. What really caught my eye was the similarities to one of my favorite artists music video, The Weeknd's Belong to the World, but I digress.

I was also familiar with the controversy over the voice overs, so I made it a point to see if the movie was really that hard to decipher without Harrison Ford explaining it. It was painfully obvious that the overarching theme of Blade Runner was questioning humanity, and the parallels between the Replicants and people who are supposedly human, like Decker. It makes me wonder how people did not at least have a hunch that Rachel was a Replicant from the beginning; her entire demeanor and presence did not seem human to me. Admittedly, I did not begin to question Decker's humanity until the last half hour or so, and I'm still not entirely convinced that he is one. I think the most conclusive evidence towards his humanness is the fight scene between him and Roy. Roy moves like he is genetically superior, and even when he is physically hurt, his actions are still superior to Decker's. Decker maintains his persona as the best Blade Runner during these scenes, but it's clear that he is no match for the Replicant. Other Easter eggs like the unicorn b roll splices still confuse me; I guess if you go deep you could assume that the unicorns are elusive like his humanity, but I think that's a stretch. My interpretation is more along the lines of Rachel being a Replicant who almost gained humanity, which is the stronger theme.

My favorite characters were definitely Roy and Pris, simply because of the dimensions their characters were given. For being genetically engineered to do specific jobs, they both had such a wide range of emotion; we saw anger, playfulness, and definitely love. The direction I got from Blade Runner was that the rumors about Replicants are true, and after a certain time period, their emotions and humanity are not manufactured, but actually become genuine. That does not mean that they become good people, but remain genetically superior beings simply with human emotions. When Roy kills Tyrell, it seems like a very human reaction. By doing so he obviously can't use Tyrell to re-engineer himself, and revenge is the next step. You can also see Roy's humanity in his reaction to Pris' body; the others did not seem very affected by the loss of the other Replicants, but Roy and Pris had a special relationship.

I think Blade Runner was very adept at exploring the theme that is at the basis of almost all sci-fi films: what separates humanity from machines. It does this in a very broad way, so there is definitely room for other interpretations, and perhaps not in the most clear way either. There are still some moments that felt like overkill to me: Roy howling like a wolf, the Jesus Christ allusion when he nails his own hand to remain alive a while longer, the very rapey "love scene" between Decker and Rachel, and obviously the Unicorn scenes.