Blade Runner

Director: Ridley Scott (screenplay by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples)
Cast: Harrison Ford (Rick Deckard), Sean Young (Rachael), Rutger Hauer (Roy Batty), Daryl Hannah (Pris)
Rating: R
Run Time: 117 minutes

THE SKINNY
Harrison Ford as a bounty hunter or BLADE RUNNER desperately searches for his humanity in a futuristic Los Angeles filled with social decay.

THE BOTTOM LINE
Ridley Scott’s science fiction classic is an absolute masterpiece, and one of the greatest American films ever made. It is able to combine ground-breaking special effects with a uniquely human story originally envisioned by the great sci-fi novelist Philip K. Dick in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

THE FULL REVIEW
How do we know that we are human and, if we are human, what does it mean to be human? These two philosophical inquiries are explored in great depth in Ridley Scott’s film “Blade Runner”, and of course the text of Philip K. Dick’s wonderful novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? on which the film is based. Most would agree that these themes exist in the novel, but a handful of critics and academics have some doubt as to their presence in the film. If one examines both the film and the text, one will realize that they both serve to support the same motifs, but do so in different fashions. Many critics argue that the awesome visuals overwhelm the contents of the plot and theme, but I argue that the visuals depicting Los Angeles in the year 2019 help to advance the themes. Viewers often miss the human side of the story or lack there of, and may object to the strong visuals for this reason. It can be argued that the visuals serve to portray a dehumanized world where only subtle signs of humanity’s existence are dispersed throughout, where existentialist notions such as what being human is and what being human means are not easily answered.

To briefly summarize the plot, Harrison Ford stars as Rick Deckard, a cop from the future (blade runner) who tracks down and kills replicants, which are basically artificially created human beings. In other films, they are usually referred to as androids. Specifically, his assignment is to find and kill five replicants who have escaped from an off-world colony and come to earth. The most interesting parts of “Blade Runner” are Deckard’s interactions with the various replicants, especially Rachel (Sean Young), which begin to make us wonder just what humanity really is. Is Deckard a human being at all? This has been an issue of debate for years. And it was a good debate because there is no definite answer in the film, especially in the director’s cut. Unfortunately, Ridley Scott recently felt compelled to answer that question. What was the point; I don’t feel that it was his question to answer.

“Blade Runner” develops the notion of an android or replicant quite well, and it is the depiction of the android that calls into question the meaning of humanity. The viewer is constantly challenged to evaluate how human the androids are and how mechanical the humans are. This distinction is not easily made, as the androids are not simply robots. They are, in fact, artificial people created from organic materials. The robot now “…haunts the human consciousness and stares out through a mask of flesh”. They have free will and some of the same emotions as humans, such as fear and love, but lack empathy, the ability to identify with the sufferings and joys of other beings, namely animals. However, in both the novel and the film the empathic ability of certain human beings such as Deckard is called into question. Aside from this, physically and behaviorally androids and humans are indistinguishable. Androids may even believe that they are human because of implanted artificial memory tapes, as is the case with Rachael.

“Blade Runner” made its smashing entrance into the world in 1982 and quickly gained a cult following with its depiction of a bleak future consisting of environmental decay, societal homogenization, and increasing dehumanization, but many people did not realize that it was based on Philip K. Dick’s great novel. Scott retains the main intentions of the novel and adds to them with his stunning use of imagery, allowing the reader to immerse himself or herself into this world more thoroughly. As with all adaptions of books to film, many small details are left out and alterations to the plot are devised to make the story more suitable for the screen. In this case, these changes do not make “Blade Runner” any less superior to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The two deliver the same ideas and themes, but in different manners. In my estimation, the film is much more ambiguous than the novel, but Dick himself, believed that the shooting script contained the two major themes as presented in his novel. “The first is what constitutes the essential human being and how…we distinguish and define the essential human being from that which only masquerade as human…And the second theme is the tragic theme that if you fight evil, you will wind up becoming evil…You have Deckard becoming more and more dehumanized and the replicants becoming more and more human, and at the end they meet and the distinction is gone.”

Like the novel, “Blade Runner” cautions its audience about the effects of dehumanization, but with two significant differences in plot development, the first being the treatment of empathy and the second being the depiction of the androids. One of the most blaring omissions from the film is “Mercerism”, a crucial link to empathy and human-ness. Even though Ridley Scott opted to leave this religion out of the film, empathy (even for animals) is still portrayed as being an important characteristic of being human, and thus does not lose its meaning entirely. Near the beginning of the film, a possible android is given the Voight-Kampff test and asked what he would do if he were to come upon a tortoise lying on its back in the desert. The subject works around the question so he does not have to answer it directly, as he is not be able to show empathy for the animal. Also, when Deckard is first examining Rachael with the test, he asks her many questions pertaining to animals, such as “What would you do if someone gave you a cat-skin wallet for your birthday”? She manages to answer that question humanely by saying that she would report the person, but she stumbles when she is asked what she would do if she saw a wasp crawling on her arm. “I’d kill it,” she exclaims. Now, of course we would do the same thing in the world in which we currently live, but we must not forget that “Blade Runner” takes place in a world where existence of any animals, even insects is scarce. It can be argued that Scott leaves the idea of Mercerism out of the film as a way to blur the distinction between humans and androids even more. Despite this blurring effect, the film still remains true to the original story because it does illustrate that empathy towards animals makes humans distinct.

Ridley Scott is much more sympathetic in his depiction of the replicants in comparison to the novel. The viewer often sees them as victims of human evil. Scott’s portrait of Deckard and Rachael’s relationship differs substantially from Dick’s. In the novel, Rachael appears conniving in her attempt to manipulate Deckard’s mind. In the film she comes across as being victimized by the Tyrell Corporation. She adamantly believes that she is not a replicant until Deckard tells her the truth. As a result, we identify with Rachael’s struggle as well as Deckard’s. In a way, Rachael is Deckard’s salvation. As he realizes that he is losing his humanity, he knows that he must love Rachael, for she is more human than himself; more human than a man who murders living entities under the euphemism of “retirement”. In “Blade Runner”, Rachael’s humanity is never a question. Deckard knows that he wears the badge of a killer, not a humanitarian, and that he will find his humanity in his love for Rachael.

Scott evokes sympathy not only for Rachael, but for Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) as well. At first in the film, Roy seems to be evil and violent, but as the story progresses, his devoted attempt to become human emerges. Roy wants more life, because replicants of the Nexus 6 division such as himself have a life-span of only four years. He confronts Tyrell himself in an unforgettable scene where he states bluntly “I want more life, Fucker!” In the climactic act of humanity, Roy

saves Deckard’s life just before dying because his life span is up. The audience initially perceives him as evil, but ultimately sympathizes with him as a helpless being with human desires and a limited life-span. In the film, the human side of the android lies much in their struggle for survival, a struggle that some see as overpowering, taking away our sympathy for Deckard. This assertion is not necessarily true. Sure, we feel sympathy for the androids, but we also feel sympathy for Deckard. The film illustrates that both are in a struggle to become more human, Deckard because he is slowly losing his humanity, and the androids because they have never had the experience of humanity, but desire it. This sympathy for both entities further reinforces the blur that Scott is creating between the android and the human. Because the film does this so effectively, we can easily ask the question, “what makes a human more deserving of life than an android?”

Essentially, when all is said and done, “Blade Runner” is really a film about questions, questions that we should ask ourselves of humanity. What is a human? What does it mean to be human? Do humans have more of a right to life than replicants? Have humans and androids become the same thing? It is not so important that one answers these questions, but that he or she asks them.

By: Sean M. Rutledge – contributing writer