Blade Runner

I think Blade Runner is at least important in terms that it pretty much defined what a Director's Cut can be. The controversy surrounding the way Ridley Scott's new cut changed the meanings behind the film still reverberates amongst critics, students, fans and even the cast (Harrison Ford still disputes any notions that his character might be a replicant). That aside, Blade Runner also remains a highly seminal piece of sci-fi film noir, and still looks great some thirty years after its production.

Deckard (Ford) is a semi-retired 'Blade Runner', a detective/bounty hunter-like figure who tracks down and 'retires' rogue replicants. Replicants (derogatorily referred to as 'skin jobs') are human-like artificial life forms (it isn't 100% clear if they are purely robotic or not) with a lifespan of just four years. Sometimes they develop a more than cursory self-awareness and approach human levels of emotional maturity, which can lead them to abandon their designated jobs in favour of free will. This is where Deckard comes in, and in this case he must track down a gang of four replicants who seek a 'cure' to their short lifespans - a mission that will bring him face to face with the enigmatic replicant Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer).

There's a lot to consider in Blade Runner. On one level it's a shadowy, gritty film noir with more than a few stylistic nods to the genre... Deckard is a Hammettesque hero in a shabby overcoat, Sean Young plays a femme fatale-ish character complete with 1940s hairdo, and Ridley Scott (for the most part) wisely opts out of futuristic fashion designs in favour of more endurable 'style'-based clothing in order to hit those film noir notes that help keep the tone serious. The future is given a neo-Tokyo look, with Asian diners and multi-level streets. In this sense Blade Runner uses a contemporary but forward-thinking landscape (the real Tokyo) as a template for a realistic-looking future (see Related Texts section at end of review for similar examples). Harrison Ford is also just the right person to keep such a potentially lofty or arthouse experience firmly grounded (witness the sequence where he impersonates the 'morality committee').


Beyond this, Blade Runner also examines the relationship between science and nature. This is a world where animals barely exists (real snakes are said to be ridiculously expensive). Into this gap steps the replicants - the progeny of humankind and the next step in evolution (not the use of the word 'nexus' throughout the film). To make the point clearer, Roy Batty even howls and moans like a distraught wolf at one point.

Then there's the idea that Deckard might be a replicant himself... we're never really told anything about his past, his family photos look downright inachronistic for some unexplained reason, and then there's all that stuff with the unicorn (nevermind the fact that one of the other characters challenges his ability to determine if someone is a replicant or not, quote "Did you ever take that test yourself?") The line is further blurred via the relationship between Deckard and Roy Batty in the respective hero and villain roles. Deckard is shown unheroically shooting a female replicant in the back as she tries to escape from him - she never tries to kill him, and her only crime is to be an escaped replicant. The line is further muddied in the final scenes, with the film reversing the trope where the hero is shown saving or trying to save the villain. Deckard is left confused by the film's climax - it's less a man finding his humanity and more a case of someone who had their very existence shaken to the core. In my mind, Deckard is clearly a replicant.

So why did Ridley Scott stop making films like this in favour of more by-the-numbers productions with widespread appeal (EG. Robin Hood, American Gangster, Kingdom of Heaven, etc, etc)? His impending return to the Alien franchise doesn't seem to be a very promising indication of any kind of creative renaissance. Blade Runner however is a beautiful piece of exciting science fiction that ruminates on mortality, playing god and identity. There aren't many other films that approach the same level of synthesis between legitimate mainstream thriller and intelligent sci-fi concepts. It's quite simply one of the best science fiction films ever made.

DIRECTOR: Ridley Scott
WRITER/SOURCE: Written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, based on a book by Philip K. Dick.
KEY ACTORS: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Edward James Olmos, Daryl Hannah, M. Emmet Walsh, William Sanderson, Brion James, James Hong

RELATED TEXTS:
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the novel on which the film is based.
- The design of the futuristic cityscape (and it's basis on a real, existing city - in this case Tokyo) and the influence of cutting-edge Japanese modern culture is something that would also be used as a template for William Gibson's cyberpunk novel Neuromancer. The more recent sci-fi film Code 46 does a similar thing by using the already futuristic-looking Chinese city of Shanghai as a backdrop.
- The combination of a strong, pre-existing film genre (film noir) with heavy sci-fi concepts is a clever way of packaging that would also be used for Christopher Nolan's Inception (which combines the heist film with metaphysical sci fi-based concepts).
- Roy Batty's menace, intelligence, elegance and self-awareness echoes the creature from Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein. Both Blade Runner and this book are used for comparative studies in the Australian-NSW Year 12 school syllabus.
- I imagine Luc Besson wrote his first draft of The Fifth Element not too long after seeing Blade Runner for the first time - the way Earth is portrayed in The Fifth Element (hovercars, grubby multi-level cities, Asian food merchants) leans very heavily on the look of Blade Runner.
- J.M.'s (William Sanderson) replicant-workshop can also be seen as an influence behind all sorts of telefantasy... two that come to mind are Heroes (the puppet-guys lair in Season 3) and Doctor Who: The Greatest Show in the Galaxy (the store room full of half-broken robot clowns).

AWARDS:
Nominated for two Academy Awards (best visual effects and best art design).
Nominated for 8 BAFTAS (almost all editing and design-based awards), of which it won three awards (cinematography, costume design and art design).
Nominated for a handful of awards with other ceremonies (primarily for cinematography).