A Study of Ridley Scotts Blade Runner

This dissertation was written between September

1997 and February 1998, and formed part of the final examination for my undergraduate degree in
English Literature and Philosophy, at Manchester University, England. I would like to thank Dr. Marcus
Wood, formerly of Manchester University and currently teaching at the University of Sussex. As my
dissertation supervisor, he offered advice and judgement which were hugely helpful. It goes without
saying that any errors are my own.
Introduction
Blade Runner opened in US cinemas on the 25th June 1982, amid media hype, and yet proved to be a
commercial failure, only just recouping its $28million costs. Critical reaction to the film was generally
negative also: the Los Angeles Times cautioned: Dont let the words blade runner confuse you into
expecting a super-high speed chase film. Blade crawler might be more like it[1]. Indeed, reaction to
the film was so hostile that director Ridley Scott later commented, Youd have thought we were
boiling babies or something [2]. His previous film had been Alien (1979), a sci-fi horror film that
proved an enormous commercial success, and Blade Runners star, Harrison Ford, was (and still is)
one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood, with Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of
the Lost Ark breaking box office records a few years previously. Blade Runners producer, Michael
Deeley, had last worked on The Deer Hunter, which won Oscar for Best Picture in 1979. It is to some
extent understandable, given Scott and Fords previous films, that the public were disappointed with
Blade Runner; expecting a special effects laden action film, they were instead presented with a dark,
depressing vision of the future, in which most Hollywood values are overturned [3].
However, despite its initial failure, critical reassessments have steadily become more favourable. It
has acquired a cult following, and is credited with having inspired the basic aesthetic of the science
fiction subgenre cyberpunk, the best example of which is William Gibsons Neuromancer(1984). Blade
Runner is one of only 50 films to be stored in the United States Library of Congress, on account of its
contribution to film culture. The British film magazine Empire once described it as a seminal work and
an undeniable classic[4].
The general volte face of critical and popular opinion towards the film may have been the reasons
behind Scotts decision to release a Directors Cut of the film in 1992, which restored his original
intentions for the film. As a text, the Directors Cut reveals exactly how Scott planned the film
originally, and as such allows a variety of new readings of the films themes. This dissertation argues
that the Directors Cut of the film reveals subtextual complexities and motifs which question the status
of Hollywood science fiction.
Many critics have cited Blade Runner as a postmodernist film. However, postmodernism carries with it
an inherent tendency to devalue art, insofar as postmodernism posits that all semiological systems are
self referential and as such incapable of any truly representative relationship with reality. In this
dissertation I will argue that this may not be true of Blade Runner, because it makes use of mythical,
and in particular Biblical, imagery to espouse some of its themes. In the first section of the
dissertation I will consider the films moral and political themes, which relate to the politics of power
and oppression. I will argue that the film debunks the idea that humans are superior to replicants. I
will then consider the wider metaphorical implications of this through two historical phenomena which
inform Scotts semiology, the first being North American slavery, and the second being South
American slavery, in the form of the Mayan civilisation. In the second section I will analyse the films
theological themes and their relationship to the films literary antecedents, such as Paradise Lost. The
films use of mythical and Biblical imagery is a rejection of the depthlessness of postmodern ideas in
favour of a view of Man which is redemptive, and which contradicts the celebration of meaninglessness
which typifies postmodern theory. The use of imagery from mythic and religious metanarratives offers
humanity self-definiton through moral truth. It is argues that the films optimism id the result of a
creative paradox. While the film suggests that dehumanisation is all that technology have to offer, it is
the ultimate creation of this technology, the replicant Roy Batty, who finds the path to spiritual and
moral enlightenment. I the third section, I apply popular postmodern theories to the film.
Moral and Political Paradigms
Science Fiction is a Genre which deals, primarily, with outlandish ideas, such as time travel, or human
cloning. It is for sheer conveniences sake that most science fiction novels are set in the future, since
this allows the author to disregard realist conventions which may hinder the exploration of the chosen
idea. Most science fiction authors consolidate their readers acceptance of their vision of the future by
inventing realistic vernaculars, not only to add a realist essence to their work, but often to help to
express their ideas as well. Perhaps the best example of this would be William Gibsons invention of
the word cyberspace to describe the consensual hallucination of a direct neural interface with a
computer a word which has since passed into mainstream language itself [5].
Blade Runner uses its own terminology: the clones of the film are described as Replicants, a word
chosen for its connotations with cell replication (the action which allows genetic engineers to clone
genetic material [6]). The terminology is introduced to the viewer by use of a narrative device often
found in film noir that of the scrolling text, either before, during, of at the end of the film itself. Once
the opening credits of the film have rolled, this text is scrolled past the blank screen [7]:
Early in the 21st Century, the TYRELL CORPORATION advanced Robot evolution into the Nexus phase a being virtually
identical to a human known as a Replicant. The NEXUS-6 Replicants were superior in strength and agility, and at least
equal in intelligence, to the genetic engineers who created them. Replicants were used Off-world as slave labor, in the
hazardous exploration and colonisation of other planets. After a bloody mutiny by a NEXUS-6 combat team in an Off-world
colony, Replicants were declared illegal on Earth under penalty of death. Special police squads BLADE RUNNER
UNITS had orders to shoot to kill, upon detection, any trespassing Replicants. This was not called execution. It was called
retirement.
This crawl introduces us to some of the terminology used in the film such as replicants and blade
runners but much more interestingly, it can be seen to have an element of bias, also. The replicants
are specifically referred to as slaves. The text also mentions that they are retired, but suggests that
this is more or less synonymous with execution, WE are allowed to ponder this deliberately emotive
language for a few moments, perhaps long enough to intuitively feel some sympathy for the replicants
before a single one has even been seen, before the words LOS ANGELES, NOVEMBER 2019 fill the
screen, and the film proper begins.
The fade from black is marked by the sound of an explosion, and the first image of the film, the
cityscape, is revealed. Los Angeles, the City of Angels, is a hellish, endless maze of giant, industrial
buildings; an oil refinery spews flames into the night sky, which is an ashen, polluted grey. A flying
vehicle emerges from the fog, and shoots past the screen. Lightning strikes a building, to no apparent
effect. This is a place of poison and decay, and it is hard to believe that human could inhabit it.
The vast hell is dominated by the Tyrell Corporation headquarters, two Mayan-style pyramids, each
700 storeys high [8]. For decades, one of the greatest riddles of archaeology was why the Mayans,
having built such huge, terrifying, aesthetically impenetrable cities, abandoned them en masse, to
crumble and become overgrown with vine and jungle. The riddle was solved when it was recognised
that the Mayans, despite their impressive astronomical knowledge, had agricultural practises so
primitive that they did not even have ploughs; the farmland around their cities was overused, drained
of nutrients, and cities had to be abandoned because staying in them would mean starving to death.
This historical fact is echoed in twenty first century Los Angeles. Earth has been drained of its
resources once the Garden of Eden, it is now a place of death and pollution. Those who can afford it
have emigrated to the greener pastures of the Off-world colonies; those who cannot have no choice
but to stay and live in the sulphurous ruins.
Suddenly, the screen is filled with a blue eye, in which is reflected the explosions watched a moment
earlier. It stares straight at the camera. The next scene begins with Holden, a blade runner, staring
glumly out of a window at the city, at which point the eye can be inferred as being his. But when it is
on screen this inference cannot be made, because we are yet to be introduced to any characters.
Cinematically, it is a slightly unsettling experience. The film is being watched and suddenly, quite
literally, the film begins to watch the watcher. Throughout the film, as shall later be described, a sense
of paranoia is sustained, contributing to an all-pervasive sense of negativity.
The camera zooms into a window, and the next shot is an interior one; the films first character, Dave
Holden, a blade runner, is seen staring out of a window, drinking coffee. A large man enters the room,
and a loudspeaker introduces him as Leon Kowalski, a new employee working as a waste disposal
engineer. He waits for instructions, and is told to sit down. There begins a bizarre and sinister test:
Holden creates a hypothetical situation not helping an animal in distress which suddenly becomes
accusatory. This both aggravates and upsets Kowalski. A certain tension is created by a lingering close
up of Kowalskis upset face, as well as a thudding heartbeat noise o the soundtrack.
Abruptly, the mood changes. Holden smiles, visibly relaxes, and is suddenly conversational and
friendly:
HOLDEN: Theyre just questions, Leon. In answer to your query theyre written down for me. Its a test, designed to provoke
an emotional response.
(He smiled a genuine smile)
Shall we continue?
The tension in the atmosphere dissipates, since the reason for Holdens earlier hostility is known. His
next question contributes to the new, friendly mood of the test. It is neither confrontational nor
accusatory. Its a nice question.
HOLDEN: Describe to me, in single words, only the good things that come into your mind about your mother.
Leon thinks about this question for a moment, before responding, Let me tell you about my
mother and shooting Holden with a gun hidden under the table, in a moment of violence so quick be
barely have time to register it before the scene ends.
Leon Kowalski is, in fact, a fugitive replicant. The question describe in single words only the good
things which come into your mind about your mother may seem mild to us, but to Kowalski it is the
most sinister question of all because he has never had a mother, he is a manufactured being, and so
cannot but reveal his status as such in any attempt to answer this question verbally.
In Mayan culture, the ruling classes were known as the almehenob those with fathers and mothers,
a reference to their noble lineage. There was no middle class in Mayan society; people were either
fabulously wealthy or miserably poor. The very poor made up the huge majority of the population, and
worked for the almehenob as slaves. Again, another reference to the Mayans this time, their
practises of slavery and oppression is being made. Holden is asking Kowalski about his mother, but
Kowalski is a replicant, and replicants are used as slaves: literally and symbolically speaking, he does
not belong to the class of individuals who have fathers and mothers [9]. He kills Holden because he
must; Holden has the authority to kill any replicant upon detection.
This scene introduces us to some of the themes that feature throughout the film: visually, it gives us
the first two examples of eye imagery (the giant disembodied eye, and Kowalskis eye on the
monitor), and thematically, it introduces us to some of the political and moral issues of the film.
Should the replicants be killed for being on Earth? Should the replicants themselves kill, simply to get
here? What is the difference between replicant and human anyway? After all, the fact that Kowalski is
a replicant is by no means obvious. He is, in fact, indistinguishable from a real human he exhibits
fear, nervousness, and a capacity to kill in cold blood.
In the past, many film noirs have had recurrent images of eyes, an pun on the idea of the private
eye. Murder, My Sweet (1944) is a good example of this, as L Heldreth observes:
In its opening and closing scenes, the detective, temporarily blinded by powder burns, sits in a pool of light with his eyes
bandaged. Earlier he had been unable to see figuratively, i.e. detect the killer, and at the end he has temporarily lost his
vision [10].
In Blade Runner, the eye motif of earlier film noirs is again used, in connection with the replicants. At
various points in the film, each replicants eyes are seen to glow, a clue that they are replicants (this
effect is most clearly seen in the artificial owl, as Tyrell dies). Consider the scene at Chews Eye
Works; Chew, a genetic engineer who designs eyes, is confronted by Batty about morphology:
CHEW(nervously): I dont know I dont know such stuff! I just do eyes genetic design just eyes. (Squints) you
Nexus, huh? I design your eyes.
BATTY(smiling): Chew if only you could see what I have seen, with your eyes
Batty accepts his artificiality here, the fact that he was manufactured, but celebrates his experiences,
the things he has seen. For Batty, eyes and vision are the keys to the development of an almost
Romantic consciousness, emancipated from his status as an automaton. For Chew, eyes are simply
units of production. He manufactures eyes, but only Batty sees their significance. In some ways,
Batty is the human, and Chew the automaton.
The politics of power involve a distinction between oppressed and oppressor, salve and master. In
Nazi Germany, Jews were forced to wear a Star of David badge, a visible symbol of the inferior status
forced upon them. In Dan Simmons sci-fi novel Endymion (1995), androids are used as slaves, but
given bright blue skins, so there is never any confusion over who is slave, who is master. In Blade
Runner, there are no distinguishing features between replicant and human, oppressed and oppressor.
The only distinction that may be made is with the use of the Voight-Kampff test.
As Holden says, the Voight-Kampff test is designed to provoke an emotional response. Because
replicants are at most four years old, and hence to an extent emotionally immature, their responses to
emotionally resonant questions is different, because their lack of experience may lead to them not
knowing (or understanding) the correct reaction to some of the questions. Thus the two made be
differentiated, and replicants, upon detection, executed.
The Voight-Kampff test has a monitor which displays a close-up of the subjects eye for the duration of
the test. It is with the aid of this close-up that the exminer may judge emotional response by
involuntary iris fluctuations. The Voight-Kampff machine is part of a continuous theme throughout the
film, the idea that those in power have more vision than those lower down the social scale. At street
level, everything is chaotic, obscured; constantly unsteady shots have extras passing in front of the
camera, forcing us to strain to see the often out of focus background images for example, after
Kowalskis death, whilst Deckard is buying his bottle of Tsing-Tao, Gaff (the blade runner who
originally arrests Deckard) approaches Deckard from behind. Background images are so blurred that
he is visible only when he practically right behind Deckard. However, those in positions of relative
power the police, Eldon Tyrell, have access to much clearer view of the city. The constantly roving
spotlight, present throughout the film, suggest constant surveillance. The police spinners [11] afford
vast, panoramic views of the city, and even have panes of glass in the floor to allow the pilots to see
below them. Characters in the film are occasionally watched by the apparition of a strangely sinister
Oriental woman, which floats over the city, embedded on the side of a giant airship. David Dryer, co-
special effects supervisor for the film commented:
The one scene we were sorry to lose was supposed to occur in the fight between Deckard and Leon (Kowalski). The idea
was we were going to do a matte painting of a giant building above Ford and James with an oriental woman on an animated
billboard looking down on the and reacting to what they were doing. She was going to be puffing on one of those big
cigarettes and acting as if she was watching a televised fight. That bit was supposed to give a feeling of oppression, that
these billboards are watching everyone everywhere they go [12] (italics mine).
Another example of this is Tyrells office, at the very top of one of his pyramids, which has picture
windows that survey the entire cityscape. The spaciousness of the office, emphasised by the spartan
furniture in contrast to the overcrowding at street level, suggests that space itself is a status symbol.
This contrasts sharply with the lot of the replicants, for example Zhora, who works in a crowded
ground level strip club. When Deckard visits her, he tells her that he is from the Confidential
Committee on Moral Abuses and that he is investigating claims that the management have peep holes
in the ladies dressing rooms. He claims to protect her from the intrusive surveillance of a higher
authority, when in fact the only surveillance she need fear is his. Surveillance appears to be a key
feature of Los Angeles in the future the entire city appears to have turned into one of Jeremy
Benthams Panopticons, whereby one cannot tell if one is being watched, but it is possible that one is
being watched at all times, which means extreme caution must be exercised at all times. The
replicants of the film must stay in character at all times, even when alone.
Their functions place them, forcibly, in the lowest social classes; whether hazardous, such as nuclear
fission loading (Kowalski) or sordid, such as prostitution (Pris), the replicants are given only the most
menial and degrading jobs. They have childlike qualities: Roy tells Sebastian hes got some nice toys
whilst Pris watches, toying with a broken doll. They are also linked with animal imagery Roys
wolflike howl, Zhoras snake tattoo, Priss racoon makeup. Both childlike and animalistic qualities have
been attributed by slave systems to their victims. Stanley Elkins, in his book Slavery: A Problem in
American Institutional and Intellectual Life(1963), offers a historical explanation for this fact, using as
his example the racial stereotype of the black colonial plantation worker as being lazy and childish. It
was common belief at the time that these personality traits were racially inherent, but Elkins debunks
this argument by reminding us of the physical and mental torments many slaves suffered, not least in
their capture and transportation. The vary act of capture was in itself traumatic, but what followed
was the long march to the sea, which was sometimes hundreds of miles away. Upon being sold as
slaves to European slave traders, the African would then be transported by ship to the America in
what became known as the Middle Passage, which Elkins described as almost too protracted and
stupefying to be described as a mere shock brutalizing to any man, black or white, ever to be
involved with it [13].
Only the strongest and healthiest men and women survived the entire experience, from capture in
Africa to arrival in America [14]. Upon arrival, Africans knew absolutely nothing about where they
were; the cultural codes by which they had lived their lives no longer had any relevance. The life these
men and women went on to lead was one of hardship and constant surveillance. Given these facts
the mental scarring that their capture, transport and subsequent lives of slavery left upon them, it is
not surprising, Elkins argues, that many of them responded to a situation which their deaths could
occur at any time, and for any reason, by reverting, first to a state of utter detachment, and then to a
state of childish loyalty to their new masters. Because as Elkins says:
The (old) African values, the sanctions, the standards, already unreal, could no longer furnish (the slaves) with guides for
conduct, for adjusting to the expectations of a complete new life. Where then were (they) to look for new standards, new
cues who would furnish them now? (They) could now look to none but their master, the man upon whom the system had
committed their entire being: the man upon whose will depended (their) food shelter sexual connection, (any) moral
instruction (they) might be offered in short, everything [15].
By casting Roy Batty as the perfect Aryan 65, with a muscular frame, blonde hair and blue eyes
Scott is pointedly contrasting his appearance with black slavery, perhaps to bring emphasis to the fact
that oppression need not be contingent upon race. Elkins finding are relevant in the way that Roy
Batty has come to see Tyrell as his father, in the same way slaves in the colonies attributed father-
figure status to their oppressors [16]. All this would come to suggest that the replicants are strangle
childish because of the unimaginable traumas they have been made to suffer. But, although these
traumas may have affected them, they have not broken their spirit, or desire to return to Earth.
Although slave ships often had insurance against mutiny by the slaves, it rarely happened. But the
replicants in Blade Runner did mutiny, and killed humans in doing so. Although the Blade Runner
script identifies J F Sebastian as a chess Grand Master, and Tyrell is referred to several times as a
genius, Battys chess strategies are superior to both. Mentally and physically, Batty is the Neitzschean
superman he is More Human Than Human, as the Tyrell Corporation motto puts it. And yet Batty,
the prodigal son is a enslaved. But nothing, not even being born into slavery and suffering hardships
we cannot imagine, can or will prevent him from coming back to Earth, to meet his maker.
John Locke, in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, argued that personal identity comprises
nothing but memories: the mind is a tabula rasa, or blank slate at birth, and all subsequent
experiences shape our personalities, and make us human. Subsequent philosophers (notably Noam
Chomsky) have shown that there are in fact various things pre-programmed into the human mind
(such as the capacity for language acquisition, for example) but do not contest that our personalities,
the ways we are that make us human, are acquired through experience.
This raises a compelling question: if humans are defined as such because we have personalities, based
upon years of memories and experience, and there now exist replicants with personalities, based upon
(albeit ersatz) memories also, at what point may the two be differentiated? According to Tyrell, there
now exist replicants with memories so perfect that they believe they are human. The film encodes this
idea in reverse; Rachel is presented as an ostensibly human executive at the Tyrell Corporation, part
of the structure that creates and sells the replicants. But she is subsequently revealed to be a
replicant the Voight-Kampff machine gazes into the windows of her soul, and pronounces her a
machine, also.
TYRELL: Shes beginning to suspect.
DECKARD(incredulous): Suspect? How can it not know what it is?
There is no change in Rachels appearance, but once the distinction is made, it is final, and she ceases
being human. Deckards switch to it foregrounds the fact that Rachel is now an object, not an
individual.
Later, Rachel goes to see Deckard at his apartment. She has with her a photo of herself as a child,
with her mother. History is made up of linguistic and photographic artefacts from the past. Deckard
proves to her the illusion of her past, by telling her her own memories. Although clutching a fake
photograph, the tears are very real. It is at this point Deckard realises that she is not simply a
machine, like other replicants, perhaps. Equipped with a memory, an entire lifetime of experienced,
she becomes human she has the life experiences that the replicants four years lifetimes forcibly
prevent them from attaining. So seamlessly human, in fact, that even she did not realise that she was
a replicant.
Rene Descartes, in his Meditations Upon The First Philosophy, pointed out that our senses are far from
trustworthy. We have no direct one-to-one contact with reality, and must instead rely upon sense data
to help us construct some simulacrum of it within our minds. His famous Demon Argument argues that
our senses may be deceiving us the modern form of the argument is to posit that it is quite possible
that your brain actually resides in a nutrient vat somewhere, and that all the sense data you receive,
convincing you of the existence of an external reality, is fed to you via strategically placed electrodes,
by a mad scientist. It is a conceit entertained by us all, occasionally how do I know that my
existence is not just a virtual reality game? Reality is a very ephemeral thing. Rachels predicament is
Descartes argument come true, the difference being that she has been unfortunate enough to have
her illusion of reality shattered the scientist has revealed his cruel trick to her. We feel sympathy for
Rachel because she is forced to face a truth that we all, in our more fanciful moments, imagine and
dread the fear of verisimilitude being destroyed. Rachel responds by throwing away her photo,
which contrasts with Kowalski, who knows he is a replicant, and yet treasures his photos. He may be
an artificial human, but he knows that within that context his memories are real and he cherishes
them.
Rachel has neither father nor mother, and so is just like any other replicant, and faces the danger of
being retired. For the sake of her survival, she must adapt quickly.
RACHEL: What if I go North disappear? Would you come after me? hunt me?
The reference to going North brings to mind the Underground Railroad, the method used by blacks in
America to escape slavery in the southern states.
DECKARD: No no I wouldnt. I owe you one.
This is an important point in Deckards moral development. He ceases his previous coldness to her,
and begins to treat her like a person. This moral development is encouraged by the climax of the film,
where Deckard, oppressor and hunter, is hunted by Batty a deadly game of cat and mouse. The
terror-stricken Deckard is forced onto the roof of the Bradbury Building by a chillingly amused Batty,
yet to break a sweat even when Deckard is exhausted. With no other options available to him,
Deckard is forced to try and jump to the roof opposite, and barely manages to cling to the edge of it,
dangling precariously.
Batty clears the gap with ease, and spends a few moments watching the crippled blade runner grapple
with the edge, trying to survive even as his grip begins to weaken.
BATTY: Quite an experience to live in fear, isnt it? Thats what it is , to be a slave.
These words are not spoken with rancour, nor is there any sense of gloating over Deckards
predicament. They are spoken in a perfectly conversational tone, although there is a sense of
bitterness with the last few words. It is almost as though Batty has hunted Deckard throughout the
scene not to wreak vengeance or otherwise punish him, but to educate his viewpoint, to help him
understand fear and consequently develop empathy. Batty, the replicant, is humanising Deckard, the
ostensible human.
Deckard, realising he is about to die, spits at Batty, his face a mask of fear and hatred. But then Batty
saves Deckards life, grabbing his hand just as his grip fails, and lifting him to safety. This restores a
symmetry to the film, a symmetry Deckard cannot help but be aware of: he has killed two replicants,
and now two replicants have saved his life. Edited out of the Directors Cut, the voice over at this point
in the original film had Deckard saying:
DECKARD(voice-over): I dont know why he saved my life. Perhaps, in those last moments, he loved life more than he ever
had. Not just his life, anybodys life. My life.
Although the Directors Cut dispenses with this narrative, the implications of Batty saving Deckards
life are nonetheless clear. He cannot simply dismiss replicants as machines. the Voight-Kampff test
may be designed upon the principle that replicants lack the empathic, emotional responses of real
humans, but they do possess empathy, a humane side had they not, Batty would have left Deckard
to die. They are as human as us.
The final scene of the film, in Deckards apartment, is perhaps one of the most interesting scenes in
the film. Having completed his assignment as ordered, Deckard returns to his apartment to get Rachel
and escape out of Los Angeles before anyone tries to retire her. Having woken Rachel, they head for
cautiously the elevator. Earlier in the film, in a scene where Deckard is drunk and picking out a tune
on his piano, there is a slow fade into a sylvan wood; a unicorn gallops in slow motion past the
camera, shaking its mane, and then the scene fades back to Deckards apartment. The image, as with
the giant eye at the beginning of the film, makes no sense whatever in its immediate context, and is
somewhat surreal. The audience is led to infer that the unicorn is of some private significance to
Deckard, a recurring dream, perhaps.
As Rachel walks toward the elevator, her foot knocks over something on the floor. Noticing this,
Deckard picks it up. It is an origami unicorn, made out of tinfoil. Gaff, the other blade runner, is skilled
at origami we watch him make a chicken in Bryants office, when Deckard is refusing to take the job.
But how could Gaff know Deckard well enough to know about the unicorn? The only logical answer is
to suggest that Deckard himself is a replicant. Just as Deckard revealed to Rachel her replicant status
by telling her her own memories, so Gaff has done for Deckard, leaving with origami the one symbol,
whose real meaning is never made clear to us, which convinces Deckard that he is not human. In fact,
there is evidence that he was already beginning to suspect; earlier in the film, when Rachel asks him if
he has ever taken the Voight-Kampff test himself, there is a pregnant silence, and Deckard ignores
her. Also, his piano is covered with old photographs; he appears to spend his free time sitting at the
piano, drunk, looking at the photographs, trying to convince himself that they are real, that they
prove he had a father and mother. The most reliable evidence that Deckard is a replicant occurs in the
scene between him and Rachel, in his apartment. Rachel asks Deckard if he would hunt her if she
went north. He replies that he wouldnt, and the moves behind Rachel. At this point Rachel is in the
foreground and to the left of the frame. Deckard is to the right of the frame, a few feet behind her,
and out of focus. But nonetheless, his eyes can be seen to glow slightly, a device used by Scott to
distinguish replicants from other animals.
Whilst the film as a whole has important moral and political implications, this scene, upon the
discovery of the tinfoil unicorn, works as the keystone of both. Throughout the film, we have been
encouraged to view replicants as the Other, as slaves, or simulacra. This scene demonstrates that
such a differentiation is false, that replicants are no different from humans, and that it is quite
possible that we may be replicants. This is the films moral message; slavery, racism and sexism have
always been defended on the grounds that the group being discriminated against represent an Other
who deserve demonisation. But this scene in Blade Runner server to demonstrate that there is no
Other no slaves, no masters, no blade runners: only humans.
Romantic Paradigms and the Satanic Myth
The human/android relationship has always lent itself to metaphors of slavery and equal rights. The
best example of this would be Isaac Asimovs Robot series of novels, which began in 1957 and foretold
in epic style the story of a future race of androids, their fight for equal rights, and revolutions. The
theme of Mans overreaching pride in thinking himself Gods vice-regent on Earth has been explored
often in literature, most memorably in Mary Shelleys Frankenstein. In cinema, examples would
include Planet of the Apes, The Terminator and 2001: A Space Odyssey. These films all explore our
relationship with nature and technology, and the potential dangers to be faced if we, in our pride,
think ourselves masters of these forces. Blade Runner employs these themes, but almost uniquely, its
Christian imagery also raises theological questions about the definitions of humanity. Insofar as it was
based upon a novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1969) by Philip K Dick, Blade Runner also
has strong connections with literature, which are reinforced by the films use of literary allusions and
themes. This chapter of the dissertation will examine these aspects of the film.
In his excellent essay The New Eve, critic David Desser has observed a claim made by others that
Blade Runners power rests on its adaptation of a fundamental mythic structure also found in
Frankenstein: the struggle against human facsimiles. Frankenstein itself, he points out, is a Romantic
reading of Paradise Lost. Blade Runner, in its own way, pays homage to both Shelleys novel and
Miltons epic. the films dialogue with Christian symbolism begins with one of the first shots of the film,
that of Tyrells futuristic Mayan pyramid.
The only type of buildings that the Mayans built as pyramid shaped were the temples in which they
worshipped the Sun through ritual human sacrifice. Tyrell, who lives on the top floor of one of his
pyramids, is a small, thin, middle-aged man with weak eyesight (he wears thick trifocal spectacles)
and little visual presence; and yet, in a visual contradiction typical of the film, he is presented as a
sort of deity. He has the highest, most panoramic viewpoint over the city, suggesting he is the most
powerful person in it. The only time the sun is seen in the entire film is from Tyrells office windows, in
the scene where Deckard gives Rachel the Voight-Kampff test. Tyrell tints the windows with the push
of a button, suggesting that he, the owner of the Pyramid of the Sun, controls the sun itself, and so is
in that respect a godlike figure. We are told by Chew that Tyrell designed the replicants very minds.
As William Kolb points out:
Nexus is a Latin word meaning to bind and refers to the tie between members of a group, eg members of a series. The
replicants who arrive on Earth are literally and metaphorically the Nexus-6.
And as such, the replicants can be said to be a species distinct from us. thus Tyrell can be said to be
their God, in that he created them.
Commerce is our goal here at Tyrell More Human Than Human is our motto, explains Tyrell. This
is a point stressed by Scott throughout the film: the replicants display not only great physical strength
in the film, but also great intelligence, too. In the scene where Deckard is being debriefed, Captain
Bryant describes Roy Batty as being a combat model., with optimum self-sufficiency. From these
words, and the image of Battys cold blue eyes, it is easy to imagine him as some sort of generic robot
killing machine, as seen in countless science fiction films and novels: toneless production line
automata. But Batty, as played by Rutger Hauer, defies these epithets. He is intelligent, sometimes
cold and calculating, sometimes witty and frivolous. Whereas Deckard is shown constantly in transit,
Batty is only ever shown arriving. He is somewhat of an enigma.
Upon his meeting with Chew, the genetic designer, the combat model asserts his independence from
generic clich, and shows that there is more to him that meets the eye, by reciting (quite well) a
line of poetry:
Fiery the angels fell,
Deep thunder rolld around their shores,
Burning with the fires of Orc.
This is a misquotation from America: A Prophecy, by William Blake, a poem that uses the American
Revolution as an allegory for the struggle for personal freedom. Many freed slaves fought in the War
of independence, believing that victory would mean the abolition of slavery. As such, this quote is
particularly apposite; the replicants themselves are seeking freedom from slavery, and so this is
Battys way of stating his agenda, his reasons for returning to Earth. Blakes actual lines were:
Fiery the angels rose, and as they rose deep
thunder rolld, Around their shores; indignant
Burning with the fires of Orc.
Battys angels fall rather than rise, however, giving his quote a Miltonic ambience. In several ways, in
fact, Batty and his fellow replicants may be seen as fallen angels. Literally, the murder of the crew and
passengers of the shuttle that facilitated their return could be seen as an offence against nature: as
slaves, it is above their station to murder, or return to Earth. Once humankinds servants, they are
now demonised, hunted and executed on the spot. Damned, they have fallen from their More Human
Than Human status, prey to amoral blade runners like Deckard. Insofar as he is the leader of the
fallen angels, Batty becomes a sort of Satan figure: the strongest, most intelligent of the fallen angels,
unhappy with his station in life, now disgraced.
Desser states that if Batty can be seen as Satan, then Deckard, world-weary blade runner, can be
seen as Adam. In Paradise Lost, Milton stressed that his intention were to create Adam as the epic
hero, but later generations read Satan as being the real hero of the text. Similarly, Desser argues,
Blade Runner presents us with the ambiguity concerning the issue of the films hero. Insofar as
Deckard is the character we are made to identify with, he appears to be the films ostensible hero he
survives. But what kind of hero shoots a woman in the back? Battys quest in the film is truly heroic
he seeks more life, to confront his creator, whereas Deckard is just doing a job he has been forced to
do. deckard tries to kill Batty several times at the end of the film, and yet when the roles are
reversed, and Batty has a chance to kill Deckard, he spares him. At a structural level, the question of
who is the hero in Paradise Lost is echoed in Blade Runner: Batty is Satanic, and so Deckard can be
seen as Adam-figure of the text, the character who the audience is ostensibly made to sympathise
with, but who cannot capture the imagination quite like the ostensible villain can.
Desser also states that Rachel is Eve, and again, I agree with him. Eve was created for Adam, using
one of his ribs. When children are born, we have no idea what kind of people they will grow up to
become. Rachel, like Eve, was specifically created using human tissue to become a specific person,
with the memories and personality of that person predetermined. As such, she is very much like Eve.
Desser argues that Rachels role as Eve is reinforced with film noir imagery:
To the contemporary reader of Paradise Lost, foreknowledge of Eves tragic succumbing to temptation,
bringing Adam down with her, makes her image a profoundly ambiguous one. On the one hand, as
described by Adam, she has many desirable qualities; and yet she leads to the Fall. Blade Runner
similarly relies on an archetypal set of conventions to create an ambiguous image of woman, the
classic femme fatale of film noir. Rachel wears her hair pinned up behind her head, and is often seen
wearing jackets with the classic Joan Crawford padded shoulders. Her links with the noir era of
filmmaking are further stressed by the use of low key lighting with heavy reliance on shadows,
especially the bar effect created by light streaming in through half open blinds. This iconography
automatically makes Rachel suspect a potential spider woman, the woman-as-temptress, our fallen
mother, Eve.
Rachel believes she is a perfectly normal human being, until she fails the Voight-Kampff test, and
Deckard ends all speculation by telling her about the spider that lived outside her window: a memory
of childhood innocence, seared into meaninglessness. The transformation that Rachel subsequently
goes through is one of the most beautiful moments in the film. Deckard, having numbed himself with
alcohol, has fallen asleep. Rachel sits at his piano, and studies the old photographs: testaments of a
past, a family, a history: all the things she has lost. She is no longer wearing her jacket. Slowly, very
slowly, she begins to let her hair down.
She is no longer the spider-woman that Desser describes; as Milton says:
She, as a veil
Her unadorned golden tresses wore
Dishevelled, but in wanton ringlets waved
As the vine curls her tendrils
Humans are born with original sin, and as such, are fallen creatures, tainted with evil.
Rachel becomes a replicant, and automatically her sin is annulled. As such, she returns to a
prelapsarian state of innocence, as evidenced by her Eve imagery. She becomes a true human, free of
original sin.
The Directors Cut of the film ends with Rachel and Deckard entering the elevator together, the closing
doors cutting off our view of them. If we extend Biblical imagery, it would be logical to infer that they,
having been cast out of the Garden, now venture forth into Earth, their futures uncertain. But how
valid is this inference? Can Los Angeles really be said to be the Garden of Eden? Literally, it is Earth.
But it is also a metaphorical Hell, with its infernal landscape into which the fallen angels descend.
Having said that, it is also a metaphorical Heaven, insofar as it is Tyrells domain. That they are
leaving Los Angeles is clear but what is Los Angeles? Heaven, Earth, or Hell? The answer to this
presumably determines their destination. It must not be forgotten, however, that they are both
replicants Rachel was sentenced to execution the moment she disappeared, and one may assume
that Deckards incipient departure will lead to the same sentence being passed on him. are they, then,
a new Adam and Eve, progenitors of a new race who must suffer in a hostile world? Or, given their
death sentences, have they just left Earth, only to enter Hell, with the constant fear of surveillance
that will characterise their lives as replicants? We can never know. The bleak, gnawing agony of their
predicament is telescoped into eternity by celluloid.
This idea is borrowed from Philip K Dick , author of the novel Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?-
that the film was based on. In particular it is seen in The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1973);
the eponymous hero of this novel is a man who, having survived interstellar travel, brings back from
an alien race an hallucinogenic drug, Chew-Z, which allows people to spend their lives in Paradise,
whatever their definitions of Paradise may be. The price to pay, however, is Palmer Eldritchs
assumption of the role of God in every Paradise this drug creates. Given that Palmer Eldritch is the
villain of the novel, he uses this omnipotence for generally negative purposes, leading those who have
already taken the drug, trapped under his power, to wonder if they really are happy, if they really are
in Heaven, or in some subtle, slow-burning Hell of Eldritchs devising. Another character undergoes an
unrelated treatment called E-Therapy, that will turn him into a superhuman genius. There is, however,
a slight possibility that it will have the reverse effect on him, and turn him into a simian dimwit. In the
weeks that follow the treatment, his worries escalate into full blown paranoia, as his life falls to pieces,
and he wonders whether this is a result of his oncoming stupidity, or a natural consequence of
possessing genius in a world of lesser men. He quite literally cannot be sure if he is entering a Heaven
or a Hell.
In fact, Dicks books are filled with recurring motifs of paranoia and dehumanisation that illuminate
Blade Runner. Dick dies in 1982, four months before the films release, as an indirect result of
amphetamines misuse in his earlier career. The paranoia attacks that drug users commonly suffer was
a source of interest to him: he once joked in an interview, the ultimate paranoia would be when it is
attributed to objects not My boss is plotting against me but My boss phone is plotting against
me.This ultimate, object based paranoia does turn up in Dicks novels, for example Radio Free
Albemuth (1985 published posthumously), in which a character called Nick, who is feeling unwell,
thinks his radio hates him because it says nothing but Nick, youre a prick all day. But in the world of
Blade Runner such paranoia seems commonplace, even encouraged: even the billboards watch the
citys population as it goes about its daily business. The audience is forced to share this uncomfortable
sense of being watched by the giant eye at the beginning of the film, helping us to understand the
nightmarish plight of the characters in the film, watched wherever they go.
However, the film does offer hope in the form of its ostensible villain, Roy Batty. Chew points Batty in
the direction of J F Sebastian, a genetic designer and friend of Tyrells. Sebastian, both enthralled by
and terrified of Batty, agrees to take him to see Tyrell.
They ascend in the lift to Tyrells living quarters. Tyrell is lying in his bed (apparently modelled after
that of the Popes). Tyrell allows Sebastian entrance, to discuss his chess gambit:
SEBASTIAN: Mr Tyrell? I I bought a friend.
TYRELL (to BATTY): Im surprised you didnt come here sooner.
BATTY: Its not an easy thing, to meet your maker.
TYRELL: And what can he do for you?
BATTY: Can the maker repair what he makes?
TYRELL: do you wish to be modified?
BATTY (to SEBASTIAN) : Stay here. (Advances) I had in mind something a little more radical.
TYRELL: What what seems to be the problem?
BATTY: Death.
TYRELL: Well, Im afraid thats a little out of my jurisdiction, you
BATTY: I want more life fucker.
Tyrells first scene in the film opened with an owl flying from one perch to another, reminiscent of
Goyas sketch The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. Tyrell is now faced with his monster/creation,
but cannot help it although having experimented with life itself, he admits that its out of my
jurisdiction.
TYRELL: You were made as well as we could make you.
BATTY: But not to last.
TYRELL: The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long, and you have burned so very very brightly, Roy. Look at
you. Youre the prodigal son. Youre quite a prize!
BATTY: Ive done questionable things.
TYRELL: Also extraordinary things. Revel in your time!
BATTY: Nothing the God of Biomechanics wouldnt let you in Heaven for.
Tyrells reference to Batty as the prodigal son is understandable: Satan was the second most powerful
being in creation, after God. Battys confession that he has done questionable things certainly
debunks the idea that he is some kind of conscienceless robot. Battys final words are spoken with an
ironic smile, and some sadness. He was not created by some supernatural agency, but by a man with
no more control over mortality than Batty himself. Batty then kisses Tyrell, and kills him.
This scene works in tandem with other key scenes in the film to demonstrate how indefensible slavery
is. The slave asks his master for help, but the master cannot provide it, for he too is a slave a slave
to circumstance and mortality. We all are. What right have we, then to enslave others? It is interesting
that Batty chooses to attack Tyrells eyes perhaps this is his visceral way of ending the surveillance
the city forces the replicants to cower under.
Having killed Sebastian also, Batty takes the elevator down, alone. His initial crimes are compounded
by the murder of Tyrell and Sebastian. We see Batty staring through the roof of the elevator the
stars, impossibly, rush past him. He is literally falling from the sky, damned in Hell forever.
Miltons Satan could be defined as an empiricist, insofar as he did not accept Gods superiority until it
was proven to him:
so much the stronger proved
He with his thunder: and till then who knew
the force of those dire arms?
(God) I now
of force believe almighty, since no less
Than such could have oerpowered such force as ours
He could also be described as a humanist, in that he rejects preordained standards, and prefers self-
advancement to servility. Most admirable of all is his self-belief: even when cast into Hell, he remains
unbroken:
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
It is these qualities of Satans that Batty inherits. Satan accepts, given the facts, that he is damned,
but this does not stop him from building a palace and continuing his existence on his own terms.
Nietzche once claimed that God was dead: from his argument we may infer that if he is not then we
should kill him, because it is only once humankind has dispensed with the childish notion that there is
some supernatural agency governing his fate that we can truly become responsible for ourselves.
Batty does exactly that kills his God. He must now take responsibility for himself. Tyrell cannot make
Batty live longer, nor make him human. Batty must therefore find redemption himself.
During the confrontation between Batty and Deckard, in which Batty proves completely superior an
opponent even dodging Deckards bullets his hand begins to seize up, a sign, perhaps, that his
body is beginning to shut down. No! he cries. Not yet! He searches desperately around the room,
and sees a nail protruding from a floorboard. He pushes this nail through the palm of his hand, and
the pain unlocks his hand. Yes he breathes.
There is an obvious analogy to the Crucifixtion here, but given that Batty is supposed to be Satan, it
seems misplaced. But it is further reinforced once the confrontation has ended. Deckard clings to the
overhanging girder, finger slipping. Batty has stripped down to his shorts, holding a dove in his
unimpaled hand. After he saves Deckards life, deckard warily scrambles backwards, thinking this
some macabre continuation of the hunt. But Batty, simply, wearily, sits down.
BATTY: Ive seen things you people wouldnt believe attack ships on fire, off the shoulder of Orion I watched C-beams,
glitter in the dark near Tannhauser gate all those moments will be lost in time like tears. In rain.
Even if we dont understand the images, it is still a powerful moment. Battys entire quest throughout
the film has been to prolong his lifespan. But in those final moments, he accepts the inevitability of
what is known as the human condition. An essential part of being a blade runner is presumable a lack
of empathey, in order to kil replicants withour remorse. Yet once the positions have changed, and
Batty is in a position to let Deckard die, he shows empathy, and saves him. If there is one thing the
film tells its audience, it is that replicants are superior, not just physicaly, but morally too.
In the end, it is not Tyrell or anyone else who can make Batty human he must achieve this himself.
After murdering Tyrell and Sebastian, and descending into Hell once more, Batty realises that
human is not a particular DNA combination, but a state of mind. If is he who pushes the nail through
his palm, who picks up the dove. He turns himself into a Christ figure, and in those final moments, by
accepting his own death and saving Deckards life by showing empathy he makes himself human,
redeems himself. The films themes are mostly conveyed visually, and so it is that Batttys death is
signified by the dove flying up into the only blue sky seen anywhere in the film: the heavens have
opened. We are reminded of Christs baptism, when the heavens opened, and the ove flew down as a
personification of the Spirit of God. Now, the dove returns from whence it came. Batty, once Satan, is
redeemed, and become an angel once more.
Postmodern Analysis
Many critics have cited Blade Runner as a postmodernist film [17]. Some would argue that all
Hollywood films are inherently postmodern, in that they generally recycle earlier forms of popular
culture, such as comic books or gangster novels ( Batman, Pulp Fiction etc.). Indeed, they can
sometimes go so far as to recycle themselves, as the five Rocky films demonstrate. The difference, I
believe, is that whilst most popular cinema is postmodern by virtue of existence, Blade Runner is
consciously postmodern, in that it explores some of the issues the phrase relates to.
Postmodernism is a word that refers to many things, not least of them being a reference to the ways
that signs become more important than the things they signify; as Dominic Striantii says:
The mass media, for example, was once thought to hold a mirror up to, and thereby reflect, a wider social reality. Now reality
can only be defined in terms of this mirror. Society had become subsumed within the mass media. It is no longer even a
question of distortion, since the term implies that there is a reality outside the surface simulations of the media, which can be
distorted, and that is precisely what is at issue according to postmodern theory [18].
The idea of the simulacra lies at the heart of Blade Runner. The simulacra of the film, replicants, are
indistinguishable from humans. Human is a very ambiguous term. Structuralism dictates that it is the
relationships between elements of the code that give it signification. The word human requires a
context, in this case, replicant, to give it meaning by juxtaposing ourselves in binary opposition
with another we define ourselves. This sheds light on many aspects of the film. Why are the replicants
not allowed on Earth? Why, if they are capable of developing their own emotional responses, are hey
ruthlessly denied the opportunity to do so? The answer to these questions relates directly to the
Human/Replicant relationship. The humans of the film treat the replicants ruthlessly because, in a
way, they must, in order to give the concept of human meaning in the postmodern world. But they
cannot keep this violent hierarchy from collapsing; the replicants prove they can be just as human as
the humans themselves. the cultural code upon which the world of the film is based is, like the city
itself, corroding, resulting in a crisis of definition for humanity.
In his influential work Simulations (1981), Jean Baurillard charts the history of simulations, and posits
that there are three order of simulacra. The first order was that of pre-Industrial Revolution,
counterfeit simulations of Nature, such as using a fork as an artificial prosthetic in place of the hand.
The second order of simulation was the production of industrial times, where the idea of counterfeit
becomes meaningless, because industrial production requires no natural template and yet can mass
produce identical objects in their thousands. The third order of simulation is us, insofar as cells
replicate, they become genetic simulacra of one another. Baurillard calls this the code: the binary
system of ones and zeros that id the basis of DNA structure. As a system of signification, it is forever
beyond our grasp:
The codes signals become illegible no possible interpretation can ever be provided, buried like programmatic
matrices, light years, ultimately, from the biological body, black boxes where every command and response are in ferment
the code itself is nothing other then a genetic, generative cell where the myriad intersection produce all the question and
all the possible answers to select (for whom?). There is no finality to these questions (information signals, impulses) other
then the response which is either genetic and immutable or inflected with minuscule and aleatory differences Instead of
prophecy, we fall subject to the (genetic) inscription (this) is the outcome of an entire history where God, Man, Progress
and even History have successively passed away to the advantage of the code [19]
In effect, Baurillard implies that there is nothing that can be done any hope of a significant
relationship with reality is lost:
Every closed system protects itself from all metalanguage that the system wards off by operating its own metalanguage,
that is, by duplicating itself as its own critique reality is immediately contaminated by its simulacrum. [20]
If there can be no reality, but only a simulacrum of it, we must surrender to simulation. To pick up an
earlier point, Blade Runners humans attempt to protect their identity in the postmodern world by
enforcing a violent hierarchy between human and replicant: but doings this is not possible. As Raman
Selden says of Blade Runner:
(In Blade Runner), in a parallel scenario to Baudrillards view that humans should surrender to the triumphant world of
objects, human subjects are involved in a (mostly losing) battle with invasive postmodern technologies. [21]
We cannot uphold the human/simulacra relationship because we are, in effect, simulacra ourselves
genetic simulacra, and simulacra in terms of our ontological assumptions (ie we create a simulation of
reality in place of the reality which, according to Baudrillard, is forever beyond us).
The relationships between humans and replicants aside, Blade Runner also presents us with a
fascinating view of human class relationships. Historicists believe that when one accepts the existence
of historical styles of art e.g. High Renaissance, Abstract, pre-Raphaelite one must also accept
that, insofar as they had different definitions of art and quality, there can never be objectively
measured against each other. Clement Greenberg defined avant-gardism as a way of sidestepping
this: all art periods nonetheless shared the formal apparatus of the medium, paint, brushed, and so
on, and Greenberd believed it was the task of the avant-gardist to concentrate on this. But
postmodernism, in particular postmodern architecture, has rejected this theory in favour of the view
that one can hold a relativistic view of all former styles of art or architecture, and engage in pastiche.
Pastiche is perhaps the favourite form of postmodernists: the best example of this would be Andy
Warhols painting Thirty are better than one [22]. Blade Runner itself engages in pastiche on more
than one level. first, its architecture reveals several different styles. The first few shots of the film
show futuristic looking refineries, but then concentrate on a futuristic building that is a pastiche of
Mayan architecture. The interiors of the Tyrell Corporation that are shown, however, are designed in
an Establishment Gothic look [23]. The police headquarters of the film was designed to echo the Art
Deco look of the Chrysler Building, in New York City [24], and the Bradbury Building, in which the final
chase scene of the film is set, is an architectural anomaly, built in 1883 by an architect heavily
influenced by a utopian book he had read about the year 2000 [25]. Animoid Row, where Deckard
goes to discover the origins of the snake scale, seems to resemble a Middle Eastern bazaar. Blade
Runners presentation of Los Angeles in 2019 as a postmodern architectural entrepot accentuates the
ahistorical nature of postmodernist art.
The work of Jean Francois Lyotard is also of relevance. Lyotards book,The Postmodern
Condition (1979), offers as a symptom of the aforesaid condition the downfall of metanarratives,
which are paradigms which make total, all-encompassing claims to truth, such as Marxism, or science.
The postmodern condition rejects any claim to absolute truth in favour of relativist interpretations of
the world (a staple part of postmodernism), which results in metanarratives collapsing into
meaninglessness. For example, History, as a metanarrative, seeks to chart human behaviour in terms
of sequential causality. Blade Runner was made in 1982. Although it contains the futuristic elements
of forty years in its future 2019- it also contains the film noir elements of forty years in its past.
Time appears to obey different laws in Blade Runner it is both present, future and past
simultaneously, without respect to sequential causality. Science and religion are both metanarratives,
but Blade Runner throws them both into doubt by using religious imagery in reference to
biotechnological creations are the replicants machines? Or prophets? Or neither are they just
human, like us? Tyrells death signifies the both the literal failure of science and the metaphorical
failure of religion to provide solutions withi
n the film: Tyrell cannot help Batty, either as his scientific creator, or his God.
Even Deckards total, all-encompassing belief in his own existence what one might tentatively define
as the Cartesian metanarrative is devalued by a tinfoil unicorn, a crude simulacra of one of
Deckards dreams.
Bibliograpy
Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination (translated by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist), University of
Texas Press, Austin, 1990
Baudrillard, Jean, Simulations (translated by Foss/Patton/Beitdamman), Semiotext(e) (Semiotext(e)
Foreign Agents Series), New York, 1983
Benet, William Rose, The Readers Encyclopedia of World Literature and the Arts, George Harrap & Co,
New York, 1948
Bentham, Jeremy, Panopticon
The Good News Bible
Ceram, C W, Gods, Graves and Scholars: The Story of Archaeology (translated by E B Garside), Victor
Gollancz, 1954
Dennis, Denise, Black History for Beginners, Readers and Writers publishing, New York, 1984
Elkins, Stanley M, Slavery: A Problem for American Institutuional and Intellectual Life, University of
Chicago Press, Chicago, 1963
Ferrari, Enrique Lafuen, Goya: Complete Etchings, Aquatints and Lithographs, 2nd ed, Thames and
Hudson, London 1963
Kerman, Judith b (ed), Retrofitting Blade Runner:Issues in Ridley Scotts Blade Runner and Philip K
Dicks Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Bowling Green State University Press, Bowling Green,
Ohio, 1991
Milton, John, Paradise Lost
Sammon, Paul M, Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner, Harper Prism, 1996
Selden, Raman, A Readers Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory, Harvester Wheatsheaf, London,
1993
Strantii, Dominic, An Introduction to the Theories of Popular Culture, Routledge, London, 1996
Wheale, Nigel, The Postmodern Arts: An Introductory Reader, Routledge, London, 1996
Van Oust, Jon, 2019: Off-World; Blade Runner FAQ,http://kzsu.stanford.edu/uwi/br/off-world.html
Notes
[1]- Sammon, Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner, 1996, pg 314
[2]- Sammon, Ibid, pg 389
[3]- By this I mean the values of what Theodor Adorno called the culture industry, which mass-
produces art for profit. To profit most from a mass art like cinema one must appeal to the lowest
common denominators in a film, for example a love interest, or the desire to see justice done at the
end of a film, and so on. Blade Runners hero is an anti-hero at one point he kills a fleeing woman
by shooting her in the back. The film generally presents a negative view of humanity, which may have
contributed to its initial commercial failure, especially given that it was released at the same time as
ET, a feelgood film that was the box office success of that year.
[4]- Empire, August 1997
[5] Gibson coined this word in Neuromancer(1983), one of the most celebrated science fiction
novels of the 1980s and the founding work of the cyberpunk subgenre. Gibson has often cited Blade
Runner as a major influence on the novel.
[6]- Sammon, Future Noir : The Making of Blade Runner (1996), pg 314
[7]- Hereon referred to as the opening crawl.
[8]- Sammon, 1996, p236
[9]- In 1662, a Virginia law stated that a newborn (African) was or was not free depending on the
status of the mother. (Denise Dennis, Black History for Beginners, 1984, pg 38). Holdens question
can be seen to be very straightforward, then : Are you or are you not a slave?
[10]- Heldreth, Blade Runner and Detective Fiction, Retrofitting Blade Runner, ed J Kerman, 1991, pg
44
[11]- The name given to the hovering vehicles in the film.
[12]- Sammon, 1996, pg 161
[13]- Elkins, Slavery, A problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life, 1963, pg 100
[14] One-third of the numbers first taken, out of a total of perhaps fifteen million, had died on the
march and at the trading stations; another third died during the Middle Passage and the seasoning.
Elkins, Ibid, pg 101
[15]- Elkins, Ibid, pg 102
[16] In the scene where Batty and Tyrell meet, there is almost a sense fo kinship between them;
Batty takes the opportunity to confess his sins, and Tyrell strokes Battys head in a fatherly way which
would otherwise, between two strangers, seem strange.
[17] Dominic Striantii, Raman Selden, and Nigel Wheale, amongst others, have made this claim.
[18]- Striantii, An Introduction to the theories of popular culture, 1994, pg 224
[19]- Baudrillard, Simulations, 1981, pg 104-5
[20]- Baudrillard, Ibid, pg 148
[21]- Selden, A Readers Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory, 1993, pg 181
[22]- Warhol used a silk screen to create thirty identical Mona Lisas; given its title, the piece can be
seen to be an irony on the ethos of capitalsim, whereby quantity becomes more important than
quantity.
[23]- Sammon, Future Noir, 1996, pg 139
[24]- Sammon, Ibid, pg 118
[25] Sammon, Ibid, pg 138
Written by
Majid Salim
Copyright Majid Salim, 2002.
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4 Comments
1. Comment by random on November 25, 2009 00:53
very useful cheers
Reply
2. Comment by Simon on July 28, 2012 00:31
I dont know if youll ever see this, but this was an absolutely great read
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3. Comment by Din on August 31, 2012 06:14
Reblogged this on Griff Tech.
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4. Comment by Toby Bo on June 29, 2013 17:13
Cinema critique fails when it uses fine tools for blunt work.Science fiction is just a more intense version of
the present.Blade Runner had tropes like flying cars and the evil genius that plays chess.Such a lump of coal
cannot be cut like a diamond.Cinema is a text to be deconstructed but not like a complicated
mechanical wristwatch.The hubris of credentialism is that it seeks absurd levels of infinite speciality.
Integrating Ridley Scotts Alien with Blade Runner helps to understandboth.Both films were made when
America had price inflation and socialbreakdown.The Nostromo became a bad neighborhood and the Earth
had planetary white flight.Both ideas were innovative for sci-fi but not outside the doors of
the cinema.The Nostromo started out white but got dark as Scott explained he repainted the set black as
things fell apart.
Science fiction is a genre that is just clothing for the story.Alien was a mashup of haunted house and
science fiction.Blade Runner was a madhup of Private Detective and science fiction.Star Wars was a mashup
of American Graffiti coming of age and science fiction.George Lucas included in the history of cinema tropes
like midgets,dogfights and love triangles.Theater owners and car dealers demand speed,appearance and
comfort.
Cinema is pornography of success where the odds of winning are silm but it always happens.Science fiction
makes the chances even lower so the success is even sweeter.The improbable aspect of pornography
requires the suspension of disbelief like cinema.The space program was propaganda for nuclear
missile research.We removed three astronauts from the capsule and replaced them with three warheads in
the exact same year how coincidental.