Blade Runner
Below is the trailer for the film…
I recently watched Blade Runner for the first time and felt slightly underwhelmed by the plot as a whole which doesn’t appear to contain much of a rhythm that could carry a viewer along. I have read up on the film and apparently on its release it divided critics, had little success and pretty much disappeared before coming back as a science fiction cult classic. A Wikipedia article reads “Film critics were polarized as some felt the story had taken a back seat to special effects and that it was not the action/adventure the studio had advertised. Others acclaimed its complexity and predicted it would stand the test of time. Roger Ebert praised Blade Runner’s visuals and recommended it for that reason; however, he found the human story clichéd and a little thin. Ebert also found Tyrell’s character unconvincing and the apparent lack of security measures allowing Roy to murder him problematic. Also he believed the relationship between Deckard and Rachael seemed “to exist more for the plot than for them.”
Stylistically though I was very impressed with the film. There are strong elements of film noir in Blade Runner, for example there are the conventional femme fatale and hero, and also a first person narration. Blade Runner tackles the future implications of technology (genetic engineering) on the environment and society and the tension between past, present and future is apparent in the retrofitted future of Blade Runner, which is high-tech and gleaming in places but elsewhere decayed and old. The movie asks questions about the meaning and value of human life and what it is to really be human as ‘replicants’ with a restricted four year life span seek for it to be extended and the humans try to ensure that the ‘replicants’ stay on the ‘off-world colonies,’ killing any that come to earth. But as the movie develops, it is often the replicants that show more emotion when their fellow replicants die, than the humans do towards each other. The film also makes extensive use of eyes and manipulated images to call into question reality and our ability to perceive it. A soundtrack made up of a dark melodic combination of classic composition and futuristic synthesizers by Vangelis mirrors the film-noir retro-future of Los Angeles 2019.