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I have a second admission - I actually had to
study this movie for an elective course at University. I was
actually reading Engineering but we were required to do other short
courses. I chose science fiction and spent my Friday mornings
discussing Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" (very boring) and watching
Bladerunner. I ended up writing a long essay about this movie. Being
an engineer it was riddled with spelling mistakes. Either way, I have
spent a lot of time watching this movie. And I have never tired of
it.
This isn't so much a movie as some kind of
vision. It is a richly textured picture of a future of environmental
decay - where everyone has left, or is waiting to leave the planet
(go 'off-world'). Remember this movie was made 10 years before we
had heard of Global Warming and twenty years before anyone started
to care. The remnants of humanity who, for various reasons, haven't
been tempted off-world, are clustered into dark, rainy, cities where
every possible earthly culture is mixed together. No one quite
speaks English. Instead a mish-mash of eastern languages compete.
Genetic engineering is now cheap and easy - like making hamburgers.
It is the only way to re-create most forms of life-on-earth, most of
which has become extinct.
We follow the story of one jaded bounty
hunter bullied into one last job - to track down illegal androids.
They are only illegal because they are dangerous. They are only
dangerous because we made them stronger and more intelligent than
us. So we gave them a limited life span. So they broke out from
their off-world colony in order to meet their maker (back on Earth)
in order to plead for more life.
Their tale is a simple one. Their story our
story. How long do I live? Why should I die? What right did you have
to make me? Why didn't you make me last? Like Frankenstein's monster
they turn on their creator and kill him. As our bounty-hunter tracks
them down he learns of their fate. He finds his loyalties torn. His
sympathy is personified in the shape of one experimental android -
more human than human - with whom he falls in love. He is meant to
kill her, but, in the end he rescues her and they leave for an
uncertain fate.
So, what are we to make of all this? Essentially the film is far
more than the sum of its parts. The movie is very dark, but also
beautiful. The Vangelis music fits perfectly and this movie would
never be anything as good without it. It provides a suitable, if
haunting backdrop. It is hard to believe this movie flopped upon
original release. The Studio would not even release the original cut
and forced Ridley to make a happier ending and add in voice overs
that Harrison Ford later admitted he hated having to do. However,
its cult classic status slowly grew over the years until Ridley was
finally able to release his Director's cut.
The city of future seems to exist in eternal
night-time. It always rains. The ultra-modern rubs shoulders
with the ancient. Everything is run-down and abandoned. There is no
social fabric. The litter isn't collected. This is Earth after most
people have long abandoned it. If only we could really do this.
Sadly we are all stuck on this planet for the time being. And we are
all left to consider our own mortality. How long do we have? Will we
too finally destroy our maker? |
