Blade Runner Movie Review Final Draft. By: Rebecca White, Brianna Doherty, Delia Lalande, and Autumn Bilney

Blade Runner Blog Entry

Title of the film:           Blade Runner
Year it was made:        1982
Director:                      Ridley Scott
Screenplay by:             Hampton Fancher and David Peoples
Lead actors:                 Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Edward James Olmos
Run time:                     117 minutes

Watch the full trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eogpIG53Cis

Review

Plot Summary

In this movie based in the future the main character, Richard Deckard, the “blade runner” is on a mission to kill Leon, Roy, Zhora, and Pris who are all replicants. Along the way Deckard meets Rachel and gives her a test to see if she is a replicant, and later he falls in love with her.

Deckard, the blade runner, reveals to Rachel that her memories aren’t hers as she is an advanced replicant who can simulate real emotion and contain implanted memories. Right after revealing to Rachel this news, he gets attacked by Leon, and Rachel saves Deckard’s life by killing Leon.

Next, Deckard follows his clues to lead him to where Zohra works, and after an intense chase he ends up killing her.

Roy, another one of the replicants Deckard is after, uses JF to get to his creator whom he kills along with JF who witnessed the whole thing. Deckard finds himself in JF Sebastien’s house and discovers Pris, and after another intense chase Deckard kills her.

Roy, also being at JF’s house, witnesses the death of his girlfriend, Pris. This initiates a chase between Roy and Deckard which leaves the blade runner hanging from a rooftop, luckily Roy saves him before dying himself.

At the very end of the movie Deckard goes back to his home and wakes Rachel and they leave together, on their way out Deckard notices a unicorn made out of paper.

Film Techniques

Blade Runner uses various film techniques to grab and hold the attention of its audience. Because it is an action movie, we believe that the most useful technique they use is found in how they chose to edit.

The first example is cross cutting and is found during the scene where Deckard finds Zohra and they get into a fight. After Zohra punches him she takes off and this starts a chase, the chase was quite fast-paced and the camera was continuously cutting back and forth between them, until Zohra was shot and killed. The effect of this cross cutting was to get the audience's hearts going and to make the viewer feel as if they are a part of the chase, since after all, it is an action movie. We would say that if this was their goal, they definitely accomplished it!

The second example for editing is also cross cutting and is found after Deckard killed Pris he started going after Roy, and this initiated a case. During the chase, there was a lot of back and forth, especially as Roy was breaking Deckard’s fingers and when Deckard was hanging from the building. The reason for this cross cutting was also to build up suspense and action in the movie. Having the camera cut back and forth in this specific situation allowed the audience to not only engage, but to get a good feel for the back and forth in power between the “good side  and evil side” in a sense. This was accomplished well, making it very effective.

Another technique worth discussing would be Blade Runners set and props. The set and props help create the overall tone of the movie very well, as futuristic, mysterious and a little bit dark and creepy. We get this overall dark mysterious vibe from the city mostly because of its sense of desertedness when the birds eye view of the city was shown at the beginning.

The first example we found of this is reflected by the whole city, at the very beginning we are shown the whole city from up above. This is a significant set because as we mentioned it sets the tone, and shows us the world in which the characters are living in. The Props which emphasise the futuristic qualities of the city would be the hovering cars.  

The second example we found for sets and props is in JF Sebastiens house, when he invites Pris into his apartment we get a feel for this set as quite large, also dark. Most importantly, the props that we see on this set are toys JF talks about building himself. The significance of these props is most likely to allow the technological possibilities to stand out. They can also be interpreted as somewhat old fashined since they are not extremely high tech which would take us back to the overall message that his apartment sends to viewers. JF’s house is significantly different from the otherwise futuristic looking set, and this can reflect JF as a character. It can set him apart, and even emphasize that he was an easily manipulated character. Another important thing to note about the significance of these toys on the set is that they are later what enabled Pris to hide for as long as she did from Deckard when he was chasing after her since she blended in so well with them. I would say that the sets and props were extremely effective! They did an amazing job at setting tone and sending specific messages to the audience about technological possibilities, which are beyond the year of the movie.

The third technique we would like to discuss would be costumes. Blade Runner did an amazing job at assigning the perfect costumes to specific characters to emphasize their main features and traits. For example, Deckard never left the house without wearing his long beige jacket. This paints a very clear image that this character is the investigator, or the detective because that is typically what detectives are known to wear. Another example of brilliant costume choice goes to Rachel. She is a replicant that is not going to be assassinated, and the way that she dresses indicates this too. She is more high-tech, and she dresses more expensive looking than the other replicants. She is usually wearing fancy clothes or large fur jackets whereas the other replicants wear quite normal clothing. In this case, the wardrobe emphasizes a large difference between them. The costumes in this film were well chosen, and I found that the main character's costumes are all able to tell us something about the characters themselves, and to me this is a sign that the costumes were effective.

Another significant technique would be lighting. The whole tone of Blade Runner is set by the lighting which shows extreme significance! They used lighting extremely effectively to set the tone as dark and mysterious, which is fitting since it is, in a way, a mystery movie. The first example for lighting is found at the very beginning. When Leon is taking the test to see if he is a mutant the lighting is very low-key. I think that the reason for this is, as discussed above, to set the tone for the movie, since for most of the movie it was quite dark. Another example for lighting is of a shadow. The place where I noticed the shadow is when Rachel and Deckard are both at his apartment, and for some unimportant reason Rachel storms off, when she is almost out of the door when Deckard stops her. He then pushes her against the window, and through the blinds of this window the light from the traffic outside is causing a shadow to form on his face. I think that the reason for this is to give the scene a little bit of creepiness and drama. Lighting in this film was overall effective. As mentioned above it did set up the tone of the movie well, and projected feelings of mystery and creepiness on the audience which means it did its job!

The final technique I have is of sound. In terms of sound i found that Blade Runner did its best work in the non-diegetic area. The first example I found occurred during the chase between Deckard and Zohra. Once the chase was on an action song began to play. The second example I have for sound happens when Deckard goes to Leon’s apartment and is snooping around. When Deckard finds a stack of pictures and begins to look at them, this seemingly nostalgic music begins to play. I think the reason for the action music in my first example is just to get peoples adrenaline pumping, and to emphasise the chase. Which did happen, making the non-diegetic sound in this scene effective. For my second example the purpose of the nostalgic music was simply to emphasize the scene, which it did seem to do, therefore making it effective.

Themes, Issues, Questions

Undoubtedly the most relevant theme this movie encompasses is technology. It makes us think about how close our world is becoming to this one. The idea behind this is that everything will one day be controlled by technology and A.I. and that’s why we need to give it limited time to live. Because our reality is that the idea of “real robots” is being explored, therefore this movie can play on our fears of this since we are getting closer and closer.

The main issue that this movie brings up is that technology is evolving so quickly that this could be our reality in the years to come. A.I. may roam the streets as “normal” people. This is an issue because of how many people fear that technology will take over the world. Right now, technology, specifically our phones and televisions consume our lives, we can’t go a day without it; just imagine if technology wasn’t only something we carry in our pockets, what if technology that looked exactly like people surrounded us. What if they started to take over the world?

I believe that a some very thought provoking questions brought up by this film are: Can we really trust our memories? How would you react if someone was able to recount your most cherished memories to you? How do you know that your memories aren’t implanted in you?

No matter how true your childhood memories may seem, how can anyone truly know if they are real? Although it seems rather far fetched, it is interesting to think about because it certainly sends your mind through a few loops trying to put pieces together.

Word Count: 1496 words

Comments

The quality of the film cannot be expected to be the best due to the resources they had in the film industry in the 80s. But nonetheless it is one of the better-quality films of its time. It is a classic but due to its somewhat poor quality in terms of sound being choppy and diluted and the overall camera work being sloppy, it can take some getting used to. You definitely need to watch it more than once or rewind some parts to get all the information, even for the basic understanding of the story line. There are scenes in the film where the background noise definitely over powers the characters words. A little word of advice, eating popcorn during the movie is not recommended obviously making the experience of viewing the film a lot less pleasurable. The story line is definitely a good one. Very touching and intriguing. Especially the end when the replicants start to show some real human emotions and you could almost find yourself pitying them. The actors, I am sure, did the best they could under their director’s instructions. If the acting was better, the story line would have been a lot more touching as well as believable as far as a story like this can be. Weaknesses such as the poor acting for a few characters such as Pris seeming to be very laughable rather than evil, Leon appearing to be dumb and not at all evil in the way that a robot should be, more like an over sized school bully and Rachel being a very dull character who should have a lot more importance and character than she actually has. This weakness among many more is not over weighed by the only strength being its story line.

Stars

1: Poor  2: Okay  3: Good  4: Very good  5: Excellent

Course connections

1. In the film, the replicants are a perfect example of what is meant by Uncanny Valley. Even though they are not labeled as humans, they look exactly like them, they express themselves in the same was, they have feelings as well as emotions, etc. However, even though they share multiple similarities to human beings, they are considered as one. In fact, the Uncanny Valley is the idea that an almost human-looking robot will seem overly “strange” to a human being, will produce a feeling of uncanniness, and will thus fail to evoque the empathic response required for productive human-robot interaction.

2. A second course connection would be sentience. Even though the replicants in the film are not perceived as human beings, they still have feelings just like one. Sentience means that a being has the capability of feeling pain or suffering or even feel pleasure, for example. It is when a being is capable of sensing and responding to the world and can experience “qualia”. Few scenes in the film prove that the replicants may qualify as sentient beings. For example, Roy feels a lot of pain and devastation regarding Pris’s death. The fact that Roy shows and expresses his true feelings t this very moment, explains why he may be considered as a sentient being.  

3. Another course concept would be Cognition. Throughout the movie, we see multiple scenes introducing humans interrogating other people in the hopes of confirming whether they are replicants or not. These integrations may be considered as a way of “problem-solving”. Cognition is referring to the mental health processes involved in gaining knowledge and comprehension. These processes include thinking, knowing, remembering, judging and problem-solving. For example, when Deckard interrogates Rachel for the first time. He asks her questions about how she would react in certain situations. Depending on Rachel’s answers or any other replicant questioned later in the movie, Deckard will judge whether they correspond to replicant behaviours or not.

Questions

1. In the film, Deckard falls in love with Rachael, a Replicant (a human-like form of Artificial Intelligence). Can true love between Artificial Intelligence and humans exist? Why or why not?
2. After trying so hard to kill Deckard, why did Roy let him live in the end?
3. Replicants look identical to humans and can feel emotions, but they only have a four-year lifespan. Is it morally correct to kill Replicants if they can can suffer as we do? Why or why not?

Articles

“Scientists Discover How to Implant False Memories” by Philip Perry

Many replicants had false memories implanted in them, leading them to believe that they had lived a full human life. This article describes how MIT researchers were able to successfully implant a false memory into the mind of a mouse, and the possibility of doing this with humans in the future. The writer describes positive and negative connotations, as well as the moral and ethical implications that come with the manipulation of memories.

http://bigthink.com/philip-perry/scientists-have-discovered-how-to-implant-false-memories

“When Will Robots Deserve Human Rights?” by George Dvorsky

Blade Runner brought up the theme of morality with AI. Dehumanizing robots makes it easier for us to use them as objects and not think twice about ethics, but will this remain the same when we have AI that looks and acts as we do? George Dvorsky speaks to “ethicists, sociologists, legal experts, neuroscientists, and AI theorists” and discusses whether these robots should be granted personhood, and have the same rights as humans.

https://gizmodo.com/when-will-robots-deserve-human-rights-1794599063

Works Cited

YouTube (2018). Blade Runner (1982) Official Trailer - Ridley Scott, Harrison Ford Movie. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eogpIG53Cis

“Blade Runner.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 13 Mar. 2018, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner#Cast

Golden, John. “Introducing Cinematic and Theatrical Elements in Film.” TeachWithMovies.

Kelly, McKinney. “The Matrix Study Guide.” 31 Jan. 2018.

Kelly, McKinney. “Non-human animals (nha) and Selfhood Study Guide.” 14 Feb. 2018.

Perry, P. (2018). Scientists Discover How to Implant False Memories. Big Think. http://bigthink.com/philip-perry/scientists-have-discovered-how-to-implant-false-memories.