Overall, the light and shading effects in Blade Runner help to enhance the central theme of what comprises humanity’s most defining characteristics. It does so by creating a dark, dreary setting which emphasizes the need to question everything, and not take human nature for granted. As it ultimately turns out, the humans turn cold and machine-like while the replicants begin to feel emotion, particularly hatred.
The point of this film was to make the viewer think about how they define humanity. To reassess what characteristics one feels define the human race, is how I personally responded. This film has reinforced my perception that not all human beings act like stereotypical human beings should, in that not everyone feels finite emotion or cares about anything in particular. Overall the symbolism contained in the added themes of inequality and genetics help make this film incredibly complex as well as intuitively stimulating. The Blade Runner script is well thought out and written, and very intricate, and the acting is likewise decent. This film has become a classic in the world of cyberpunk, for it carries an incredibly film noir feel and evokes a sense of mystery about the future role of genetics in technology and humanity.
Showing posts with label blade runner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blade runner. Show all posts
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Critical Analysis of Blade Runner, 2
From a theatrical standpoint, Blade Runner is fairly well put together. The themes of eyes containing deeper meaning, and culture, are two of the most omnipresent in the film, although it is latent with many others like genetics and inequality. The opening scene of the film depicts a fireball erupting out of an explosion, which is viewed via a reflection in a man’s eye. This is an impressive effect symbolic of the theme of deeper meaning that pervades the entire film. Eyes are utilized a lot in Blade Runner, primarily in the Voight Kampff test, which determines humanness based on pupil dilation in response to questions. In almost every instance where eyes are used, though, it is to emphasize the point that eyes carry a deep connotation which cannot always be determined by surface-level observation of physical characteristics. It is what is underneath that reveals personality and true humanity.
Culturally, the producers of Blade Runner have made many mistakes and included many stereotypes of Asian culture in their film. Primarily, the distinction between Japanese and Chinese cultures is blurred. A fairly large scene occurring at the beginning of the film is said to take place in “Chinatown.” Oddly enough, and while advertising signs latent with Chinese characters permeate the scene, nobody in “Chinatown” speaks Chinese in this particular scene or in the rest of the film; each person is speaking Japanese. Likewise, when Deckard is escorted out of the scene, he brings his stereotypical bowl of noodles with him. In Asia, when someone sits at a bar and eats noodles, they are almost always in a soup of some kind, and not simply piled sky-high in a bowl meant for eating rice out of. In the next scene, when the eye-designing geneticist is visited, he has papers lying around that have Japanese characters on them, yet when he speaks English, it is with a Chinese accent. Being as culturally sensitive as I am, I found it demeaning that the line between Chinese and Japanese had been blurred so badly.
Culturally, the producers of Blade Runner have made many mistakes and included many stereotypes of Asian culture in their film. Primarily, the distinction between Japanese and Chinese cultures is blurred. A fairly large scene occurring at the beginning of the film is said to take place in “Chinatown.” Oddly enough, and while advertising signs latent with Chinese characters permeate the scene, nobody in “Chinatown” speaks Chinese in this particular scene or in the rest of the film; each person is speaking Japanese. Likewise, when Deckard is escorted out of the scene, he brings his stereotypical bowl of noodles with him. In Asia, when someone sits at a bar and eats noodles, they are almost always in a soup of some kind, and not simply piled sky-high in a bowl meant for eating rice out of. In the next scene, when the eye-designing geneticist is visited, he has papers lying around that have Japanese characters on them, yet when he speaks English, it is with a Chinese accent. Being as culturally sensitive as I am, I found it demeaning that the line between Chinese and Japanese had been blurred so badly.
Critical Analysis of Blade Runner
The Determination between Man and Machine
The 1982 film Blade Runner has become a science fiction icon over the last two decades. Starring Harrison Ford as “Rick Deckard,” the film was directed by Ridley Scott, a magnificent director who ultimately guided the production of the hit film Gladiator. Blade Runner depicts the city of Los Angeles in the year 2019 as a dirty, overpopulated, and rundown megalopolis that is being abandoned by its inhabitants. Off world colonies is where these citizens have begun an exodus to, and is also where replicants are meant to legally reside. Because it is illegal for replicants to remain on Earth, a special branch of policemen, called blade runners, have been tasked with the duty of exterminating, or “retiring” all the replicants remaining on Earth.
Rick Deckard is one such blade runner, and as he catches suspected replicants throughout the course of the film, he interrogates each one. Using a retinal monitor of sorts, he proceeds to ask questions of each suspect that are meant to evoke a specific emotion. Replicants in Blade Runner are machines that are physically identical to humans and who have preprogrammed memories making they themselves think they are human, but who evoke a different emotional attitude than a normal human would be expected to. When a suspected replicant shows limited or no emotion, or blushes in an odd manner when asked a question, Deckard knows he has found a replicant.
As the film progresses, an ironic paradox results regarding this test known as the Voight Kampff test. The real humans that Deckard is testing seem to be showing signs of replicants, most likely because they have been forced to live in the traumatizing and cold-hearted world of 2019 Los Angeles. Because of this, Deckard has a difficult time identifying humans as really humans. On the contrary, when Deckard comes across a woman known to be a replicant, it takes almost four times as many questions to identify her as being a replicant than it ordinarily should have. In other words, she was feeling emotion, and therefore showing signs of being human. Ultimately what is discovered is that the replicants have begun to feel emotions for their fellow replicants that are being retired. In this way, the replicants seem more human than they actually are.
The 1982 film Blade Runner has become a science fiction icon over the last two decades. Starring Harrison Ford as “Rick Deckard,” the film was directed by Ridley Scott, a magnificent director who ultimately guided the production of the hit film Gladiator. Blade Runner depicts the city of Los Angeles in the year 2019 as a dirty, overpopulated, and rundown megalopolis that is being abandoned by its inhabitants. Off world colonies is where these citizens have begun an exodus to, and is also where replicants are meant to legally reside. Because it is illegal for replicants to remain on Earth, a special branch of policemen, called blade runners, have been tasked with the duty of exterminating, or “retiring” all the replicants remaining on Earth.
Rick Deckard is one such blade runner, and as he catches suspected replicants throughout the course of the film, he interrogates each one. Using a retinal monitor of sorts, he proceeds to ask questions of each suspect that are meant to evoke a specific emotion. Replicants in Blade Runner are machines that are physically identical to humans and who have preprogrammed memories making they themselves think they are human, but who evoke a different emotional attitude than a normal human would be expected to. When a suspected replicant shows limited or no emotion, or blushes in an odd manner when asked a question, Deckard knows he has found a replicant.
As the film progresses, an ironic paradox results regarding this test known as the Voight Kampff test. The real humans that Deckard is testing seem to be showing signs of replicants, most likely because they have been forced to live in the traumatizing and cold-hearted world of 2019 Los Angeles. Because of this, Deckard has a difficult time identifying humans as really humans. On the contrary, when Deckard comes across a woman known to be a replicant, it takes almost four times as many questions to identify her as being a replicant than it ordinarily should have. In other words, she was feeling emotion, and therefore showing signs of being human. Ultimately what is discovered is that the replicants have begun to feel emotions for their fellow replicants that are being retired. In this way, the replicants seem more human than they actually are.
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