He’s the cosmeticist. The mad cosmeticist.
If I’m going to review Blade Runner 2049 (2017), then I’d better review its predecessor, Blade Runner (1982). The problem with reviewing Blade Runner is unusual – there’s a veritable cornucopia of material that can be discussed, from marvelous (especially for the time) dystopic vistas of the city of Los Angeles, through a set of characters who fit in well with the background of a world losing its best and brightest to the off-world colonies, to questions of whether specific characters represent mythic entities (I’ve been toying with the idea that Gaff represents Fate), to a well thought out plot that concentrates on a simple question, one which has occasionally bothered myself, as long time readers know.
And that is the question of the status of artificially created sentient creatures.
The Tyrell Corporation is responsible for the creation of replicants, “meat robots” who are created fully grown and appear to be humans. However, they are physically more powerful than their creators, and their training can range from agricultural skills to armed conflict. When the scientists realize that the emotional nature of their creations become unpredictable after several years of existence, resulting in malfunctions such as mutiny, they install a self-destruct mechanism which activates after four years. The “units” drop dead.
Is this the soft sell or the hard sell?
They have been banned from Earth, regardless of the self-destruct; Blade Runners are Earth cops specialized in hunting and killing retiring illegal replicants. Now four replicants have arrived from off-world, all military models, and former Blade Runner Rick Deckard is forcibly recruited back into the police force to find and retire them. He left the force because the job bothered him, but in his investigations he discovers a new innovation by Tyrell Corp – the ability to insert memories into replicants such that the replicants do not realize their very nature.
This brings up questions of integrity, doesn’t it?
Blade Runner posits the creation of replicants as human beings with no timeline, no period of growing up, burdened with a short life time – and the same human lust for life, family, and belonging that we all have. Then it plays out the consequences, including an ending where Deckard could have easily been killed, but is spared by the last of the replicants, who realizes that his love of life also means that it shouldn’t be taken witlessly. The question is implicit in the material: does the ability to create sentient entities imply the ability to force order on those sentient entities’ lives?
For all the imaginative special effects, wonderfully realized backgrounds, and characters that integrate seamlessly into this future Los Angeles, the thematic material is the driver of this story, the reason for Deckard’s quiet revolt against the social order, and perhaps even the background reason that this future is so dystopic. In my mind, it triumphs over the occasional rough edge and the one or two odd scenes (I watched my copy of the Director’s Cut).
Strongly Recommended.
