Wednesday, October 11, 2017

Blade Runner, Two Films, One Destiny

The classic 1982 original film Blade Runner is the pivotal neo noir, detective story meets cyber punk dramatic adventure film. Set in a dingy grey future of constant rain and grime, where a Los Angeles walled from the sea boils in some sort of post apocalypse, Deckard the blade runner cop, is tracking replicants, robotic androids that look human, but have gone rogue. The premise of the first film is a detective story, similar to the film noir genre, dark film, where the society has turned dingy and dark, and the lines between morality and destruction are blurred. The nature of humanity is explored a little, from the vantage of the search for the criminals, and their gang proves to be a match for the hero. The complexity of the main villain is a scene chewing great actor, who is really enjoying his voice. Deckard falls for one of the andorids, Rachel, but the villain is still out there. Once stopped, he returns to his apartment and they have sex, but it seems kind of forced. The movie ends with the chief leaving them a present to let them know he was there, but let them go.

Later versions made him a replicant also, but this was not canon.

The updated 2017 version takes place in the same universe, 35 years later, where some of the replicants have become citizens, and even one called Kay is a blade runner. He discovers that there is a burial box of bones after a hit at a dusty site, but when he brings it back, they look at it and discover it is a woman who died in childbirth, and a replicant, which was siad to be impossible. Then  the chief lady doesn't want him following the case. He does anyway. He has a virutal girlfriend but gives her a mobile emitter. He goes on a quest to the new android plant and meets a scene chewing blind master who had a Jesus complex, and is even sadistically killing his replicants. Then he visits a girl who is encased in a virtual room, who leads him to the orphanage where he might have been raised. The story is more complex than the first, but has long stretches of searching, actual detective work, and future spy stuff. It is an improvement on the first, and expands the world. Spoilers. The body is that of Rachel, leading the detective to Deckard hiding in bombed out Las Vegas.

Deckhard could still be a replicant, or not.

He could still be related, or not.

It doesn't matter that there are 9 off world colonies and where they are.

The wall in both films refers to the wall blocking out the rising sea levels, not to some political riff on a current administration.

The story seems not to answer about environmental collapse, but doesn't have to.

Both are important films.

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