Jeffrey Crist
Film 301/319
Am. Sci-Fi
Visual Essay 1
Shared Unanswered Questions
The Film I have chosen for my first visual essay is Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982, USA, Hong Kong). Starring Harrison Ford, this film introduces such genres as dark science fiction, and futuristic thriller. After watching the film (for the first time) you notice questions being brought up between what makes something real and viable, if there are no visible differences to begin with? Blade Runner explores these questions through ideas of replicate-humans, and their ability to exist, act and even acquire emotions.
Science Fiction films produced at this time have finally began to perfect special effects, most obviously due to George Lucas’s series of Star Wars films in the 70s. The very fact that this film is in the future gives the reader an obvious sense of a science fiction film. But it is the plot that separates it from other of its time. Over-populated cities and replications of humans create this feeling along with questions of life and if there is a difference in humans and androids when emotions and mortality exist in both. Other films around this time include E.T. (Steven Spielberg, 1982, USA), and Back to the Future (Robert Zemeckis, 1985, USA). This gives you a better feel for exactly what kind of filmography is expected form the film and the enhancement of visual effects. This more realistic feel to movies allows the reader to attempt to understand what is and is not real.
“The report would be routine retirement of a replicate, which didn’t make me feel any better about shooting a woman in the back. There it was again, feeling in myself, for her, for Rachel.” This was said as Rick Deckard’s (Harrison Ford) narrative after shooting his first target replicate. Rachel also being a replicate creates distortion for Deckard, as he does not understand how he can have feelings for something that was made, especially when he as a Blade Runner was not to show emotion. Deckard struggles with these emotions, drinking when he can as he tries to grasp how these new replicates can have and even create their own emotions. Later in the film the replicate named Pris states to one of the genetic designers, “I think Sebastian, therefore I am.” This is a term that most of us are already familiar with, and hearing from someone/something that’s was created and not born really plays with the reader, as it is difficult base a reply voiding that quote.
The real questions within the plot arise when the replicates understand that they too only have a certain amount of time to live, as they were created that way. Ray the leader of the replicates wants to increase his longevity by finding his creator and getting an answer to his questions. In the end there is no answer for him, and this is where replicates and humans share the same questions. “All he wanted were the same answers the rest of us want, where do I come from? Where am I going? How long have I got?” Again this was in the narrative form during the terminal stages of Ray’s life after saving Deckard. Is simply knowing that they are replicates enough to consider them void? It’s hard to know. They had emotions, they were physically able to be involved with their surrounding, and they too were not made to understand all these philosophical questions of life.
