Blade Runner

I watched Blade Runner as a child but I still remeber the scene on the roof top.It was a very complex movie brnded as science fiction..it was musing on what it means to be human and how important are memories.

Are we our memories as Roy muses sitting in the rain baout to die;The story suggests that a person is nothing more than the sum total of their memories, but also poses the question – if that is right where does that leave us when our memories can no longer be trusted.

Bladerunner is not a pleasing film. Visually it is stunning and at the same time frightening. Unlike Stanley Kubick’s, ‘ Space Odyssey 2001 ‘ with it’s pristine images, Bladerunner sets out to shock. It paints a picture of a world where the sun never shines, where it rains incessantly. The crowded streets are narrow and filthy. People rush by dressed in weird attire. The images are magnificent yet decadent. There is a feeling of eeriness and the atmosphere is thick with expectancy. Each frame is like an abstract painting. When viewed, it says different things to different people.

It is one of the most literate science fiction films, both thematically — enfolding the moral philosophy and philosophy of mind implications of the increasing human mastery of genetic engineering, within the context of classical Greek drama and its notions of hubris — and linguistically, drawing on the poetry of William Blake and the Bible.

There is a subtext of Christian allegory in Blade Runner, Bladerunner is a parody. It revisits the past, mimics it and holds it up to ridicule. There are definitive religious and philosophical parallels and these are Milton’s Paradise Lost and humanity itself. It goes as far as to question God, mock Him and finally kill Him.particularly in regard to the Roy Batty character.

Given the replicants’ superhuman abilities, their identity as created beings (by Tyrell) and “fall from the heavens” (off-world) makes them analogous to fallen angels. In this context, Roy Batty shares similarities with Lucifer as he prefers to “reign in hell” (Earth) rather than “serve in heaven”.[7] This connection is also apparent when Roy deliberately misquotes William Blake, “Fiery the angels fell…” (Blake wrote “Fiery the angels rose…” in America, A Prophecy). Nearing the end of his life, Roy creates a stigmata by driving a nail into his hand, and becomes a Christ-like figure by sacrificing himself for Deckard. Upon his death a dove appears to symbolise Roy’s soul ascending into the heavens

Roy Batty represents Lucifer. Scott cast Rutger Hauer for the role, an actor possessed of not only physical prowess but startling good looks surmounted by almost platinum blond hair; then dresses him in black leather. This is the Morning Star of Milton’s poem. We are told that he is a replicant of “alpha-plus intelligence”, the finest example of Tyrell’s creativity; again a reference to Lucifer’s origins. Batty himself deliberately misquotes William Blake’s America: A Prophecy when he first confronts Chew. The Replicants, as Milton’s rebellious angels, descend from the ‘heaven’ of the off-world colonies to the hell of Los Angeles 2019.

Batty, as Milton’s Lucifer had, rebels against his God.

At the end of Blade Runner we have our protagonist sitting in the rain watching his antagonist die. Batty has, throughout the movie, achieved: he achieved his aim in getting to earth, he achieved his aim in confronting his god, he beat Deckard at every step of the ‘game’ through the Bradbury building and finally he has achieved enlightenment and through it a peaceful death. And Deckard, our protagonist, understands this as he sits and watches while Batty, the better man, dies.