Blade Runner

Blade Runner is a really silly movie now that I look back at it. I mean, I really do like it. I really like Phillip Dick novels. He writes well. But there are just so many silly things that now detract from the film (though at the time they may have enhanced it), like hover cars. Hover cars are the one thing I cannot forgive a film set in the not so distant future for having. What are they expecting, the world to create some powerful anti-gravity machine that cars can use? Or to have much less learn how to use properly enough fuel to keep a car in flight for long periods of time? Honestly. The glow stick umbrellas make more sense.

But what I find most interesting is how Ridley Scott leaves it ambiguous as to whether or not Harrison Ford is a Replicant. I don’t know if it actually would have any impact on the movie if he was or wasn’t. Rather, I think the doubt that exists when you carefully watch the movie is the most useful thing. It makes clear a point about AI, that once perfected those machines really will be able to walk among us unnoticed.

At the same time, what didn’t jive so well with me was the notion of “retiring.” I really like the inclusion of it as a concept, though. To me, it feels like a commentary on our semantic differences and how they make certain things more acceptable. For example, you don’t take an animal to the vet to be killed, rather put down. You don’t eat cow, you eat beef. It continues on. This to me was quite interesting, because it posits the same possibility within cyborgs and emerging technology. To be seen as apart not for any logical reason but simply because of the label.