Blade Runner

Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner may be the most overanalyzed film on college campuses. No surprise here considering modern academia’s obsession with postmodernism. These theories reflect a soulless society that is only able to reflect and unable to innovate. These postmodernists are content with the end of culture and essentially civilization. They are also the same scholars that have a fetish for Marxism and Globalization. But when you mix men in a blender you get quite a mess.

Blade Runner does successfully attempt to reflect the future of the world. The environment is shit, the majority of people look like they sleep in a dumpster, third world immigrants flood the streets, and people like Harrison Ford are cops. This is a much scarier world than any apocalyptic film George A. Romero would make. The future looks bleak for man.

Harrison Ford is in his most suited role as a unemotional asshole cop. Aside from Vince Vaughn, Ford is my most hated actor. The fact that he mainly plays the “good guy” in films reflects the true evils of Hollywood. The manmade “Aryan” replicant(played by Dutchman Rutger Hauer) has much more human in him than Ford probably does in real life. Of course, “more human than human” is one of the main themes of Blade Runner. It makes you wonder if ideologist protesters are already planning ahead for replicant rights.

Blade Runner is another one of the great Neo-Noirs(Polanski’s Chinatown being my personal favorite). But how good do Neo-Noirs get? Probably not as good as the German expressionist films that inspired the original Film Noir’s before it. Could Blade Runner ever compare to Fritz Lang’s M? It probably doesn’t matter seeing as most of the old masterpieces are getting buried under horrible hacks like Richard Linklater and his existentialist garbage.

A couple things were changed when Blade Runner was adapted for the screen(from Philip K. Dick‘s Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?). The original name of the Tyrell corporation was the Semitic Rosen. I have read various articles on Blade Runner trying to parallel the film to American slavery, Nazis, and other mean stuff. I even read one essay on the film that compared the scientist who invented replicants to SS scientist Josef Mengele. Well lets take a look at Blade Runner from a more simple and realistic perspective. The world is shit in Blade Runner because of internationalism(Bolshevism or Globalization, same shit different piles) and the evil corporation is called “Rosen.” I don’t think Philip K. Dick was a fan of Marxist schools of thought. The Rosen corporation name change happened for obvious reasons. The film that postmodernists hold so dear to their hearts was most likely written by Philip K. Dick in complete contempt. Most of these “scholars” can’t get passed fundamentally flawed contemporary schools of thought. They claim to be thinking “outside” the box when they aren't even aware it exists.

Blade Runner’s best asset is its costume and set design. The film is a fairly aesthetically pleasing experience. Dwarf robots with Kaiser helmets can also be quite interesting. Like most of Ridley’s Scott’s films, visuals seem to be his main focus. Of course this is his insurance that people will see his films. People need to be impressed by cool looking stuff. I was. I just wish I could steal some of inventor J.F. Sebastian’s toys.

The femme fatales of Neo-Noir Blade Runner aren’t typical of past she-devils. The most vicious of the femme bots is killed within minutes of being on screen. She was also the only one to bare her body(and not at all worth seeing). I guess Ridley Scott would have been considered misogynistic if he had created the standard femme fatale. The femme fatales in Blade Runner are more cutesy than dangerous. Ridley Scott is one dangerous cinema convention breaker!

Over the years Blade Runner has become more and more recognized as a masterpiece. I would agree with this to some extent. I find myself going back to it at least once a year. Its beautiful film to watch. I just wouldn’t get too wrapped up in trying to analyze it for a deeper meaning. Hollywood isn’t interested.

-Ty E