Blade Runner: Difference between revisions
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''Blade Runner'' is a [[Genre Busting|genre-bending]] 1982 [[Science Fiction]] film that borrows stylistic elements from [[Film Noir]] and [[Hardboiled Detective]] fiction. Set in a [[Dystopia|dystopian]] [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future|near-future]] [[City Noir]] version of Los Angeles, it established much of the tone and flavor of the [[Cyberpunk]] movement and the film style of [[The Future Is Noir|Tech Noir]]. It is a highly intelligent film, [[Visual Effects of Awesome|visually stunning]] and features a seriously great script. The definitive high-def/BluRay [[Directors Cut]] came out in 2007.
Deckard is a Blade Runner. His job is to [[Deadly Euphemism|"retire"]] renegade [[Artificial Human|Replicants]] -- rogue androids that are not supposed to be on Earth. Some of the most advanced
''Blade Runner'' was loosely based on the [[Philip K. Dick]] novel ''[[Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep]]'' The title itself comes from the novel ''The Bladerunner'' by Alan E. Nourse<ref>though in a roundabout fashion; the writer Hampton Fascher, took it from a [[William S. Burroughs]] adaptation Blade_Runner_(a_movie) which was originally meant to be a treatment of Nourse's novel but became its own novella</ref>. Other than the title, the movie has nothing to do with ''The Bladerunner''. It just [[Rule of Cool|sounded cool]].
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=== ''Blade Runner'' provides examples of the following: ===
* [[Adaptation Distillation]]: [[Philip K. Dick]] loved the visual imagery of those parts of the film he saw. He said they resonated deeply with his imagined future. But he is also on record as saying [[Ridley Scott]] inverted the meaning of the
** In an interview, Rutger Hauer revealed that he had been a fan of the book long before the movie, and preferred to think of film Deckard as a sap who was [[Robosexual|pining over a vibrator]].
* [[Adult Child]]: While the Replicants are adults both physically and mentally, they're still very childlike in their emotions, be it Pris's very whimsical behavior or Roy basically having a temper tantrum {{spoiler|when meeting Tyrell and becoming a [[Self-Made Orphan]]}}.
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* [[Anti-Hero]]: Deckard. Depending on your interpretation of the movie, it is positively unnerving to have a state-sponsored killer of escaped slaves as the protagonist, quite unremarked, anvils undropped.
** Or he is [[Averted Trope|simply a guy]] recycling machines that go haywire and kill people.
** Probably [[Sliding Scale of Anti-Heroes|Type IV]]. Deckard's job of retiring
* [[Anti-Villain]]: Roy Batty. Created as a slave-soldier with a short expiration date, his only goal for himself and his fellow
** But even putting aside the crew he killed during his original escape, he does {{spoiler|crush an unarmed man's head open with his bare hands, and kill Sebastian,}} a man who'd sheltered and helped him.
** A blend of [[Sliding Scale of Anti-Villains|Types II and III]], with shades of IV. Roy is a [[Woobie]] with a cause he's fighting for, but also commits several acts of violence that serve no greater purpose or necessity than his own urges. <!-- DEFINITELY NOT A FULL IV! Direct quote from the sliding scale page: "Basically, these guys are NEVER actively malevolent". -->
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* [[Badass Longcoat]]: Deckard and Batty.
* [[Barrier-Busting Blow]]: Batty punches through a rotting wall during their final encounter.
* [[Bigger Bad]]: The [[Mega Corp|Tyrell Corporation]] is responsible for the creation of the
* [[Bilingual Bonus]]: Gaff's multilingual Cityspeak, which is a mishmash of various languages including Spanish, Japanese and Hungarian. Lófasz! Nehogy már!
** The first thing he says to Deckard translates to "You are the [[Title Drop|Blade Runner!]]"
* [[Bilingual Dialogue]]
* [[Bittersweet Ending]]: The director's and final cut end with Deckard realizing that the four years expiration date ''does'' apply to Rachael, and he {{spoiler|- possibly being a
* [[Blown Across the Room]]: Holden in the scene at the beginning of the film in which he interrogates Leon.
** In fact, he gets blown ''clean through the goddamn wall''. Do NOT ask Leon about his mother.
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* [[Deadly Euphemism]]: "Retire" for kill.
* [[Defective Detective]]: Deckard. Not only is he plagued with self-loathing and doubt, he becomes increasingly unsure that his role as Blade Runner is ethical, and eventually {{spoiler|becomes a fugitive with Rachael}}.
* [[Designated Hero]]: Invoked in this case. The
* [[Digital Head Swap]]: The original version had a shot during Zhora's death where it was obvious that a stunt double was standing in for the actress. For the 2007 [[Re Cut|Final Cut]], actress Joanna Cassidy's face was digitally superimposed over that of the stunt double.
* [[Disturbed Doves]]: In the Bradbury Building, where the final confrontation takes place.
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* [[Face Death with Dignity]]: What Roy finally does in the end.
{{quote| '''Roy Batty''': "All those moments will be lost in time... like tears... in rain. Time to die."}}
* [[Failure Is the Only Option]] {{spoiler|The
* [[Famous Last Words]]: Roy Batty's famous lines, "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams... glitter in the dark near the [[Tannhauser Gate]]. All these moments will be lost in time ... like tears ... in rain. Time to die."
** Made all the more awesome by the fact that "like tears in rain" was ad-libbed by Rutger Hauer.
* [[Fantastic Aesop]]: The movie seems to be trying to use the
* [[Fantastic Noir]]
* [[Fantastic Racism]]: The sexually-charged racial-slur "skin-job" says a ''lot'' about how a person who uses it thinks of
{{quote| '''Deckard:''' ''"Skin job", that's what he calls them. Historically he's the kind of cop who calls black men niggers."''}}
* [[Fauxlosophic Narration]]: The narration in the theatrical cut is kind of dreadful, and veers straight into this at the end of the film.
* [[Feather Boa Constrictor]]: Zhora wears a
* [[Final Speech]]: Delivered famously by Roy.
* [[Five Stages of Grief]]: Roy appears to go through them all except for denial.
** Anger: "Fiery the angels fell; deep thunder rolled around their shores; burning with the fires of Orc!"
** Bargaining: His attempt to extract a longer life span from his own creator.
** Depression: When he
** Acceptance: His famous dying speech expresses only regret that the things he knows will become lost forever.
** Rachael goes through a similar process, only we also get to see her early Denial stage, which we can assume happened to Roy and the others off-screen before the start of the story.
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* [[The Future Is Noir]]: ''Blade Runner'' practically invented a genre by mixing [[Film Noir]] aesthetics and [[Cyberpunk]] themes.
* [[Gaia's Lament]]: Earth is an ecological disaster, with an irradiated atmosphere, and very little natural life left.
** Indeed, aside from making human slave
* [[Gainax Ending]]: In the [[Directors Cut]]. Although there's a general (and movie-changing) implication, the details are unclear, at best. What was up with that {{spoiler|unicorn}}? <ref>Don't try to explain it here, people -- take it to the Wild Mass Guessing page instead. It's open to interpretation.</ref>
* [[Glamour Failure]]: Can be forced by using the Voight-Kampff test to detect them, which monitors answers and subtle physical response to emotional questions. Otherwise
* [[Gorn]]: {{spoiler|Tyrell's}} death, in the International and Final cuts.
* [[Gray and Gray Morality]]: The story is rife with this. Roy Batty [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] Deckard's proclivity for shooting unarmed people in the back.
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* [[Non-Indicative Name]]: There is nary a blade to be found in this movie. The term "blade runner" comes from ''The Blade Runner'', a completely unrelated dystopian novel in which the term refers to someone who sells black-market medical supplies. [[Ridley Scott]] bought the rights to the novel so that he could use the term in his film for no other reason than that it [[Rule of Cool|sounds cool]]. Also, given a certain [[Follow the Leader|thematic similarity]] to an earlier dystopian sci-fi film, it was just clever marketing to use a title with the word "[[Logan's Run|runner]]" in it.
* [[Nothing Is Scarier]]: The final confrontation between Deckard and Roy.
* [[One Last Job]]: Retiring the escaped group of
* [[Orwellian Retcon]]: Originally, Scott, Ford, and the writers agreed that Deckard was human. When Scott made the [[Directors Cut]] in 1992, he had [[Shrug of God|changed his mind]], and he inserted a [[Dream Sequence|two-second-long clip of a unicorn]] to change Deckard's nature in the movie.
* [[Popcultural Osmosis]]: ''Blade Runner'' was highly influential on [[Cyberpunk]] and [[Post Cyber Punk]] fiction. It is such a poster child for popcultural osmosis that the imagery in the film is sometimes familiar to people who've never even seen it.
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** Tsingtao is another brand name mentioned that survived the alleged curse, though the bottle Deckard buys after killing Zhora [[In Name Only|more resembles Gin or Vodka]] than the real world Chinese Lager.
* [[Punch Clock Hero]]: Deckard.
* [[Redemption Equals Death]]: {{spoiler|Roy Batty}}, rescuing and sparing Deckard's life just before his death. And {{spoiler|Deckard}} himself: if he is a replicant, he will die very soon "paying" for the {{spoiler|
* [[Riddle for the Ages]]: [[Philip K. Dick]]'s characters don't always know what's real and what's not real. There's not supposed to be a "right answer." Filmmakers are most faithful to the source material when they leave the ambiguities in, whether intentionally or not. [[Ridley Scott]] chose to disregard this advice.
* [[Ridiculous Future Inflation]]: Deckard has to pay a fairly infuriating price for a 30-second [[Video Phone|vidphone]] call.
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* [[Shown Their Work]]: A serendipitous example: When Batty and Tyrell are arguing about how to prolong a Replicant's lifespan, Batty mentions something called "EMS". Tyrell says they already tried "Ethyl methanesulfonate" unsuccessfully. Ethyl methanesulfonate ''is'' an actual organic compound with mutagenic qualities, used in genetics.
* [[Slap Slap Kiss]]: Rachael and Deckard don't actually hit each other, but Deckard is very rough and dominating with her before they fall into each others' arms.
* [[Smart People Play Chess]]: Tyrell and Sebastian regularly play chess. The
* [[Smug Snake]]: Gaff. So very much. Possibly Holden, too.
* [[Snakes Are Sexy]]: "Ladies and gentlemen... Taffey Lewis presents... Miss Salome and the snake. Watch her take the pleasures from the serpent... that once corrupted man."
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* [[Trashcan Bonfire]]: Sometimes visible in the mean streets where Deckard works.
* [[Trickster Mentor]]: Gaff, in the Westwood Studio's [[Video Game]].
* [[Turned Against Their Masters]]: The
* [[Ubermensch]]: Roy Batty was intentionally created to be one, with a genius-level intellect. He naturally becomes the leader of the escaped
* [[Ugly Hero, Good-Looking Villain]]: The final showdown. Compare the grimy, grizzled, blood-smeared form of Deckard to the nearly naked, nearly flawless body of Roy Batty. May or may not be an inversion and/or subversion depending on who you regard to be the hero and villain of the piece. During the '80s Harrison Ford was well-known for getting his ass kicked on camera really well.
* [[Used Future]]
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