Don't get me wrong, Blade Runner is an incredible movie. The detail work alone is superb and the acting is top notch. And you can watch it five times in a row if you have the Final Cut complete DVD or Blu-Ray set. It's also complete nonsense. Good nonsense, but utter fantasy.
Now, I'm not talking about the "flying cars" or the incredible zoom in technology that allows Deckard to read a newspaper in a photograph from across the room, then zoom in even more into a mirror in the next room and get any details from what must be 50 feet or more... in a polaroid. Those are movie conventions. No, the real nonsense is in the story itself.
1) Why the hell would anyone make fake humans that are undetectable from real ones? And if you can make fake humans, what kind of idiotic system allows them to be used as slaves? If you want combat units, make combat lifeforms. If you want labor units, make labor lifeforms. Don't make them things people can look at and see themselves. The only ones that make any sense at all are the sex units and the infiltration units. But then, you've got an expensive item, why the hell would you make it breakdown after 4 years? 20 years, sure, but 4 is blithering.
2) okay, lets assume we've thrown logic out the window and built fake humans that look just like real ones... why the hell would you not make a simple genetic test or blood test than would let you know its a fake. First of all, you wouldn't want them to be genetically compatible with real humans and you wouldn't want them breeding at all, because then people wouldn't buy new ones. So yeah, makes much more sense to give police officers "shoot to kill" orders and make them do time consuming and potentially fallible psy-testing than just put some simple tags in the replicant's blood and give them a brand in the middle of their forehead.
3) if you can program the replicants with real memories so that even they don't know they're replicants, why don't you just program them to be content with their lives. See, thats what everyone forgets; unhappy emotions come from being unhappy. If you make a robot to be a slave, make it happy with you order it around and even happier when you tell it you're replacing it with a newer model. It's all about perspective.
4) okay, enough about replicants and how stupid the whole system is. How about the complete lunacy of the trio of Chew, Sebastian, and Tyrell. Chew makes the eyes, for the replicants, but he's clearly not doing so well financially, considering his shop is in a slum. Sebastian, who's apparently one of Tyrell's top people, considering he's friends with the big boss, lives in a building so run down it's actively falling apart. Meanwhile, the Tyrell Corporation owns two gigantic arcology style buildings... why the hell don't senior Tyrell genetic engineers warrant better digs? Why the hell don't they have bodyguards to protect them from people who might want to deprive Tyrell Corp of key figures?
5) And last, but not least, how can anyone doubt Rachel is a Replicant? She's more prim and proper than a catholic girl's school teacher. She has no, none, zero human reactions. She handles the testing with absolute calm. She handles finding out she's a replicant with about as much emotion as I show when refueling my car. Where are the stages of grief? Where is the outrage? I'm not faulting the actress or director, but she's more robotic than Robin Williams in Bicentennial Man.
6) okay, I lied. Gaff (played by the fabulous Edward James Olmos) is easily the creepiest person in the entire film. What the hell is up with him? Why does no one ever ask if he's a Replicant? And speaking of humans who might be a Replicant... Sure, I think Dekard is one, but I can't for the life of me figure out why he would be one. What's the point? Are all Blade Runners secretly Replicants? If not, why this one? If so, why?
Oh never mind. I have to watch the Final Cut now and see how it's different from the Director's Cut and the Original Theatrical Cut.
Saturday, September 8, 2012
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