The film brings these questions to light in a bleak LA of 2019, but reminds one of the overcrowded cities of China with its decay and endless garbage. Based on Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep the film follows Deckard, a retired law enforcement officer who must track down replicants (human-like androids). He meets and falls in love with another replicant named Rachael while visiting the Tyrell Corporation. The renegade replicants are seeking information that will extend their short four year lifespans. Deckard hunts down and eliminates the replicants except Roy who dies naturally while fighting Deckard. Rachael and Deckard then run off together.
Since the replicants look and act exactly like humans, they can only be exposed by a variety of questions that seem to focus on empathy. Apparently the replicants show less empathy than humans, although as depicted in the film this seems reversed in most of the human characters. Even the violent Roy displays some compassion at the end of the film, while most of the humans are robotic and unfeeling. The replicants even have memories implanted to make them as the Tyrell Corporation's motto states "more human than human". With all the similarities between humans and replicants how do we know we are human, and what exactly does this mean? If our memories cannot be trusted, how can we trust anything? The French philosopher Rene Descartes (1596-1650) investigated this same problem and came to the conclusion that everything can be doubted except the fact that he is thinking. Since we are thinking - at least those reading this - do we exist? Can we really trust our memories though? What if they were programmed in like the replicants? What if we hit our head and we lose them? If memories cannot be trusted, can anything ever truly be certain. What are memories? Electrical implants? Don't memories change over time? Doesn't everything?
The philosophical issues that this film highlights are deep and worth investigating. As you will see there are many other films that touch on these same issues.
Class Discussion Questions
1) What if there wasn't a test to expose the replicants - would that mean the replicants are human?
2) Rachael and Deckard express love for each other despite the fact that they are replicants, since they show love how are they not human?
3) Replicants are so human-like that it seems wrong to use them as forced labor. What would need to be different about the replicants to allow us to use them for forced labor?
4) Is there anything that you know that is an absolute certainty? How so? Explain
5) How is Blade Runner a dystopia?
6) What are the parallels between Blade Runner and Metropolis?
7) Describe the similarities with German Expressionism
No comments:
Post a Comment