Blade Runner is a classic dystopian work, in which highly advanced technology dominates the world. Human beings have advanced to the level of creating humanoids with the capacity to think and operate as normal humans. The story is set in Los Angeles in 2019. At the time, the Tyrell Corporation clones humans to make replicants or humanoids, which are designed to help human beings colonize outer space (Scott). In case the replicants are run out of control, each one has a fixed lifespan of four years. Therefore, it becomes easy to tame all the rogue replicants given their short lifespan. However, the replicants have advanced to become more and more intelligent, thus gaining some kind of consciousness together with developing some sense of human emotion. Thus, they have the internal conflict of their identity and start to think about the meaning of their existence, like real human beings. In the quest to expand their lifetime, a group of Nexus-6 replicants escapes from the off-world colonies and go to Earth with the hope of finding their maker to change their predetermined death time. The story is happening under such circumstances. The main character Derek, a cop, is given a mission from his captain to catch those escaped replicants and “retire” or kill them. Throughout the film, replicants are tracking their creator, as Derek follows them retiring them one by one. When the replicants finally find their creator, the owner of the Tyrell Cooperation, Dr. Eldon Tyrell, only two replicants are alive, that is Roy and his lover, Pris. Roy pleads with Tyrell to have his lifespan extended, but he is told that time to die is preprogrammed and thus unchangeable. Roy becomes angry and then kills his creator. Derek constantly follows Pris and Roy in an attempt to accomplish his mission of killing them. Ultimately, he retires Pris in a building after a protracted duel given that she is highly trained in gymnastics. After learning about Pris’s death, Roy is angry and he plans to kill Derek. They fight in the rain and Derek is seriously beaten because Roy is designed for combat. However, in the final moment, when Derek is almost falling from the top of a building, Roy saves him. He (Roy) knees on the floor, commenting on his life by stating the famous monologue on “tears in the rain”. Roy’s lifespan is up and he dies the same night. At the end of the movie, Derek completes his task and falls in love with another replicant, Rachel.
The movie motivates our reflection on human nature, which is the reason why I recommend it. “What is the boundary between human beings and the replicants?” Replicants are created by humans to behave “more human than humans.” They embody timeless human value but ends on a note of complexity. The motivation to create a dystopian movie, such as Blade Runner can be found in the “Tears in the Rain” monologue by Roy. Once he saves Derek from falling from a building, which would have killed him instantly, Roy kneels down and deeply reflects on his life. In a monologue, he laments that he has seen things that human beings would not believe, but all those memories will be lost with time just like tears in rain. This section underscores the nature of human beings and the greatest mystery associated with death at the end of one’s life. Even though the replicant’s lifespans in the movie are set at 4 years, one of the issues that arise from this is whether the lifespan could be infinite. Just like Roy cries and laments that his thoughts would be lost like tears in the rain, humans are highly concerned with the fact that they would die and with time, they would be forgotten. As such, it suffices to argue that at the bottom of human hearts, one of the unquenched desires is the need to live eternally and do exploits on the earth and outer space. A pertinent question that arises at this point is whether during the creation of the humanoids their lifespan could be set in a way that it does not have an “expiry” date. If this were possible, then humanity would transform itself by ensuring that it lives forever. Roy’s “tears in the rain” monologue towards the end of the film is a reflection of the director’s reflections. It underscores humans’ silent wish for immortality. The humanoids’ only problem is that they have a lifespan – all other aspects are perfect in that they could survive in outer space and colonize other planets without the weaknesses that affect humans. Their bodies do not age like those of humans and yet, they have all other human attributes. They are compassionate, kind, forgiving, and can express all other human emotions. Therefore, the only thing that is remaining is for them to be designed in a way that they become immortals. Therefore, I recommend this movie because it highlights some of the pertinent issues affecting human beings – can we become immortal?
Work Cited
Scott, Ridley, director. Blade Runner. Warner Bros, 1982.