Reaction paper: Blade Runner Director's Cut

Hayashi, Daiki

STS THX 

CAS(UPLB) 2012-98083

The future society people imagined

Blade Runner was firstly released in 1982 and the Directors’ cut was released after 10 years. The stage in this film is a future world in 2019 where a lot of human have moved out from the earth. People have developed an android called replicants, which has emotion just like a human. Replicants were used as slaves of humans and set up their longevity only for four years just for the convenience for humans. They were input artificial memories and believe themselves as humans. However, some of them who had high intelligence as the ones who created them recognized themselves as replicantsand came to the earth to take against their fate.

               The society in 2019 which people imagined thirty years ago is very interesting. Main casts such as the main character, the designer of replicants, and the creator of replicants are Westerners. However, most of people who were in the town were Japanese and Chinese people. Signboards and graffiti in the city were written in Japanese and Chinese characters. It is probably because, in 1980’s, when the film was taken, Japan was at its peak of rapid economic growth. Therefore, the director probably thought the future society would be Asian-oriented. Or it might be because Americans that have been more developed and dominant in terms technologies and power relations could leave the earth which is polluted too much and Asians were left in on the earth.

               Even after I watched the film, there was something I cannot stop thinking about the movie. It did not end straightforwardly. There was something deep which makes me think. As the clone technologies on humans are being controversial, there is always ethical issue of the development of technologies. If humans are the ones who created replicants, does it mean we have a right to use them as slaves even though they have same emotions with us? If it was a simple movie which the main character just kill replicants, it would not be this famous. There was neither absolute good nor bad in this film that is why it shocked audiences and became a master piece of science fiction movie.