Blade Runner

I find it interesting how the major theme in Blade Runner is about not defining the other and not accepting notions inherently given to you, and how that is reflected contextually.  There is a definite bias felt against the replicants by the humans.  They are seen as inferior because they are perceived to be lacking in genuine emotional depth.  So they are treated like slaves, and dealt with with pretty severe animosity by most everyone.  It seems that because it was decided that it was a bad idea to have replicants among the humans in society, comprehension of these robots is never even thought of to be a valid endeavor.  The humans, essentially the creators, hold an attitude wherein they know anything and everything about their creations.  This turns out not to be the case at all.  The preconceived notion that these replicants lack empathy and emotion turns out to be false.  And although this is an established theme in the film, its interesting contextually how the humans are not even fully aware of their creations.  Having said this, I realize that not everyone in society could know this, and aside from their actual creator it is hard to fully comprehend, however, if you (society) are going to take such a stance of superiority against  (and in contrast with) beings other than you, then there absolutely should be an effort to make up your own mind about those whom you are treating so poorly.  Especially since the whole notion of superiority could go hand-in-hand with a sense of ownership and creator-ship.  I guess I'm now just playing into the already-established theme but my point is this: It's interesting how we as humans could create something without realizing the full potential of it.  We assume as if we have complete and utter control of our creations, and this movie challenges that.

Blade Runner: Are Androids Worthy of Symapthy?

Blade Runner utilizes the setting of a complex, futuristic world to pose an age-old question in a fresh way: are ‘we’ different from ‘the other’? In the end, the audience (hopefully) comes to realize that the differences between the humans and the Nexus 6’s are in fact, a falsified construct of man. The humans are often seen as heartless, and in a few select scenes the humanity of the androids comes to light—predominantly in the scenes with Rachel, but also Batty’s highly poetic death. However, the issue with the film, I feel, is in the portrayal of the four rogue Nexus 6’s. We, the audience, are to believe that these androids deserve to live because they are equal to humans. Herein lies the source of my one problem with the film—as hard as I tried, I couldn’t feel a strong sense of empathy for the four main Nexus 6’s—not because they are ‘other’ to humans or because they are artificial beings, but because none of them were rich with redeemable values. The androids run an exact parallel to humans in in that they are manipulative, militant, and have no qualms using others as a means to an end. The exception here is Rachel, but without the imposition of the Blade Runner task force, she would have gone on ignorant and unharmed for some time. I feel that the sentiment of Blade Runner would have been better received if the androids were likeable, or at the very least not manipulative, murderous cads. Should the unfair treatment of the Nexus 6’s as a class exonerate these four androids of their crimes—crimes for which any human would receive like punishment?  To what extent should they be sympathized with?

-Annie Nowak

Blade Runner

Prior to watching the film in class, I had already seen Blade Runner once before. Though I thought it was equally weird with some bad acting the second time around, I enjoyed the over all concept. The whole deal with the replicant Rachel being an experimental replicant, giving her memories, opens up a door to asking ourselves the question of what's actually real? Did that really happen? Am I really here? Now, I hate philosophy, and would rather just accept everything at face value for what it is, then try to ponder about "the meaning of life" and all these questions that can't truly be answered. However, I felt that the movie did an interesting job of showing how regardless of whether or not something or someone is "actually" real, no other person or thing is able to really judge and define what qualifies as real.

Kate Hinnant

Blade Runner

Blade Runner was quite an interesting film. I actually really enjoyed it, especially considering that sci-fi is not exactly my favorite movie genre. However, the fact that there was a deeper meaning behind all the "high-tech" futuristic technology really caught my attention. I love how the film ultimately conveyed the question: what does it really mean to be human? No one person, race, culture can specifically define what it means to be human. If you ask a number of people what they believe being human means, you would probably get a variety of answers such as humans have feelings, their own ideas, a conscious, and so on and so forth. Yet, the fact that these answers are going to vary from person to person shows that beauty of being human which is individuality. Sure we all may have similar aspects, but we are all different in personality, expression, and emotion. So although these replicants were designed by "humans" the film showed that they were able to form feelings and emotions. An example of these emotions seen in the replicants would be when Rachael begins to cry after realizing that she is a replicant, when Batty mourns the death of Pris and saves Deckard from falling off the roof, and even when Deckard runs away with Rachael because they have fallen in love. Overall, I really enjoyed the film and I think it even instilled a little bit of the idiom: "Don't judge a book by its cover."

Blade Runner and the Problem of Other Minds

The problem of other minds has haunted philosophers for centuries and Blade Runner elucidates the plague of this problem that is, how we can prove or disprove whether a person other than ourselves is a thinking thing, namely a human, or a machine, i.e. a Replicant. A machine is introduced as being capable of measuring responses to questions in such a way that points out a Replicant. The ambiguity of the line between human and machine raises the issue of what exactly makes us human. Such examples of humanity might be self-awareness, rationality, emotional habits, and consciousness. In the movie, however, the Replicants seem to display all of these examples; they are aware of themselves and of their expiration and thus search for someone to reprogram their lifespan. What is more human than recognition of the inevitability of death and fear of mortality? Leon also shows emotional responses to the other Replicants from his generation that have been retired. It could be said that this film accepts that Replicants are thinking things under the requirements of the Turing Test, which states that if a computer can mimic a human such that a ‘judge’ cannot tell the difference between a human and a computer than the computer can be considered as thinking. It would seem that the Replicants in the movie might possibly pass this test.

Blade Runner

Blade Runner was a very confusing and interesting movie for me.  I found it hard at times to follow the plot at  times.  It confused me when Deckard fell asleep and dreamed of the unicorn.  He woke up amazed and confused and went on without thinking on it.  Throughout the movie I was stuck on trying to figure out what the unicorn could possibly mean.  At first I thought it was a representation of something he could not accept to be real like replicants being equal.  Then I thought it might have been a memory of some genetically altered animal and he would reference it later.  Nevertheless, it turned out to be neither.  It took me a second at the end to figure out the hint that Deckard was a replicant.  The figurine of the unicorn and his dream finally connected after all the lights turned on in the room.  The movie intrigue me in every way and captivated me right until the end.

Blade Runner

I really enjoyed Blade Runner! I am an incredibly detail oriented person though and one thing that really bothered me the whole time was the number of replicants that Deckard was supposed to be after. At the beginning of the film, it is explained that 6 replicants escaped initially. One was killed when trying to break into Tyrell Corporation, then eventually Zhora, Leon, Pris, and Roy were killed. Who was the 6th one that was supposed to be with them. They later find out about Rachael being a replicant, but she would technically be the 7th replicant involved in the film, not one of the original ones that escaped and came to earth illegally. Other than that, I feel as though this film was much more thoughtful and poignant than I thought it would be coming into it. There was a great deal of blurring the lines in terms of what it mean to be human, and I think that overall, that was the director's main intention. He wanted to beg the question to the audience as to whether being physically human was enough to make you truly human. As many have been pointing out, it almost seems as though the replicants were the most humane and compassionate in the film and it was the humans that were terrorizing the world in which they lived.