Film Review Of Blade Runner: Opinion Essay

Blade Runner was originally released in 1982, it is a movie with hybrid genre, which combines both film noir and science fiction. Hybridization in general is considered as a post-modern behavior, as we will see in details, Blade Runner is also introducing a hybrid architectural design of future Los Angeles in the year of 2019, which combines also lots of similarities with other major cities such as New York, Tokyo or Hong Kong. Ridley Scott presented a futuristic film, which is very often referred example as a postmodern film, which depicts the critical perception of capitalism on how it transfers humans into machines, which is depicted in the film as the androids who are called as replicants. Those replicants are manufactured and exploited by the Tyrell Corporation, which represents the bad aspect of capitalism and technology of the postmodern era. Being a film noir, we see in Blade Runner the classical use of city lights in such movie genre as being dark with little lights, with empty wet streets, which always gives the spectator kind of feeling of mystery and danger.

Blade Runner 2049, directed by Denis Villeneuve, and released in 2017. It is depicting Los Angeles in 2049 as a hyper-technological and overpopulated city. The film is also presenting the story of androids who are physically human yet stronger and smarter. As its story is provided three decades after Blade Runner, it contains lots of events as the continues story of the first film, however, it mainly adopts that the replicant industry is still there and even being improved. As the Wallace Company presents a new generation of artificial humans who are intended to be more obedient than the old ones.

In the very early scene of the Blade Runner movie, we see Los Angeles as dark city, with non-orderly layout of skyscrapers and many other features that does not look familiar as Los Angeles back on the 1980s, which also explains more about hybridization nature of postmodern films, which also means mixing styles from different periods and places. Throughout the film, we can see the aesthetics of a postmodern city so obvious in rejection of functionalism as well as the presence of ornamentation and decoration.

We can also notice Pastiche in the architectural features of the city which is clearly visible in the postmodernism and post-industrialism connection. It also merges dead styles as an attempt to make a recollection the history and the past, we can see this with the presence of Roman and Greek columns that provides retro mise-en-scene of the city, as well as the presence of some elements such as the Egyptian pyramids and the Chinese dragons, all of these, are intended to provide some hybridization though presenting a classical Oriental mythology along with high technology themes. However, Pastiche is not only present in the city architect, it is there also in the city speech which is composed of mixture from Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, English, and German etc. The crowds in the film can be described as being eclectic faceless people, who might be Oriental merchants or punks. The city here forms a typical postindustrial city that witness explosion of urbanization, high immigration rates -mainly from the third world countries to the first world-, also many futuristic high technology etc.

Moreover, we notice throughout the Blade Runner movie, the Cyber-punk era as a nature of the postmodern city which combines both the city of high technologies with the city of garbage, which is representing such a city as being a city in ruins, another aspect to represent the dark aspect of technology and manifestation of the process of disintegration. In the same entrance scene, as well throughout the film we are presented with a mysterious music that alerts the audience that she will watch something new and hyper-technological. The use of music was also significant when it comes to scenes that include some Asian or Middle Eastern actors or places, we see it occupied by oriental music in the background.

Being also a movie with hybrid genre of film noir and science fiction, Blade Runner 2049 also provides the same pattern of dystopian universe such as the first film. However the new movie provides more details about the lives of the lower classes and presents them as main characters as well. It also provides a main narrative about human-nature relationship, it is that humans will keep in destroying the environment and exploit its resources as much as they can. The excessive use of violence is still present, which is a manifestation of the Cyber-punk era which is still going on. The dystopian character of the actors is also present as in Blade Runner of 1982. However, one remarkable notice is that the sort of technology and equipment shown in Blade Runner 2049 seems more realistic and acceptable than the ones that existed in the first movie.

Both movies are intending to provide such an imaginary depiction about the oppressive nature of capitalism and how it is accompanied by revolts against such kind of exploitation done by the capitalist corporations. Although in Blade Runner 2049 it was sought to have a more pliable labor force but it was also faced by revolts of the exploited ones. This discourse being a postmodern one, can also be interpreted according to Karl Marx’s theory of the exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoisies. However, in both movies we see that those who are exploited might be associated with racial minorities, as especially quite clear in Blade Runner we can see that the Asians are always presented to be poor and exploited by the white capitalist masters.

Moreover, we can see in the first film more examples of hybridization as in ‘consumerism, waste, and recycling meet in fashion’, the presence of advertisements of brands such as Coca-Cola in many streets overlooking the city, and other advertisements addressing the rich to move into new neighborhoods which illustrates the nature of such cities in which the ‘indigenous bourgeoisie moves to the suburbs and the immigrants are crowding the city’.