Problem Of Humanity In A Sci-fi Film Blade Runner

Blade Runner is a sci-fi film in which society has withered into a bleak and dystopian world filled with a labyrinth of weaving streets that intertwine between dilapidated skyscrapers and towering buildings. The dark and rainy citadel is lit by flashy neon lights that set a deep and futuristic mood for the audience. The films cold setting is heavily influenced by its society as they appear to have a complete lack of empathy towards others. This keeps the audience constantly questioning whether or not the actual human characters in the film display any more humanity than Rachel and the other replicants. This distinct lack of empathy throughout the film is heavily displayed multiple times through the characters Tyrell, Deckard and the millions of people that reside within the dark and grim city.

In the film, almost every human character has a complete lack of empathy towards other humans, making them come across as cold and empty, making them appear even more robotic than the actual replicants. During the scene in which the head of the LAPD attempts to reinstate Deckard as a blade runner, he shows no sympathy towards him. Even with Deckards obvious redundancy and distress in the matter he still forces him to return into his position. When Deckard shoots Zhora she dramatically collapses in front of a large crowd of civilians, yet with her corpse laying on the ground, covered with bullet holes and shattered glass, not a single person decides to stop and investigate. Instead the humans show an ultimate lack of emotion or interest, completely ignoring the scene. These 2 instances both display the thoughtless and insensitive behaviour of the city’s society.

When Rachel is introduced, it is revealed to the Audience that she is a replicant, however she appears as one of the most humane characters as she displays multiple amounts of different strong emotions throughout the film. An occurunce of her emotions is shown early on when

Deckard coldly reveals that all of her memories are fake telling her,”They aren’t your memories they’re someone else’s”. This level of blunt harshness causes Rachel to cry, showing us her ability to feel sadness. However, within the film this level of misery was never exhibited through any of the actual human characters, further demonstrating the complete lack of emotion in mankind.

On the surface, Blade runners main antagonist appears to be Roy, however when investigating deeper the true villain of the film can be seen in the sinister characteristics of Tyrell. Throughout the film Tyrrell repeatedly shows multiple inhumane and almost sociopathic traits. Not only was he entirely aware of the fact that replicants would gain emotions.But he even built them with the technology to do so. This is established as both Rachel and Roy had the both been shown with the ability to cry and feel sadness.Tyrell knew perfectly well that the replicants would gain emotion he just simply did not care. In fact, his only way of combatting this problem is to just have the replicants die off after 4 years, displaying his complete disregard for not only their life, but also how they would feel when eventually realising their fate. The absolute lack of empathy is further shown when Tyrell is confronted about Rachel stating that “she is an experiment and nothing more”. Tyrell’s immoral personality and malicious behaviour represents the sadistic atmosphere that almost all of the human characters display, once again showing us the grim society of blade runner.

These different examples in the film all further prove the idea that replicants, machines that are considered artificial people are in fact much more humane and passionate than the dire and almost robotic, humans of blade runner. The emotionless and cold behaviour shown in Tyrell and the city’s populus display a lack of empathy or care for anything or anyone, whilst the Rachel and the other replicants sympathetic and emotional actions show a strong level of humility, and an even stronger level of humanity. Because of these circumstances it can only be implied that regular people do not fit the description of a human and that it is the replicants who truly show what it means to be humane.