Timeless futuristic eye-candy with deep, philosophical content.

Rating: 8/10 (2 December 2019)

It is wonderfully pleasing to the eyes: haunting and compelling technology-dreams made from past and present to resemble a futuristic vision. I am a big fan of Syd Mead, who developed a lot of the futuristic objects and street designs for the film. Personally, I am mostly interested in production design (Ridley Scott was a production designer himself and it shows in this opulent, visually strong film) and am intrigued on how the film resembles social, ethnical and political aspects into buildings, textures, light and sceneries.
It's hard to overstate how influential the film was; it invented the sci-fi sub genre now known as "cyberpunk", and it was also the first "film noir" in a sci-fi setting. I was stunned by the creative approach onto the noir 'look' (and 'cliches' sometimes) and how the film builds onto them to generate a new approach.
Personally, I am a fan of the slower paced storytelling and the fact that there is not so much action / violence shown in the film compared to works today. (I could see myself drifting off in the last part of the film where a lot of fighting goes on...).
The story is deeply philosophical and still prominent in today's connection with technology. Sky Mead said: "Technology builds onto itself - we extend, perfect, re-invent older forms of technology. We reassemble it to form new ways of creation and interaction." Sure, the film depicts another 2019 than we live in, superficially, but the sub-message of the film stays the same: the (in the 80s) modern technologies and media (television, radio, screens, telephones,...) are reassembled to futuristic machines. Today, we work with highly perfected machines like smartphones and small computers, that were originated in the past.
Blade runners approach onto the city-scape in general features a dark consumer-driven dystopia, mixed with dirt, cramped spaces (many people), nights lit by billboards, shop fronts and social services and surveillanced by oversized advertising hover-aircrafts shouting messages onto society. The set design features many textures and crafted elements from the far east, different religions (globalization?), even some buildings represent ancient maya temples - the city became the world.
I love watching films from that point of view and am happy I finally got to see a groundbreaking film that influenced pop culture, modern sci-fi and is referenced throughout film making history until today.