The future is here

Rating: 7/10 (6 November 2017)

Not necessarily being a sci-fi geek yet not necessarily disliking the genre sometimes has its advantages. To be quite honest I am still not able to determine what makes me like one science- fiction movie and hate the other but with Blade Runner I can finally put into words why I was very impressed.
It's amazing to watch a movie from the 80s and be so pleasantly surprised by the quality of the decor and special effects, it looks better than some movies from the 2000s! So Blade Runner takes place in 2020 which is now just 3 years away, but I can imagine at that time it must have felt like the very distant, scary future that was yet to come. We see a very cold looking and industrialized Los Angeles where it always seems to be misty and dark. What's left of the towns population has moved into huge skyscrapers. We get introduced to the "replicants" which are just basically extremely real looking, perfect versions of humans who are able to develop both feelings and a consciousness which is ironically the reason they are doomed to only have a 4-year lifespan.
It's so interesting and frightening at the same time to imagine that we could make artificial life, only for it to develop into something stronger and more capable than ourselves and ending up with catastrophic consequences. Also the idea that these replicants value life much more than actual humans holds a very important message. Would we, if ever confronted with the problem of robots taking over, even deserve to outlive them? The philosophy behind the movie is something that especially in this day in age is a frequently discussed topic. Where on the one hand we feel excited that technology is making spectacular progress in increasingly shorter periods of time we on the other hand feel very frightened we may not be able to keep up with our creations. I love how to writers leave this topic abstract to a certain degree, which allows the viewer to interpret it in its own way without undermining the quality of the story.
It's very interesting how Blade Runner presented the future in a way that now turns out to be both way off and realistic at the same time, before watching the new installment I would highly recommend checking this classic out first and forming your own opinion on it.