God Is Dead

Rating: Null/10 (18 January 2006)

This film is a brilliant attempt to make you feel the existential struggle for personal value in an atheistic world. If your a theist, this movie will remind you why you are not an atheist. If your an atheist, this movie will remind you of the empty and ultimately meaningless life that you live, for "all those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain". If you are debating on seeing this film, I would recommend just some basic philosophical articles on nihilism, existentialism and postmodern philosophy. I believe what I posted below will be a good place to start if you want to understand the film.
Humanity is represented by Roy throughout the film, especially when Roy kills his creator (Nietzsche's phrase "God is dead" is obviously the background for Roy's symbolic act of killing his creator). Also, in the end we find out that Roy, with the nail though his hand and dove at his side, is the nihilistic Christ (the deliberate comparison to Jesus, and the reversal of his divine proclamation of eternal life cannot be missed). This movie not only asked many questions about life and meaning, it actually answers them with Roy's last "divine" proclamation. Basically put, if there is no Creator that can give eternal life, there is no longer value and purpose in life because all that we experience is ultimately lost. Thus, to search for true personal value in a life thats turns into nothingness is as pointless as trying to find a tear on a persons face when they are crying in the rain. Roy's failure to have his life extended is the means used to make us feel the sadness and despair that is found in an intelligent being who will soon vanish into nothingness. The intent is to make us look at out own experiences with the same despair, because if there is no God, there is no one to eternally extend our lives. Thus, when you cease to exist, and you must, all your experiences and all the work that came to make you the person you are today will be lost. So to truly understand this movie and feel its impact, you have to put yourself in Roys place, because thats where you are. Roy did not kill Deckard because he wanted him to walk in his shoes and feel what he felt; he wanted to "enlighten" him. Thus, we find a purpose in this film; to "enligten" its viewers of their own inescapable plight in an atheistic world.
Some have said that another purpose of the film is to show that one must make the best of the time that they have. In other words, the point of the movie is that since we must face this horrid outcome of nothingness, then there is nothing to lose in acting as if there is true purpose and meaning in our lives so as to emotionally overcome the despair. I think there is truth to that also, and the emotional act of "making the best out of the time we have" was represented by the unicorn in the last scene. Throughout the film, Gaff would make origami figures that represented what was going on in the scene. At the end when Deckard was leaving with Rachel he found a unicorn origami which indicated that his dreams were implanted. At this point one must ask why the writer used a mythical animal in his dream, rather then an animal that really existed? I believe the unicorn was used to describe the act of Deckard "making the best of things", or acting as if there is true meaning and value, for such things are just myths (like the unicorn) in an atheistic world. Thus, to act as if such things as unicorns, value and worth were true, one would have to knowingly fool themselves and act as if the unreal is real, which is exactly what Deckard had to do with Rachel, and possibly him self. Where as Roy was not willing or was unable to entertain such emotionally driven human delusions, Deckard was and therefore joined humanity.
"GOD IS DEAD" From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves? That which was the holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? With what water could we purify ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we not ourselves become gods simply to be worthy of it? - Nietzsche, The Gay Science"
"EXISTENTIALISM" From Wikipedia,the free encyclopedia.
"Books such as DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP, by Philip K. Dick, and Toilet: The Novel, by Michael Szymczyk all distort the line between reality and appearance while simultaneously espousing strong existential themes."
"much postmodern writing is existential--unsurprising, since postmodernism evolved from the thought of NIETZSCHE and Heidegger"
"Existentialism is a philosophical movement that views human existence as having a set of underlying themes and characteristics, such as anxiety, dread, freedom, awareness of death, and consciousness of existing, that are primary."