Ahead of its time

Rating: 8/10 (6 May 2019)

Madison Cole
Blade Runner
The movie Blade Runner was directed by Ridley Scott in 1982. It is a science fiction film based in the future, where a war against mankind and superficial humanoids is taking place. These human like creatures are called replicants, and have nearly exact mannerisms to a human, however, they feel no emotion. The only way to differentiate a replicant from a human was to run a test consisting of multiple questions aimed to revoke emotion and monitor them with a device that measures pupil dilation, capillary refill, and other physical signs to show emotion. If no emotion is sensed they are killed, or retired. In this movie four replicants stole a spaceship and are on a quest to find their creator. It is up to a retired blade runner to find them and retire them.
This movie is set on what the future was thought to look like in Los Angeles. It had very strong Japanese elements from clothing, store signs, billboards, and many languages were fused together to create one form of dialect. There were many futuristic forms of technology throughout the movie such as flying police cars. Characters did not have one style, rather every character had their own distinct way of dressing. Some characters such as the main character dressed fairly normal, while other characters wore heavy eye makeup and adorned themselves in unusual jewelry. The women in the advertisements displayed were dressed as geishas. The tone of this movie was a serious one and at times it was slightly violent. One of the opening scenes was a man doing a test on the replicant, and then the replicant shot and killed him when he could not answer questions about his mom. The main character throughout the movie narrates his thoughts. This reminded me of those black and white detective movies from the 60s. The setting and special effects of this movie are far ahead of other movies made in the 80s. The special effects are superb for its time, everything from the scene in a lab for replicant eyes to flying cars to the special effects makeup. If made today, however, with the technology and cgi we have today I personally believe more could be done in this movie, more creatures could be created to emphasis other planets have been discovered and colonized, the outfits could be given a Hunger Games Capital esque to them, and the violent scenes could have been made more realistic.
In conclusion, Blade Runner was an amazing film for its time. Everything from character development, to scene cuts, to setting and props, it is obvious a lot of effort and work was put into this film. This movie was rated R then but nowadays it would probably be PG13 due to today's society being less sensitized to nudity and violence. It was an excellent movie although hard to follow at times. I would recommend this movie to anyone who enjoys futuristic sci fi.