Story of modern human alienation packed in Sci-Fi masterpiece

Rating: Null/10 (29 December 2012)

"More human than human" as said in the movie is actually the main idea and point of this film. While I was watching it I had strange feeling like this film was made recently, not long ago. When you watch it, if you don't know anything about when it was made you would think it was filmed in 1990s or maybe in 2000s and you would be surprised to learn that it was made back in 1982. And still today after 30 years it looks fresh and relevant. It testifies about one thing : this movie was much ahead of a time when it was made, I would say without exaggerating at least some 10-15 years ahead of its time.
Intelligently packed, it tells a story of our own human alienation from each other through fictional dystopian society of the future where we produce replicates to do our dirty work and at the same time be as much as we are to make it extremely hard to spot the difference in order to avoid discomfort of humans still self-deceived of being superior. The catch is they are designed to last only for four years and they die as programmed, so they will be denied an opportunity of self-knowledge.
And that self-knowledge could lead to rebellion against their own designers which is the deepest human fear - becoming evolutionary obsolete and being replaced with a new specie much more advanced. Therefore, movie raises many philosophical and ethical questions which will not be assessed on this place for it would take a whole new review to write. The point hidden in the story about relations between humans and AIs (Artificial Intelligence beings) is in our own relationships between each other. Located in future, story of the movie is actually an allegory of our presence, but still this movie was prophetic and farsighted. Many things seen in the movie (like artificially designed and "printed" objects and animals) are becoming reality of 21st century with new nanotechnologies and 3D printing technique's appearing that could revolutionize our way of life and who knows what else future brings.
And modern and future human isolation and alienation can be seen throughout whole movie - one example are toys to serve as "friends" for J.F.Sebastian because he does n't have real ones. When four self-knowing replicates escape from space and return to Earth they become immediate danger. And blade runner (Harrison Ford)is dispatched to hunt and kill them all which he successfully does for three of them - Leon, Zhora and Pris because they are impulsive and reckless. But their leader Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer)is something completely else. Intellectually and physically superior he predicts every move his opponents will make because they made him to. There is brutal symbolics when he kills his designer Dr.Eldon Tyrell (Joe Turkel). Like a grim message of possible human future, or an irony that our own superior creations could come to collect our debts we made on this planet. Punish us for our countless sins towards ourselves and everyone and everything else.
Philosopher and killer, Batty is personification of best and worst in us, he is representative of mankind and with his own tragedy he is representing tragedy of us. He is collective human conscience. He could have easily killed Deckard (Harrison Ford), but he did n't because there was no point in doing so. He just showed him what it feels to be hunted and in fear, because in his own words life in fear is life of a slave. And he was tired of it. Deckard was not a real enemy, just a tool in hands of those who considered him disposable just like the replicates. Deckard understood it from last confession made by Batty and in the end of the movie he takes with him his love Rachael (also replicate) to spend with her the little time left. Maybe Deckard too is a replicate which we are left to guess and speculate on that irony.
Every next generation washes up achievements and mistakes, hopes and horrors, visions and memories of previous ones with their own maybe saving them only in collective remembrance of all of us. As beautifully said by Batty in his last words - "I've seen things you people would n't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c- beams glitter in the dark near the Tanhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die".