And when we become Gods...

Rating: 10/10 (30 October 2017)

Androids in sci-fi movies have been around for almost as long as the genre, dating back to Metropolis in 1927. They have been monsters and angels, standing in both for the cruelty of humanity at its worst and the naïve purity of humanity at its best. They have been a mirror against which we can reflect ourselves and ask what it is to be human. And they have been a warning to us - a Do Not Cross line for what happens if we give in to our hubris and play at being God.
The first Bladerunner movie is designed to challenge our sense of what it is to be human. This was a central theme for Philip K Dick, whose stories twist our perceptions of what it means to be conscious, sentient entities. Deckard's portrayal in the first movie draws us in with his apparent humanity. In the end, we are left wondering if it really means anything to be born human as opposed to be an artificial version of a human. Our realities are creations of either ourselves or someone else. As they are all a fiction, does it really matter who writes that fiction? But all these stories of robots come from a different era, a time when artificial humans were thought possible, even plausible, but still the stuff of fantasy. Even AI such as Hal in 2001 were thought experiments, and performed the function of stripping back the human soul. But that era is now past. Bladerunner 2049 doesn't need to be a metaphor for anything, or a model of humanity to be dissected, because its subject matter is right around the corner.
What Bladerunner 2049 does is something both obvious yet profound. Up until now, one universal element of any story like this has been the underlying question of "what right have we to play God?". That question is usually answered with some form of natural or poetic justice leading to the punishment of the hubristic humans taking more power than they're entitled to. Playing God is reserved for actual Gods, humans should not be assuming that level of power. This film dismisses that question out of hand and asks a much more relevant question, namely "when we have become Gods, what sort of Gods will we be?" Will we be Wallace, the arrogant Old Testament God who treats his creations as his property, to dispose of as necessary to appease his Will and fulfil his Great Plan? Or will we be Joshi, the powerful yet generally benign God who is obviously superior yet is still respectful of the inferior mortals? And what of the androids and AIs in Bladerunner 2049? In previous films, androids have been one of two things - either definitely not human or very nearly human. The artificial intelligences in this film are different. They're definitely not human, yet they're still sentient, feeling, self-aware entities. Again, we are asked a much more relevant question: what rights do we humans have over our artificial creations. Do we have a right to deny a computer mind a physical human-like form if it wants one? Do we have the right to imprison it within a house and just switch it off or destroy it on a whim? And of those living creations that can walk around and think for themselves - do we have a right to deny them the ability to procreate? And if they are able to procreate, do we have a right to control that procreation?
Bladerunner 2049 is the very, very best of sci-fi. It does not speculate far into the future, it does not abstractly reflect upon the nature of our humanity and it does not offer us a moral lesson in the form of a fable or fairy-tale. It challenges us to look at exactly who we are right now and asks us what we are going to do with the power we have gifted ourselves though our technological achievements. The Ks and Jois of Bladerunner 2049 will exist in the not to distant future, quite possibly within our lifetimes. As we are to become their Gods, what sort of world should we create for them?