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When I first saw this film I honestly thought it was boring, uninspiring, clumsy and had no character depth.  However as time has past and many viewing and understanding the film, it is fact a cleverly and well thought out homage to the film noir classics.

Bladerunner is a look into the future into how technology will change the world we live in.  Directed by the British Born Director Ridley Scott.

Set in 2019 in the city of Los Angeles, Ex Bladeunner Deckard (Harrison Ford) is roped back into the seedy world of killing replicants who are artificial humans, built through genetic engineering.  The story introduces to fantastic sets   designed by Syd Mead and other replicants played by Rutger Hauer, Daryl Hannah and Sean Young. 

Six replicants have managed to escape from an off world colony where they are used as 'Slaves' and they have come to Earth to find a way to prolong their life, the termination date being set at four years.

The world created in Bladerunner is like that usually created in old Film Noir classics.

The look and style of this Science Fiction classic is reminiscent of such film noir classics with it s dark and seedy lighting creating a cold and dark atmosphere.

The images recreated on the screen offer us an audience a glimmer into the lives of the people, which inhabit this futuristic world. We have large skyscrapers cast in shadows, yet even with all the darkness we have a vast amount of light, which is achieved from the plentiful amounts of neon lights.

The whole of the film is mainly filmed in dimly lit rooms or out on the wet and busy streets of San Francisco. We have dark areas combined with light areas, for example the opening shots of the industrial works which is dark and then illuminated by the fires bellowing from tall towers, we have the streets of San Francisco dark, with shadows around every corner and then we have the shops illuminated by the Neon advertisements.

The visual elements of this film can be directly compared with the Film Noir look of many earlier films for example the Maltese Falcon.

Film noir, which originated in the early 40’s and 50’s, is a term which means dark, coming from the French word ‘Noir’ which means ‘Black’.

The characteristics of such films are the bleak outlook of the film or even down to their final outcomes. Film Noir’s are mostly noted for their portrayal of Detective work; which can be linked to the career of Deckard (Harrison Ford).

The film contains such amazing use of light with the break-up of the light with a blind, or the constant changing of the spinning fans, which are predominant throughout this film.

The fans to me signify a sense of coolness. We have Deckard an Ex-BladeRunner who is assigned to a task, which he doesn’t want to do. It is from this that I get a sense again that he is dis-interested in his job, therefore he feels cold towards it.

Deckard as a man is lazy, has no interest with the world and cares not for himself, which is shown by his unkempt manner and also his house.

His clothes are old fashioned, the same clothes which can be seen in classic film noir films and his house is littered with rubbish.

The feeling within Deckard’s house is dark and dismal. The lighting is created from the lights outside entering through the partially closed blinds. The blinds seem to signify a sense of closure and that he may feel that the world has changed too much and he only feels safe within his own home.

In modern days, the opening of blinds tends to be associated with watching people as we open blinds to see out into the world. The slight opening of blinds has a sense of privacy yet also surveillance, as people could see through the blinds and also people can see out.

To show his despair even more, we see Deckard drinking alcohol, this seems to be signifying more that Deckard doesn’t want to live in the world he is in and finds alcohol as his escape route.

Within the room the lighting, if not much is very dark, consisting of dark brown colours. The mood that this sets is one of remorse, because we associate Dark colours with Death and bright colours with happiness.

The colours add more to Deckard’s character as we begin to see that his life is pointless, he has no answers for why he is on the Earth and he is a retired Cop, or Blade Runner.

At the start of the film, the shots we first see of him are taken from a seedy sushi bar. The rain-streaked streets are littered with all forms of life. We have tall males mixed with small Chinese people all holding Umbrellas, with their Neon Handles.

The Umbrellas to me seem to signify that wherever people go or turn there is something influencing them or watching them (Advertisements). Neon lights are usually associated with Advertisement so it seems that adverts are everywhere. Also Neon lights are used to offer light to places and give them a brighter more attractive look, so I feel that the use of the Neon lights attached to the Umbrellas is that the people of the city are attempting to create their own light within this dark world. They are creating a false sense of warmth and security within a dark, cold, rain-streaked environment where people do not know who’s human and the jobs offered are usually seedy, for example lap dancing.

The people that are in the town do not seem to talk, they busily hurry from place to place without exchanging words and this adds to the informality of the film, in that people should keep themselves to themselves. This may be linked to the watchful eye of the city, the sense that the city is alive and everything on it is being surveyed. This could be why people do not talk as they might give away a secret or some truth into their character. This is a main part of the film that ‘Big Brother’ is watching.

The large blimp advertisement featuring the Chinese woman also has a sense of watching she is not a recorded image but is in fact witnessing the things, which she is flying over.

The special effects crew who created the film wanted a scene, which involved Leon and Deckard to have the Oriental woman come to life and watch the fight, which was taking place below her. This sense of not knowing what is real, again linked to Humans and Robots, is prominent throughout Bladerunner.

This adds to the Paranoia that the programmes which are being watched on somebody’s Tv may in fact be watching the viewer.

This reminds me of the opening scene of the film, which is of the large eye, which is focused on closely. The eye seems to be looking at the viewer, it doesn’t blink which adds to the intensity of the shot and again makes the viewer paranoid of what they are watching. The non stop viewing of this eye again adds to the feeling that we are being watched at all times, which could be linked to the feelings of the street people and that of the Replicants, as the replicants have to act as humans to pass.

The idea of surveilance can be seen through many aspects of the film. Spotlights can be seen surveying the city which is reminiscent of prisons. This again could be linked to the feelings that the people are imprisoned within their own world, controlled by a higher power (Tyrell, or the prison guards)

The police Spinners have see through bottoms allowing them to keep a watchful eye on the beings below.

Trivia

Sometimes, a gaffe is just a gaffe - but try telling that to cult movie fans. One of the most debated movie flubs of our time revolves around the legendary "sixth" replicant referred to, but never seen, in the original cut. Capt. Bryant reports that six escaped, but one was "fried" trying to break into the Tyrell Corp. That leaves five - but only four are retired on screen (Zhora, Pris, Leon, and Roy). Who's the sixth? Fans say it's Deckard or Rachel, but the filmmakers say it's a mistake. A sixth replicant, Mary, appeared in an earlier script draft but was later removed. That one mistake set off a debate that continues to rage today. Ridley Scott redubbed a line in the Director's Cut of the film to correct the error.
A rare workprint edition, originally shown only to March 1982 preview audiences in Denver and Dallas, occasionally makes its way into arthouses - like this week's run (January 15-21, 1999) at The Egyptian in Seattle. The film has a different opening, with a definition of Replicant from the 2016 New American Dictionary instead of the familiar crawl. Several scenes are longer, including a wounded Holden shown with a smoking hole in his back, hockey-masked strippers at the Snake Pit, and Deckard loosening his tie after being choked by Zhora, among others. There is no voice-over narration in this version with the exception of the Batty death sequence, an alternative scripting by David Peoples and Hampton Fancher that describes how it took hours for the replicant to die. There's also temp track music throughout much of the cut, with the final showdown scored with Jerry Goldsmith music from various films, including Alien and Planet of the Apes
Contrary to many reports, the narration was always part of the plan. In fact, director Ridley Scott actually introduced the idea of using a film noir-esque voice-over when he joined the project (then known as Dangerous Days). Due to what transpired, Scott now disowns the voice-over and omitted it from his 1992 director's cut. The narration was first deleted from the shooting script so that the production team could see that the story worked without it, but it was to be restored during post-production. Harrison Ford actually recorded the narration not once, not twice, but three times - even though he reportedly hated the idea from the start. Daryl Ponicsan (Cinderella Liberty) wrote the first version. The second was scripted by David Peoples, who worked from previous drafts by Hampton Fancher and himself. The third and final narration was by TV writer Roland Kibbee - based in part on Fancher and People drafts - but without Scott's supervision after the production had been commandeered by the production company guaranteeing the film's completion bond.
Philip K. Dick's 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? provided the kernel but not the blueprint for the script that became Blade Runner (a term not found in the book). Dick set his paranoid tale in a sparsely populated town in 1992. His hero, Deckard, is a married bounty hunter who tracks "andys" and dreams of replacing his dead electric sheep, Groucho. Faster than you can say "film noir," Deckard was transformed by screenwriters Hampton Fancher and David Peoples et al. into an ex-cop with an ex-wife who lives in the overcrowded streets of L.A. in 2012. He still hunts androids - rechristened "replicants" - but only after the police captain drags him out of retirement. Groucho, who plays a prominent role in the book, was excised completely.

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