Blade Runner came out in 1982 and was a failure commercially and even surprisingly panned by the critics at that time especially for Harrison Ford’s performance. Today, a good 25 years later, it has withstood the test of time and gives us a glimpse of director Ridley Scott’s vision. It is a movie you have to catch up on especially for the special FX and Ridley Scott’s vision of the world in the year 2019 and it is truly enjoyed on a proper audio/home theater setup with the director’s uncut version even more so with a Plasma/LCD and a very good upscaling DVD player to catch it as its really intended.
Coming to the story, it is about the desire and the will to survive and to live. This is depicted from the viewpoint of androids or machines made to be human and called Replicants in the movie. These Replicants are so lifelike that many of them do not know that they are not human and the only problem is that they come with a shelf life of just 4 years. The world in 2019 is expectedly different and planet earth has colonized the solar system and setup homes/colonies in different planets. Replicants are stronger and smarter than humans so they are forbidden on planet earth and are instead sent as slaves and laborers to different planets. Any Replicant caught on earth is immediately “retired” and this job is done by a Blade Runner who is not a cop, just someone who hunts Replicants on earth who try to pass off for humans in a bid to live normal human lives. The Replicants do this because of a strong desire to survive and live and not wanting to die just like us humans. Harrison Ford plays a Blade Runner (Rick Deckard) who is now retired because he cannot take it anymore, but is pulled back to active duty by the police chief since 6 Replicants have landed on earth after hijacking a space shuttle and killing every human on board. Their mission is to extend their lives and they plan to accomplish this by visiting their maker Dr. Eldon Tyrell played by Joe Turkel at the Tyrell Corporation and have the necessary modifications done so they can live beyond the 4 years they are created for. On their visit to the Tyrell Corporation 2 Replicants die because they run into a live wire on the premises and the surviving 4 Replicants escape and Harrison Ford is entrusted with the job of hunting and “retiring” them.
The rest of the story deals with this premise and how Harrison Ford goes on to complete retiring the remaining 4 Replicants. Thrown into this premise is Sean Young a beautiful young woman who is an experiment (yes a Replicant) by the Tyrell Corporation who are looking to make Replicants even more lifelike and even giving them memories/memory implants to even make the Replicants believe they are human. Sean Young is the first of these experiments (implanted with the memories of Joe Turkel’s niece) and the story takes a turn with Harrison Ford falling for her. The movie ends with Harrison Ford completing the task of retiring the escaped Replicants, but then himself ending up on the run with Sean Young since even Sean Young being a Replicant is marked for retirement.
Coming to performances, special mention must be made of Rutger Hauer who plays the leader of the Replicants and who delivers a terrific spine chilling performance. Rutger Hauer is not necessarily evil, just driven by a desire to live on and survive and he enacts this desire to live and not perish very convincingly indeed. Sean Young is beautiful, but does not have much else to do. Harrison Ford is his usual self, younger and handsome, and delivering a good performance yet again. There are other heavyweights and stars like Edward James Olmos, M. Emmet Walsh, Daryl Hannah, etc. who give commendable performances, but the real star of Blade Runner is its director Ridley Scott who weaves an imaginative world set in the future, that is dark, brooding, technologically advanced and superior, a world filled with humans and yet devoid of humanity itself. Ridley Scott’s vision goes beyond just the technical glossy look of a science fiction vehicle, but presents a future world that will certainly make you think twice if not dread a world without empathy and filled with machines. Blade Runner is a must just for the vision of director Ridley Scott and a must for serious cinema junkies.
