Blade Runner

     I thoroughly enjoyed watching Blade Runner, and I thought it was really interesting how the movie revolved so much around the significance and symbolism of one's eyes. The opening scene depicts an eyeball with a reflection of a city on fire. I think that focussing on an eye in the opening scene introduces the importance of eyes throughout the film and alerts the audience to pay close attention to eyes throughout the movie. I interpreted the burning city in the reflection as a "look" into the future of the city. The city is already shown as dark and majorly polluted, if the industrialization of the city and robots were to continue then life as the characters knew it would change right before their eyes. This stresses the importance of stopping the Replicants from inhabiting Earth and that danger is on the horizon. This scene opens up the use of symbolism through the eyes that is utilized throughout the movie to represent identity, perception, and is the main factor in determining who is a human and who is a Replicant.

    All of the Replicants that we see during the movie have seemingly perfect physical traits. They are tall, have defined faces, piercing blue eyes, and are considered conventionally beautiful. Their eyes are blue, but we see in Roy and Pris that their eyes can change or can be seen glowing red at some times. This glowing red appearance represents their potential to be evil, and we see Roy switch from seemingly harmless to a killer when Tyrell says he can't give Roy more life. I interpreted this an illustrating the danger of allowing robots to be human-like. As most of us know, even humans can turn on other humans easily, but what about robots? Although the Replicants appear to be human, they are not and are very capable of becoming violent machines. We see that Roy is capable of having emotions because he cries over the loss of his Replicant "family" and when he saves Deckard. Roy has always been ware of how precious life is, and chooses to allow Deckard to live his own life. We see this huge character arc in Roy from the beginning of the film to the end. He is cold and selfish at the beginning of the movie, using anyone and everyone so he can outlive his four year timeline. At the end, he realizes that isn't possible for him, but it is for others. He could have easily let Deckard fall to his death, but he doesn't want to be the reason for cutting someone's time short which is what Tyrell did to him. His final monologue speaking about how all of his memories and aspirations just disappear once he dies reveals to us that he became vicious out of fear and not because he wanted too. The audience's opinion on the characters drastically change at the end of them film. We find all of ourselves sympathizing with Roy, and no longer seeing him as a villain. I noted that Roy's final words shifted the audience's perspective on Roy's character, and I feel that the switch of perspectives was intentional since perspective and identity are major themes found in this film. 

    Another thing I noted that never got resolved pertained to the character Gaff. I thought that he was a Replicant because he had piercing blue eyes similar to Roy's and he didn't take any action throughout the story, he just sits back and watches Deckard hunt down the Replicants. I thought his behavior was weird and his eyes were so noticeable I thought he was a Replicant in hiding. I did some research on what other people thought, and found that there is a huge theory that Deckard is actually a Replicant. At first thought I did not agree with this theory at all, but then I thought about Deckard's behavior throughout the movie. The only time we really see him show emotion in the film is whenever he is with Rachel, and even then the relationship still seemed forced. 

     Philip K. Dick wrote American science fiction short stories that were heavily influenced by his drug use during the time of his writings. He had numerous mental health issues which caused him to have hallucinations of an alternate dimension that was based off the Nazis winning the war. America was separated between the Nazis and Japan, which was a product of his drug use and visions he experienced while on drugs. He was interested in the Science Fiction genre and his short stories revolved around this genre. He focussed on life being similar to a simulation and many of his short stories revolved around how life is similar to a simulation. He wrote Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and The Man of the High Castle, which were some of his most influential works. He influenced the new generation of science fiction and many authors are now inspired by him. He inspired the story of Blade Runner.