Becnel Blade Runner

Blade Runner, directed by Ridley Scott, is set in a decaying 2019 Los Angeles. Rick Decker (Harrison Ford) is a reluctant blade runner ( replicant hitman). When four replicants escape to earth to find their creator(Tryell Corporation) to extend their short life span of 4 years, Rick is sent to track them down and retire (terminate) them. While the "little people" or the non-cops/ non- Tyrell Corporation are treated as secondary citizens, the replicants are the lowest of the low. They are not considered human; they are considered machines, or lower life forms. When talking to Rachel (Sean Young), a Tryell employee who we later find out is a replicant because of Decker's replicant detector test, Decker says, " A replicant is like any other machine: a benefit or a hazard. If it is a benefit, it is none of my business." According to W.A. Senior's article "Blade Runner and Cyperpunk Visions of Humanity", "Replicants were built to be human in almost every way, yet they are denied human status, like many of the others who cannot quality for off-world placement, in a technologically racist society that views them as disposable slaves." They are not supposed to have feelings or have attachments to memories, but Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer), the leader of the rogue replicants, has more emotions, feelings, and appreciation for life than Decker.

Blade Runner is based on Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. Some of the main questions that Dick evokes in his novels, are " what does it mean to be human?; what are the boundaries of humanity?; how human or humane are humans?; and when androids/ replicants and humans meet, how can one tell them apart?" In the film, they ask the suspected replicants questions while their pupils are monitored. This test is the only "exact" measure used to determine if they are a replicant, because to the naked eye replicants look and act just like humans. The only difference is replicants are created and have a 4 year life span. "Blade Runner insinuates a wide range of constantly metamorphosing humanities from the regressive street rats to the superhuman replicants: 'Eventually all the boundaries are blurred between the master and slave, hunter and hunted, hero and villain, the animate and inanimate, the human and the non human' (Francavilla 8)." Instead of working together towards advancement, the humans and blade runners (excluding Rick) would rather terminate the "problem" of the replicants. The value of the replicant's life takes a back seat to the fear of the humans.

In Blade Runner, fear is a motivator and the lack of choice for the replicants proves fatal for them. They would love to live a full life, but they were given no choice, just 4 years.