Blade Runner Movie Analysis

In Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, the viewer is forced to determine what separates the human population from the replicant population and determined if Deckard is just in retiring the replicants. By blurring the line of what distinguishes replicant from human within the movie, Scott intends to break down the barrier that exists between human and replicant. This barrier is definitively defined by the human experience from a human’s perspective ultimately making the gap between what is human and what is replicant more apparent. Humans are taught from a young age to use their senses to gather data, obtain factual information, and create a belief system. From the very first scene of the movie to the last, replicants are shown to visually look no
Throughout the movie, the Tyrell Corporation stresses replicants do not feel and this serves as the basis for the Voight Kompf test for determining human versus replicant. Nishime states, “By questioning distinctions between man and machine, cyborg cinema asks the viewer to recognize that neither human nor machine is the true origin of selfhood and identity” (36). There mere act of questioning the definitions of what separates human from replicant causes the viewer to realize the subjectivity of the definition itself. Replicants are purposely built to not feel. Humans, on the other hand, are born with the innate ability to feel. It develops naturally over time in such a way humans do not know what it physically feels like to not be able to feel. This brings up the question of how is a human supposed to determine if one is a replicant or not on the basis of one having feelings when all he or she knows is the ability to feel? How can humans judge replicants and say a replicant is not deserving of life based off of an idea that was socially constructed by humans themselves? It is human nature to empathize. Scott is aware of this and takes advantage of the viewer’s empathy in hopes of degrading the barrier separating replicant from
The first time the viewer is introduced to a replicant, he is undergoing the Voight-Kompf test. He looks like a human, talks like a human, and even acts like a human. To the viewer, he is a human. The viewer does not learn he is a replicant until later on once the viewer learns the definition of what a replicant is, a definition that is socially constructed by humans. Leon speaks in a monotone voice showing no emotion, then, takes out a gun and kills Holden without remorse. According to the definition, Leon shows no emotion, therefore, he lacks the ability to feel and is considered a replicant. By the end, Scott shows Roy having true emotions and wanting to live longer and leave his mark on the world, both of which are considered human reactions to death. The line separating human from replicant defined at the beginning of the movie based on their ability to feel and have emotions steadily became blurred throughout the movie, but in the process, he created an entire new, more concrete line to separate the two. This new barrier is much harder to