Loyalty In Blade Runner

What are some of the themes that are central to the film? How have they been communicated?

Ridley Scott’s 1982 sci-fi, noir, thriller, Blade Runner, uses the importance of empathy to capture the flaws of species. The theme is perhaps most evident in the character of Roy Batty. The film develops the character as a “villain,” as he does devious things, appears sinister and delivers dialogue with a British accent. However, much to the audience’s confusion, the character is anything but a villain. Roy, like all replicants, wants to live longer. This idea of life and death is morbid and depressing, and yet it is something we humans ponder on a daily basis. In the film’s most bizarre twist, Roy saves Rick Deckard from death. Preceding this, Deckard
He spits in his face, murders his girlfriend and shoots him. Throughout the film, Roy experiences elevated emotion. This is something truly bizarre considering he is merely a replicant. Following the death of Pris, he cries. This human emotion is used as a foreshadowing device for Roy’s final moments. After saving Deckard’s life, Roy states, “All those moments will be lost… like tears in rain.” Through his quest to live longer, and to become human, Roy does all of this on his final night. He saves a life, and cries, the most human of acts. The idea of empathy in the film is represented by Roy, developing an understanding that, despite not being human, empathy is learnable.

The effect of religion is a key theme in Blade Runner. The eye is a recurring motif throughout the piece; the film begins with a shot of an eyeball overlooking the “Hades” of 2019’s Los Angeles. The overlooking eye is represented throughout the piece as if God is watching over the world he has created. Roy is a character who
The setting itself is a character, representing the shadiness of this incarnation of humankind. The setting cradles the theme of a failed capitalism, as the poor become more inadequate, similarly, the rich become more productive. Scott’s inspiration for the film’s look comes from the 1927 German film, Metropolis. The peoples, full of a mash of Caucasian, Asian and Hispanics, all desire to ascend into an “off-world” experience. Scott’s idea of a futuristic world is taken over by technology and is undergoing a societal decline. In Blade Runner, the setting is cold and features a unique blue filter when on the ground, full of poverty stricken ethnics. To contrast this, the rich, the superior and the stronger, live in the orange-filtered sky. While being subtle about it, Scott develops the idea that the rich look down on the poor. In our world, wealthy leaders like Donald Trump have skyscrapers overlooking thousands of homeless people in a city like New York. The director juxtaposes the concept that orange is typically matched with the ground, while blue is a colour found in the sky. By using these filters, Scott shows the audience that the orange, highlights the rich’s dirt, and grime, a form of irony, considering how advanced they are. The poor, however, are surrounded by blue, a bright and clean colour, showing their