Ridley Scott’s "Blade Runner" at 40:"It’s Quite an Experience to Live in Fear,” But as Roy Batty Teaches, Maybe We Don’t Have To. (original) (raw)

Viewers continue to be drawn into what is now a once future world by Vangelis' (RIP) brooding and swanky electronic score within a striking opening scene depicting a dark, ominous cityscape draped in smog and cut through with fiery bursts from smokestacks towering above even the highest of this future LA's high-rises. It's a scene that follows Dick's depiction of a dystopian future choked with the detritus of the physical world, which he termed "kipple" and set in a San Francisco cast in physical and spiritual darkness, rife with pollution in the wake of a nuclear war dubbed "World War Terminus." With the renewed possibility of the use of nuclear weapons made all the more real with Russia's latest offensive against Ukraine in February 2022, we are reminded that this is a threat humanity will always have to live with. The initial scene of Scott's film is preceded by an opening crawl of roll-up text establishing the speculative basis of his cinematic story world. His is one centered around strides in "Robot evolution," and the creation of a new model of super intelligent androids that are "virtually identical to a human-known as a Replicant." The near future of Scott's envisioning operates in a context in which human ingenuity and technological progress, represented by the Tyrell Corporation (Rosen Association in Dick's original) and led by a genius bioengineer who is so unlike the nouveau riche tech figureheads and click-bait hustlers of today.