I, like a lot of people, have seen Blade Runner at least twenty times. Seeing it this time out I noticed for the first time that the year was 2019 (vs 2021 in the book) just a short ten years from now.
P.K. Dick
When the movie was first released we were certainly on track to re-create a world that look very much like this adaption of PK Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” Overcrowded, polluted, constant wetness and the need to eradicate mistakes made through bio engineering. This was a world that did not know about Google, Amazon.com, Ebay, no smoking in public places, flat screen TVs, I-Phone, the Internet or 911, but nonetheless the film contributed in many ways to how we’ve seen things over the last 27 years, especially the visual look of sci-fi films. The look of the film is what makes it so believable. There is none of the cuteness of ET the Extra-Terrestrial which was released the same year as Blade Runner. ET was a huge success, Blade Runner was a box office failure but a far more durable and enjoyable film to see year after year.
We’ve seemed to have escaped, for the time being, the smoked filled skies and its’ dankness, but for some people the fear of “replicants” or clones causes nightmares. Let’s see where we are in another 10 years.
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