Symmetry: an eye for an eye

One of the most thrilling things about watching R.Scotts films is the deep symbolism that both contrasts and complements our world against his. Comcepts of balance and symmetry in an asymetrical universe - and the differences between the two may not always be visable to the eye. The Replicants are near perfect immitations of humanity and as such were designed with manufactured obscelecence in mind- and I mean that in both sences of the phrase. And the conditions that they were manufactured for were slavery - a power structure that is itself unbalanced and asymmetrical. The quest of the Replicants to extend thier artificial life spans (the level to which they value themselves) is sharply juxtaposed against thier disregard for human life along the way; not only does this retaliatory behavior directly mirror a capacity of humanity - to defend and preserve self at all costs, even others: an eye for an eye, if you will. The eye can be deceptive and may warp the true state of the issue, even blinding the viewer altogether.

A unique city

With Blade Runner, I can see how critics and fans can refer to it as a "revolutionary" movie, or a movie that is completely different from the rest as far as sci-fi goes. One of the things I noticed most prominently that you typically don't see is the setting of the film. In most sci-fi films, the far-flung future is a clean, organized metropolis of sorts, where everything is either Apple Store white or Chrome. Giant, HD tvs dot the landscape, and everything is beautiful. In Blade Runner, the city is...dirty. The main setting is an underbelly of sorts, filled with all kinds of immigrants and locals, from various walks of life; this isn't even touching on the Replicants that are so important to the actual film. The city isn't clean and wonderful, it's dirty, filthy even. The problems of the city aren't hidden under a layer of beautiful quasi-utopia, but are visible from the get go; it's always bright and loud, the buildings look as if they have been standing for centuries (as opposed to being brand spanking new), and the crime of the city is running wild through the streets. I prefer realistic settings like these, as a real futuristic city would most likely look similar to the slums of Blade Runner; the city's role as a setting stood out to me through the entire film.

Eye see what you did there

In class we briefly discussed the quote by Shakespeare emphasizing that the eyes are the window to the soul. This is seen in everyday life. Usually when you're conversing with someone or looking for their attention, you look to see where their eyes are. You look to see if they're looking at you or paying attention to something else. With Blade Runner, there is no doubt that the eyes were a large underlying theme in the movie. The opening scene showed the reflection of the city in a pair of eyes, the test to weed out humans from replicants involved pupil and lens scans, also the eyemaker was the person who led Roy and the replicants to Tyrell. One subtle feature that stood out to me was the replicants' pupils when smoke crossed in front of them. They seemed to glow a dull red color, almost like the power-light on an application to let you know it's running off of a battery. I know a couple fairly common description of the eyes are dreamy or glossed over, but the replicant eyes were almost portrayed as dreadful or dangerous. They almost seemed like they should be projecting light versus taking it in and analyzing it. I feel this was a huge allusion to the differences between robots and humans. The red eyes were symbolic of a machine analyzing code and initiating the correct process or algorithm to complete the next logical movement. Whereas humans don't think logically 100% of the time, they use emotions and experience to also govern their day-to-day decisions. Interestingly enough, Tyrell Corp decided to give the Nexus-6 replicants false memories. This brings up an incredibly interesting philosophical argument that I stumbled over years ago. Have we really lived our entire life, or could we have materialized 5..10 minutes ago along with all of our experiences and memories? Eerily similar to the experience of the Nexus-6 and Rachel. Personally I believe to be human, but I've never actually opened up the back of my head to see if there's actually a brain there or if it's a circuit board (don't worry I don't intend to anytime soon). But how would we ever know? How could we ever know?

It depends on Us

The Bladerunner was produced in 1982 that is too early to see what will happen in 20^th century. The background of this movie is in 2019 in Los Angeles, the replicates want to survive after getting human’s emotion while human are trying to kill them all.  The eye symbol at the beginning and the end of the movie, in my opinion indicates that all these are depends on us human beings. In other words, how future would look like is all from our imagination. However, how it will truly be in the future depends on what we are doing right now.  The scene in the eyes could change at any time while we are making different effort on different things.

   For me I love this movie because it has many metaphors that need us to take a long time to think about it. For example, the eyes and other symbolic sign on the street. Besides that, the conversation between people is also under carefully design by director, because it fits the time background and complex relationship between characters very well.

  Last but not least, at the beginning of this semester, we talked about the contemporary movie about monsters are tending to related more to human’s emotion, such as friendship and love. In this movie, the love between replicate and human just reflect the trend. In 1986, it could be seen like a frontier that add these emotional expression in a science fiction, monster related movie.

  In a nutshell, the Bladerunner is a landmark of monster movies, especially in movies about “replicates” or “colones”.

The Exaggerated Power of Pupils

Eyes are often considered one of the greatest gifts of humankind. They allow for people to witness beauty, happiness, and even tragedy. Their significance, though, is that they provide the opportunity for humans to experience life. In the film Blade Runner, the Tyrell Corporation actually provided the replicants with this ability. This is witnessed whenever they communicate with each other, since eyes often play a large role in communication. Even when the replicants are killing the humans in the film, and they are glancing at each other, they are sharing a strange "moment." Eyes also allow for the replicants to, in a way, love and trust each other. When Roy Batty says, "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe," he is basically proving that he has experienced life, even if not everything was good. The replicants did not seem to appreciate their gift of sight until that point in the film.

Part of their anger stems from the fact, though, that their eyes appear different from humans. If one does a simple Google search on “Blade Runner eyes,” it is apparent that the replicant eyes do not have normal pupils. One can actually “look” into a human’s eyes through their pupils. Meanwhile, replicants’ pupils are not “windows into their souls,” but instead contain different colors. They seem to resent this idea and take their wrath out on humans, who are lucky enough to be so called “open books.” This deeper connection that humans can share seems overestimated to me. By looking into another person’s pupils, you really cannot understand that person any more. For this reason, the replicants should only be upset about the fact that they only have a four-year lifespan. All of the things that people say and do make them who they are, not just what their eyes look like.

The Eyes Have It

Eyes played a very crucial part in Bladerunner.  The Voight-Kampff test relied on checking the subject's eyes for pupil dilation to prove that the subject was not a replicant.  In this way the eyes became the one thing that could not be replicated perfectly in a machine.  They would always separate the human from the replicant so they sort of symbolized an intangible, indescribable part of humanity that some might consider the soul.  Another thing I noticed was that when Roy killed Tyrell, he put his thumbs into Tyrell's eyes.  I took this to mean that the human life is as fragile as the eyes and the replicant, and robots in general, are a threat to our humanity.  When Roy took the life of his creator, he sent a clear message that the coexistence of man and machine would not be possible.

Whats up with the eyeballs...

Eyes come up a lot in this film. The movie starts with a close of up an eye, the replicant test is based on eyes, the eyemaker tells the replicants how to find Tyrell, Tyrell gets his glasses-augmented eyes crushed in, etc etc.



Anyone who has been to a wax museum before can tell you that no matter how perfectly done a wax person is, the eyes will never look real. Similarly, it is often said that eyes are the windows to one's soul, which is perhaps the reason for the replicant test is based on the subjects eyes. I think Ridley Scott is trying to emphasize that to be human is to have a soul and true emotions and memories, which in turn can be expressed or observed by the human eye.