Blade Runner (1982) and 2049 (2019)

Back in the wayback I subscribed to a gaming magazine, mostly because it came with a free copy of the Blade Runner-game. I had heard good stories, and even though I hadn’t seen the movie back then: the game delivered by staying close to the movie.

What makes Blade Runner work is the mix of ideas (about a post-apocalyptic future) and atmosphere (about what it would actually be like). The main idea is that of replicants, basically bio-engineered humans that are made for dirty jobs, and that are programmed to expire after three years, to prevent them from going rogue. Some of them actually have gone sideways before that, and it’s the job of Blade Runners to hunt them down and to terminate them early. 

The atmosphere is that of a future that’s totally destroyed because of human activity. It takes place in a future Los Angeles where it always rains. The land outside of Los Angeles in one big waste land, and it’s basically uninhabitable. 

Back then in 1982 there was already a good bit of foreshadowing of how things would play out these days: those replicants are made by the huge Tyrell Corporation. It isn’t mentioned, but I can imagine that replicants didn’t come cheap, much like iphones, samsungs, Apples and Tesla’s also don’t come cheap. Fast forward a few years from now, and the blockchain assets might have widened the gap between the 1% vs. the 99%, or in terms of Blade Runner: those who can afford a replicant vs. those who can’t.

Trailer (1982)

The sequel continues where the first one left off with the speculation that the main character is a replicant himself. Then the story continues and replicants have evolved, they have overcome the expiry-date, they start giving birth to offspring and they have developed a God-image. 

The main character in this one is on a quest to find the main character in the original movie in order set things straight. 

Trailer (2019)

When to watch

- when stretched out thin and you feel like inhabiting a hyper-neon-super-cyberpunk-future for a few hours.

- when you want to see an example of great science-fiction that works, exactly because the actual story takes place on a visceral level.

- when you find yourself living in a hyper-urban-metropole and you want to have an idea of how everything can spin further out of control.

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