More human than human: Evolution of the Blade Runner saga

The follow-up to Hollywood director Ridley Scott’s epic 1982 post-apocalyptic, neonoir sci-fi stunner Blade Runner was recently released in Chennai. Blade Runner 2049, directed by Denis Villeneuve has been hailed as a masterpiece by critics, who have been bowled over by its atmospheric set design and ground-breaking visual effects.

migrator|5 Nov 2017 11:04 PM IST

Chennai

Here’s a look at the evolution of the series:

Blade Runner (1982)

Adapted from a sci-fi novel by Philip K Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Set in Los Angeles in a dystopian 2019, the film tells the story of artificial humans or replicants manufactured by the Tyrell Corporation, who are employed as slave labour in offworld colonies. As a group of fugitive replicants, led by the enigmatic Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) escape to earth to rebellion, a world-weary cop Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is enlisted to hunt them down.
Things take a turn when Deckard falls in love with Rachel (Sean Young), a replicant and begins questioning everything he stands for.

High points Of the cult film

The film is the gold standard when it comes to adaptations of sci-fi novels by Philip K Dick, like Total Recall (Paul Verhoeven) and Minority Report (Steven Spielberg).
A flop at the time of release, the film has attained masterwork status subsequently, with top directors drawing inspiration from its themes.
There are close to seven different versions of the film. The version approved by Ridley Scott is called the Final Cut.
The film the most elegiac of death scenes, with Rutger Hauer’s Roy Batty saving Deckard’s life, and closing his heart-breaking, monologue, “All these moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.”

Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

The film is set 30 years after the first Blade Runner film and stars Ryan Gosling as K, a cop, who assigned with quelling the Replicant Resistance. His task is to find and destroy a child, born from the union of two Replicants, who could instigate a full-blown war between humans and replicants.
The film also stars Ana De Armas and Robin Wright Penn. It harkens back to the world of the first film, while creating an original narrative.
There are few films this year that can match up to the visual and CGI-spectacle served up by legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins. The score by Hans Zimmer helps propel the narrative forward in exciting new directions.

— Compiled by Bijoy Bharathan

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