This movie makes the future look like an ugly place. The urban sprawl has gone out of control, leaving nothing of nature in the environment. The only seemingly natural things, like animals, have been genetically designed; the price of a totally natural animal pet is expensive.
The movie is filmed in a cyberpunk fashion. Gritty textures, heavy smog, and constant darkness, the only light is artificial. There is a big influence from Eastern cultures, in fact, the 2019 Los Angeles resembles a 2011 Tokyo. In fact, the (gutterspeak/slang) language used in the movie is a mix of Japanese, German, and a few other languages. It was cool to see possible technologies and how they related to our modern day. Video chatting was displayed in the movie, as well as image enhancement and GPS.
Even though it’s based in the future, it still takes a lot from the past. Sebastian’s apartment had an older feel to it, as well as Dr. Tyrell’s living quarters, which seemed to take from the style of the Renaissance. I loved the lighting, however artificial it seemed, it made for some nice shots, and made the movie have a noir quality to it.
The movie is about a retired cop, Rick Deckard, who specializes in finding ‘Replicants’ which are genetically engineered humans, created to take on tasks too dangerous for human life, which are now banned from Earth. He is called to action to eliminate a group of Replicants who have escaped from an off world colony and returned to Earth. We find out that they have returned to Earth in search of a modification to bypass their ‘failsafe’ condition of a four-year life span, which we later find out can not be bypassed.
There is one Replicant who has been living in LA all along, but she does not know she is a Replicant. She was implanted with memories of Dr. Tyrell’s nieces, to make her think she was an actual person and had an actual life. Much to her dismay, Deckard tells her the truth about her existence. Later they fall for one another, and Deckard is worried about her dying (due to the four year life span.) When he finds her, he remembers Dr. Tyrell said she was ‘special’ which he found out meant that she had no end date for her life. The two then drive off into the horizon, which is the first time we ever see any form of nature. Rolling hills, green grass, trees, ocean, and sunlight. A well earned breath of fresh air.
The artwork in the movie is pretty nice, too. Apparently, there was an actor’s strike going on during the production of this movie, so the art team had seven additional months to work on their projects. If only we could get an extension like that for our classes!
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