Blade Runner Science Fiction or Prophecy part 1
part 1 of a multi entry analysis of one of the best Sci Fi films ever made.
This is a written article that serves as an accompaniment to my Blade Runner video analysis series. Here you will find a breakdown of Blade Runner from multiple points of view, as a writer of stories and creator of comics I want to share what I’ve noticed about relevant Science Fiction in todays times. Right now in our media we have a lot of noise but not a lot of signal.
There’s a bunch of diversionary content out there that distracts us for a moment and I feel like this is putting us in danger of losing connection to stories that connect us on a bigger scale. So lets take a look at what Blade Runner has to say about our modern times.
In the beginning we are given this general synopsis before we are shown anything, that lays the groundwork of the story world we are about to live in for the next 2 hours.
What is worth noting at the beginning of this is the writer tells us that Replicants are not allowed on earth, implying that the ones that have revolted have set their course for earth in a attempt to escape Mars. It’s interesting then that as we are introduced to Deckard our protagonist in a few moments we see him musing over a large advertising balloon that hangs in the air.
This is a curious shot of the balloon as it reads out to us our chances of going “off world” where new adventure and opportunities await, however there are essentially jail bars of the buildings that are separating us from this balloon, almost as if the city of Los Angeles is a prison.
Another shot of the balloon carries over the same feeling, the “Best future in the off world colony” is obstructed by the prison like environment of the steel and buildings around it and its constant looping of the same advertisement gives us a hollow feeling. This is a lie, that the writer wants to illustrate.
We have replicants trying to escape to earth for freedom while ads for people to escape from earth to get to mars. This ties in very closely with the themes of Philip K Dick, the advent of advertising and its ability to sell you on a future that is just around the corner but is completely bullshit and not real.
Advertisement and the presence of artificial dead life and its encroachment on humans is evident everywhere in Blade Runner and seems to be symbolically represented in the color Blue and Orange that the directors chose to go with.
These two colors and what they are associated with get established from the very beginning. Orange is dominant in the main cityscape image as we move through the environment we see orange associated with the fire blues, the city lights of the average person and its worth mentioning here that the skyline itself looks like its on fire.
As we move into what we assume is the central Hub of LA we see these gigantic monolothic corporate buildings of the Tyrell Corporation. They look very similar to mayan pyramids in how well designed they are and this level of artistry is saved for architecture of worship, so in this world the corporations are themselves Gods and perceived as such by the average person.
Special effects director Douglas Trumball posing with the Tyrell Pyramid
This time we see the dominant color switch from orange to Blue. The blue is almost angelic as it goes through the roof of the Tyrell building and is pointed towards the sky again as a sign of worship it seems. When we look at the building we see its lights are predominately blue.
Syd mead the concept designer, would go on to say in interviews that this was a deliberate decision he made when painting the Matte paintings for the movie he wanted to suggest that people of different social status would be watching a different tv channel and he could represent this with this blue color.
This attention to detail is what viewers love to see the artistry on this film is very well done. If you’d like to see the video portion of this with footage from the film and a explanation of this please check out my video on color use in Blade Runner here: