I find the themes of this movie absolutely fascinating

I find the themes of this movie absolutely fascinating
Where does human ends and machine begins and vice versa? Aren't we just machines made of flesh and meat? Does my life means more than Roy's just because I was made by sex instead of a lab?
Really makes me think

Well, if you look up definition of life in the dictionary, androids aren't alive.
They have no metabolism, no reproduction, no feelings ofc.
Their "personality" could also be just a program.

Some people would say so based on how much longer your lifespan is, others would say the reverse because of the same reason. Value is subjective.

some would argue that everyone's personality is programmed by their environment

If you program them to fear for their life they're effectively human, that's what makes us selfish. Also, appetites, be it food or sexual. Those are our primary motivators.

Roy is a machine that was programmed to respond to X variables with Y response. There is no sentient life.

Are you saying he was programmed to KILL ALL HUMANS to escape, then do everything, including KILL ALL HUMANS, to find a way to deprogram the short lifespan? That's genius programming.

The Nexus 6 was designed to copy human
beings in every way except their emotions.
But the makers reckoned that after a few years
they might develop their own emotional
responses - hate, love, fear, anger, envy.

In Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, Rick Deckard, a former police detective, is brought in to "retire" a number of escaped androids, called "replicants". The androids have returned to Earth from the off-world colonies in order to confront their literal maker, the eponymous head of the Tyrell Corporation. In the course of discharging his assignment, Deckard becomes romantically involved with the android duplicate of Tyrell's daughter Rachael and, depending on which version of the movie you see, discovers that he himself is a replicant. After Deckard is spared by his final target, he and Rachael flee into the wilderness.

Scott's themes are free will and slavery; in a pivotal scene, Deckard confronts Rachael with her own childhood memories, memories which he knows because they were implanted during her creation. Such memories are given to replicants in order to control their behavior, creating a psychological cushion for their crude emotions--their prison is their identity. In addition, replicants are openly used as slave labor and are given to off-world colonists as an enticement to emigrate.

Scott's movie is primarily known for its breakthroughs in visual effects and its astonishingly detailed mise en scene, but the movie is also considered a successful adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Dick himself saw some of the footage before his death and proclaimed it a marvelous rendition of the novel’s setting.

Despite this, the movie could hardly be more different from Dick’s story, beginning with the inapt title. "Blade Runner" was taken from the name of an unrelated screenplay about medical supply smugglers. It is explained in Ridley Scott's film as the label given to policemen who hunt and kill replicants ("androids" in DADOES), although in the film the police detectives use guns, and blade runner was not a general term for "bounty hunter" or "killer", so apparently the filmmakers just liked the sound of it.

In the movie Deckard is divorced; in the book he is still married to his wife, Iran. In the movie replicants have a powerful, even murderous will to live; in the book, captured androids usually resign themselves to termination. In the movie Deckard is retired and is motivated to perform his assignment by police threats; in the book he is on active duty and hopes to save up enough money to buy a real animal (real animals have been driven to near extinction following a nuclear war). In the movie Rachael comes to Deckard in anguish after learning that she is a replicant; in the book, Rachael purposefully seduces Deckard in order to undermine his ability to complete his assignment. In the movie, the replicants befriend a misfit employee of the Tyrell Corporation, J. F. Sebastian, because he can get them close to Tyrell; in the book, they hole up with a simpleton named J. R. Isidore who works for an unrelated business that discreetly repairs artificial animals. In the movie Los Angeles is depicted as an oppressively overpopulated megalopolis, dominated by corporate advertising and a congested multi-ethnic landscape; in the book, the city is depopulated from emigration to the more desirable off-world colonies, and its emptiness is its most overwhelming characteristic.

Most importantly, in the movie replicants develop genuine emotions; in the book, androids remain completely inhuman and feel no empathy for any living creature.

Then there are the numerous plot omissions. Chiefly: in Dick’s novel the dominant religion is called Mercerism, whose adherents commune with the spirit of a Christ figure named Mercer through the use of a device that gives them a shared empathic bond as Mercer makes his Sisyphean journey across a bleak landscape.

Also missing is the popular television show, Buster Friendly and His Friendly Friends, which runs 23 hours a day and appears to be the primary source of entertainment. Through the course of the story Buster Friendly announces an upcoming expose, in which he reveals that Mercerism is a fraud and that Mercer is actually portrayed by an aging, alcoholic ex-actor. The androids express great excitement about this revelation and feel vindicated for their inability to use Mercerism's "empathy boxes".

References to artificial animals are spare in Blade Runner, although in DADOES they represent a key motivation of the protagonist. Owning an artifical animal is considered shameful, and Deckard consults a price guide several times as he considers what kind of real animal he will purchase with his android bounties. His artificial sheep was the careful replacement of a real one that died from a piece of bailing wire left in its hay. After much consideration Deckard eventually purchases a goat, an exultant moment for him and his wife, only to have it spitefully killed by Rachael, who is contemptuous of the human yearning to care for an animal.

Another omission is the Penfield Mood Organ, a device that has the pharmaceutical or therapeutic function of programming human emotions. In an amusing scene from the opening chapter, Deckard argues with his wife because she has perversely programmed her mood organ for depression ("I didn't even know you could set it for that") in reaction to the empty apartments in their building.

>At his console he hesitated between dialing for a thalamic suppressant (which would abolish his mood of rage) or a thalamic stimulant (which would make him irked enough to win the argument).

>"If you dial," Iran said, eyes open and watching, "for greater venom, then I'll dial the same. I'll dial the maximum and you'll see a fight that makes every argument we've had up to now seem like nothing. Dial and see; just try me."

Here we see not just Dick's understated humor, but the central theme of the novel, which is the dehumanization of mass society, a society in which human beings program their own emotional states much as androids are programmed to simulate emotions. In this respect Ridley Scott's movie completely reverses the theme of Dick's novel, showing, instead of dehumanized humans, humanized replicants who bear close similarity to slaves (a voiceover throws in the word "nagger" just in case there is any doubt). It is never clear why the Tyrell Corporation seeks to create replicants that can develop genuine emotions; by contrast, in the book there is no risk that androids will ever develop real emotions, only a risk that existing tests will be unable to detect that their responses are simulated.

This contrast between film and novel builds to an inescapable realization of the film's lack of depth. Take away its visuals and you are left with an overwrought sci-fi thriller, complete with a postmodern twist ending in which humans aren't really humans and machines aren't really machines--"whoa," as Keanu might say. The conflict is hackneyed--sympathetic robots do not want to be slaves (who does, really), sinister corporate magnates pursue profit without conscience, and life is precious.

None of these ideas are treated more than superficially. There is no connection between the corporate misbehavior and real life corporate governance, nor between the treatment of humans or androids and contemporary dehumanization, nor between the obviously dystopian setting and any regard or disregard for life. Scott and Blade Runner's writers, Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, seem to take no interest at all in any of the themes dealt with in Dick's novel, or for that matter in their own screenplay, so that apart from the general premise--man kills androids for a living--there is nothing connecting them.

next blog: Morgan

What I'm trying to get at with this post, directly copied from a gay racist bodybuilding forum, is that OP, and by extension (You) are plebeian, especially if you do not take the time to read the excellent analysis present in those posts.

what are you doing?
such a wall of bullshit spoiling the book
op said he liked the themes, it'd be enough to tell him the book explores them a lot more, is short enough, and definitely worth reading
>also not dialing 888, the desire to watch TV, no matter what’s on it
analysis is basically harmful if you haven't read the source material
you're shitting everyone up and then calling them shitty, douche

>op said he liked the themes, it'd be enough to tell him the book explores them a lot more, is short enough, and definitely worth reading

But the book doesn't explore the same themes. The movie and book are opposites in their themes.

>analysis is basically harmful if you haven't read the source material

Just read the book pleb
>douche
reddit

>babbys first interaction with existentialism

I have read the book, you absolute faggot
>But the book doesn't explore the same themes. The movie and book are opposites in their themes.
same themes explored from the other side

you just fuckin spoiled the book for OP and anyone else that hadn't read it, and then called everyone a pleb for not reading
that's fucking shameful
also you have no facts behind calling anyone a pleb, the one argument you give is that they're a pleb if they don't read your copypasta, which is false and stupid
also you're the biggest pleb for parroting an analysis and acting like you're better than anyone, ever actually analysed something for yourself? or even applied thought processes while reading/watching?

For me, its TSCC. Does this much better

It's not my copy pasta, and it won't be spoiled if he chooses not to read it, he can still thoroughly enjoy the book even after reading what I posted. Quite frankly, you insulted me with your petty little blog post comment, so I'm going to call you a plebeian, unless you want to have a discussion about the film, which despite me shitting on it, I thoroughly enjoy for it's visuals. Your attempt to evoke shame in me on an anonymous Jordanian Jerk Off Instruction forum reeks of reddit.

>It's not my copy pasta
> directly copied from a gay racist bodybuilding forum
>he can still thoroughly enjoy the book even after reading what I posted.
yeah but now he already has an idea of the analysis and the themes and a method on how to interpret them, rather than coming to the conclusions himself
>Quite frankly, you insulted me with your petty little blog post comment
says the man relaying someone else's blog, are you just projecting?
>so I'm going to call you a plebeian
haha, so you're admitting you have no basis for calling anyone plebeian
your incorrect usage of the word plebeian shows how plebeian you are
>Your attempt to evoke shame in me on an anonymous Jordanian Jerk Off Instruction forum reeks of reddit.
I'm calling you out on your faggottry, I don't really care if you feel shame, also that "an anonymous Jordanian Jerk Off Instruction forum" meme is the most reddit thing posted so far

you're shit at discussion and you're a douche