Max is a brilliant but socially crippled young mathematician who has built a supercomputer and possibly unlocked the mathematical secrets of the universe, explaining everything from the stock market to God. The mathematical precision with which the world would operate if this is true casts a great deal of doubt on the existence of free will. At the same time, however, the film is asking questions about reality, and whether or not Max's discovery can truly be used in any practical way. Ultimately, both questions are rendered moot by Max's destruction of the mathematical portion of his brain. Though this seems to be an act of free will, it could also be the natural and inevitable next step in the
Regardless, the knowledge is lost for at least another generation. In this way, the film also asks what we are capable of knowing, and what the true utility of knowledge is. The two questions are quite distinct -- one asks what is truly possible, the other what is ultimately worthwhile. Max's debilitated contentment after his self-performed operation seems to suggest that knowledge is not nearly as essential to fulfillment as is often supposed, but his life is also definitely lacking in richness.
Films -- all works of art, really -- and philosophy have at least this much in common: both are concerned more with phrasing questions correctly than they are with finding answers. The correct phrasing of a philosophical question in film is an exciting and involved journey, but one that is well worth taking. And until these questions are answered, there will always be new journeys available.
Blade Runner reimagines the future and seamlessly marries film noir and science fiction. In the film, humanoid robots have become self-aware and decide that it is unjust for their short, four-year lifespans to be calculated by those that created them and have to find a way to override their self-destructing programming. In Blade Runner, a small group of humanoids, referred to as replicants, escape from their off-world and flee to
Roy then equates fear to slavery, subjection and servitude to inferiority. He is still not quite settled with his inferior position. (Is he like Milton's Satan -- a being created with such majesty that he cannot reconcile submitting to a God?). But Roy has compassion after all: he saves Decker from falling, using his hand which has a nail in it (a Christian image of the crucified Savior?). This
Each of the renegades were created to the newest technological level possible, and their creator challenges Deckard to distinguish his new models from a human by using Rachel (Sean Young) as an example of the level of humanity he has accomplished in his humanoid design. Deckard finds his self strangely attracted to Rachel in a very human way, and she responds to his emotions, sensing his feelings, and returning those
Blade Runner: A Marriage of Noir and Sci-Fi Blade Runner is a 1982 film noir/science fiction film set in 2019 that depicts a world that is threatened by human advancements in technology. In the film, robotic humanoids become self-aware and decide that it is within their right to live past their predetermined expiration dates and set out to find a way to live among humans and defy scientists, whom arbitrarily decided
The flaw that has compelled Batty and crew to murder is that a timer was built into the robots, which times them out on a certain year, day, hour. Batty is facing the end of his mortality, and, as is common to the human struggle in the face of its own mortality, he is looking to survive. What is very interesting in this science fiction film is that technology is
Blade Runner and C. Estes The film Blade Runner applies universal myths and archetypes to a futuristic setting. The characters and plot of Blade Runner can be paralleled with many of the archetypes and tales told in Clarissa Pinkola Estes' book Women Who Run With the Wolves. The relationship between Rachael and Deckard is very similar to the story of the Skeleton Woman, only with the gender roles reversed. Just as the
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