It is said that there has never been a film with an adventure like "Blade Runner" (1982): at the beginning of its release, it was met with a flood of bad reviews. Proud to be in this movie.
However, in the next quarter century, the reputation of "Blade Runner" has changed from bad to good, and then soared, becoming a classic in science fiction films. In the "Top Ten Outstanding Science Fiction Movies in History", it ranked first by absolute advantage. When people talk about sci-fi movies these days, when it comes to "Blade Runner", they usually look up.
In fact, the storyline of "Blade Runner" is not complicated. What is complicated is the interpretation of these plots. However, the story of "Blade Runner 2049" is equally simple. What is not simple is the subject anxiety implied by the "replicant" theme revealed in it.
[Can Androids Dream of Electric Sheep]
Philip K. Dick published a novel in 1968 called "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" ". The novel itself is not long, but it has an extremely important position in the science fiction world.
In 1982, director Ridley Scott adapted it into the movie "Blade Runner". Because of the excessively advanced content and form of expression, after it was released, it undoubtedly fell into the street. However, this film, which was later regarded as a masterpiece, has become a source of inspiration for many sci-fi directors.
One of the genres in science fiction that has been on the screen for decades is the stories of robots, clones, replicants, from Frankenstein (1931), Blade Runner (1982), Sixth Day " (2000), "Artificial Intelligence" (2001) and other Hollywood sci-fi movies, to the European art film "Womb" (2010), and the British TV series "Black Mirror" (2013) and so on.
In these films, humans create various types of "creatures": robots, androids, clones, replicas, etc. The names are different, but the core feature is "human replication", so let's just call them all For "replicants" - that is, the title in "Blade Runner". Just as God created man in his own image, human beings also created replicants in his own image, structure, and way of thinking.
The timeline of "Blade Runner" is 2019, when human beings have mastered the technology of "replica" (Android), the replicators developed by Tyrell - they imitate the elite copies of human beings, but only have a lifespan of four years, It will be automatically scrapped at the end of four years - constantly updated, and by the time of the Nexus-6 type, even if these replicants are placed among the human beings, they are already out of their class and outstanding, and they are all She is a handsome man and a woman, and her comprehensive ability and quality are extremely high. But even though they are so good, they still have no human rights. Duplicants are used for high-risk jobs that humans don't want to do in person, such as cosmic exploration or colonization of other planets.
The timeline of "Blade Runner 2049" is 30 years after the previous work. The new Blade Runner, Los Angeles police K played by Ryan Gosling, discovers a shocking secret that can subvert society: Thirty years ago, there was a Replicants give birth to a child, and fertile replicants are not tolerated by humans. This discovery leads K to search for Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), a former blade runner who has been missing for 30 years.
From the day "Blade Runner" came out, people have been debating a question: Is Daika himself a clone? The answer is of course "yes" and "no". At the beginning of "Blade Runner 2049", the identity of the replicator is no longer the focus of discussion: K, starring Gao Commander, told the audience from the beginning that he was a replicator, and K also knew that he was a replicator.
However, during the development of the film, K went from being a replicator, to thinking that he was not a replicator, and back to being a replicator. Such twists and turns of self-doubt have the same core as the previous work.
[Human's Subjective Anxiety]
Science fiction films attract audiences with various fantasy visions of the future world and high-tech. The core theme hidden under its cool appearance is often the anxiety and reflection of human beings on the excessive use of technology, which is also a continuation of the general reflection on technocism in the intellectual circle since the 20th century.
In early replicant films, this anxiety was often presented as a dramatic conflict: such as the social and ethical issues caused by copying as-is, the threat of replicators to humanity, etc. Since the 1980s, such films represented by "Blade Runner" have been more from the perspective of replicators, showing the themes of human despotism over replicators and replicators' self-identification barriers. The meaning revealed by this perspective is not the crisis brought about by technology, but the subjective anxiety of human beings.
Stripped of the cloning, replication, bionics and other technical means, the replicator is actually "another person". Conflicts and prominent problems caused by replicators reflect people's crisis awareness of subjectivity: what is a human being? Why is man unique? Is there an unreproducible "I"?
Whether it's Police K or his electronic maid, they all want to get rid of the barriers of identity: Whether or not Police K's suspicion of self-memory is implanted has gone through a process of twists and turns; the first thing the maid does after the program is upgraded is Feel the raindrops with your hands like never before.
The core of the main body's anxiety should be the sequel of "2049", which is the best tribute and connection to the previous work. The prominence of this sense of crisis is basically in step with the ideological circle's turn to the study of human subjectivity. The replicator film, as a mass medium, cultural practice and popular art, touches the core philosophical issues of this era in an intuitive way.
This misunderstanding, fueled by drama, is most likely to develop into a moment of rupture. In both Silver Wing films, there is such a "breaking moment". Rachel, the sixth-generation clone in "Blade Runner," has human-implanted memories from childhood to adulthood. Before being detected as a replicant by killer Deca, she was a young, confident and beautiful woman. Once she found out the truth, she was at a loss and became a fugitive with no support. For her, her symbolic world is fractured.
K's only sustenance in "Blade Runner 2049" is the virtual girlfriend joi he bought from Wallace Company. joi will make good-looking virtual food to make k happy. More importantly, joi has never disliked k's identity as a replicator.
In order to avoid being tracked, joi wants to destroy the data in the projection equipment at home, but in this case, the data of joi will only be cached in the projection stick. Once the projection stick is destroyed, joi will disappear. After the casino was attacked, the projection stick fell out. Wallace's copy female luv smashed the projection stick. Joi left only the last sentence "I love you.
" K is a android, and joi is an electronic servant of a android. They are not "humans" in essence, but who can say that they are not worthy of the joys, sorrows, emotions and desires of normal people?
[Jin Yong and Box Office Elixir]
Dick, the original author of "Blade Runner", is one of the most famous best-selling authors in contemporary North America, and has influenced Haruki Murakami, Spielberg and others, and is known as the "Jin Yong" in the United States ", but it was difficult for him to fulfill his dream of pure literature during his lifetime, and he was poor.
Earlier, after the film was released in the United States, the word of mouth of "2049" exploded. It was the most difficult sequel in history to receive unanimous praise from film critics unexpectedly, which is really rare. Released in North America, it won the first-week box office championship with $4 million.
Dick was rejected many times, dropped out of college, divorced five times, and was destitute, and his life was full of setbacks and hardships. However, he used his imagination and creativity to hold high the banner of philosophy and science, and he felt sad and sympathetic to the world.
It should be said that Dick's thinking on "subject anxiety" is ahead of time, which also reflects that the audience is lagging behind. He had an early glimpse of the problems that mankind will face in the next few decades, but he could not solve his own problems.
Regarding Blade Runner, Dick once said: "In my opinion, the theme of this story is that Deka is increasingly dehumanized in the process of hunting down the replicants, while at the same time, the replicants gradually reveal a more humane. One side. In the end, Daika has to ask himself: what am I doing? What is the fundamental difference between me and them? If not, who am I?"
This passage can be introduced into the doubts and anxieties of almost all contemporary people: Who am I? where am i? What the hell am I doing?
If it was said that 35 years ago, the audience was very unfriendly to "Blade Runner", and criticized them if they couldn't understand it; then 35 years later, it was finally the turn of "Blade Runner 2049", which was very unfriendly to the audience, and the rhythm was too dull And the 162-minute film length is a great test for watching movies.
The previous work didn't want the audience to understand, and the sequel wanted the audience to understand so much that it was like a pot of overcooked porridge, the umami has not changed, and it just took care of the audience like a "baby".
Žižek, the Slovenian philosopher, has a passage that seems to be an explanation for the two Silver Wings:
"My fear is that if I show my real side, people will know that there is nothing there. So, I have to keep acting, keep acting, keep hiding myself." I
doubt the truth, but I can't falsify it. Once falsified, I feel that everything is boring. The story experienced by Police K in "Blade Runner 2049" is probably the true state of mind of each of us.
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