Blade Runner (1982) – Lost In Time, Like Tears in Rain

Title: Blade Runner (1982) – Lost In Time, Like Tears in Rain

Description: Today we are joined by our frequent guest, Erik Fogg of the Reconsidered Podcast to talk about a trailblazing piece of science fiction, 1982’s Blade Runner starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer and More. We will continue to examine the themes this movie evokes. It is more than just the singularity and the role of artificial intelligence. The movie makes us wonder what it really means to be human.

Learn More About our Guest:
Erik Fogg of the Reconsider Podcast
www.reconsidermedia.org

You can learn more about Beyond the Big Screen and subscribe at all these great places:

www.beyondthebigscreen.com
Click to Subscribe:
https://www.spreaker.com/show/4926576/episodes/feed
email: steve@atozhistorypage.com
www.beyondthebigscreen.com
https://www.patreon.com/historyofthepapacy

Parthenon Podcast Network Home:
parthenonpodcast.com

On Social Media:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/atozhistorypage
https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfThePapacyPodcast

Music Provided by:
“Crossing the Chasm” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Image Credits:
https://www.cnet.com/news/blade-runner-and-alien-tv-shows-confirmed-by-ridley-scott/

Begin Transcript:

, [00:00:00] this is beyond the big screen podcast with your host, Steve Guerra. This is part two of a two-part conversation on the 1982 movie blade runner with Eric and Zander from the podcast reconsider. I highly suggest you go back and listen to part one of this conversation. Don’t worry, we’ll be waiting for you beyond the big screen.
You brought up those ideas of niche, Nietzschean and, um, the Christian elements and all of those really come together. One Roy confronts, Dr. Tyrrell. What happens there. And what, how do those themes all tie together that you’ve brought up, that you brought up earlier? I it’s funny. I, I, as I was making my notes, I was thinking, oh, this is my favorite scene.
Now this is my favorite scene. [00:01:00] Now this one, and I have six, I realized six favorite scenes. So this is one of them. And what happens is, uh, Roy finally gets to Dr. Tyrrell by. Tricking Sebastian and then coercing Sebastian, uh, and they get access. What’s interesting by is by playing and finishing the same moves as what’s called the immortal game in chess.
So it’s a famous 18 hundreds chess game where. The, I forget the guy’s name, um, whatever, where the guy who ended up winning sacrifice, tons of pieces to fool his opponent, into making a move that exposed the king. And so we had checkmate with some minor pieces at the end. Um, those pieces of course, represent those minor pieces, represent the, uh, the replicants who are treated like pawns.
The king of course is Dr. Tyrrell. And so once. Makes those moves over the phone. [00:02:00] Tyrrell actually, Roy tells Sebastian to do it. Sebastian makes those moves over the phone and Tyrell is very impressed and he says something must be on your mind. Sebastian, come on in. And then big reveal. Roy is there Tyrrell, doesn’t seem to surprise.
He actually says like, oh, I’m surprised it took you so long to get here. He knew that Roy was coming to talk to him. They have this discussion over whether Tyrrell can give Roy more life, uh, but Tyrrell cannot. And they, in that discussion, Tyrrell tries to reason with Roy saying that he’s lived this incredible.
Powerful. Um, flourishing life, especially compared to other humans. And he has the quote, the candle that burns twice as bright, burns, half as long. It’s this great scene of his face being very fatherly. And in fact, of course being the character of God, he created Roy. He decided how long Roy got to live. Um, and he’s judging Roy as having lived a good life and sort of saying it’s okay for you to die.[00:03:00]
And here’s where the Nietzschean moment. Uh, God reveals himself to be powerless, to help Roy and to do anything for Roy. And so in that moment, God dies for him. Right. Roy realizes that God is helpless and worthless to him. And Roy is so. Roy still loves God as his father. And so he actually, when he realizes that nothing could be done, he holds Tyrrell by the face and kisses him on the lips.
But then in holding Tyrrell, he uses his superhuman strength to brutally crushed Tyrell skull. And he digs his fingers into Tyrell’s eyes, which in this movie of the window to the soul. So Roy has become the Uber mench that judges God. And he says that like, you know, God is a Portant, an evil, uh, for creating lives that are enslaved and.
Um, and short, even though they can feel. And so [00:04:00] he transcends God and he transcends man, by being what’s capable of killing God. And of course, perhaps God was dead the whole time, um, and was, uh, was a myth, but it’s his rage at the callousness and ineptitude of God, the fact that God was willing to create into feel and to contemplate his own suffering is more and his mortality, but to give him a short-lived suffering life as a slave.
He kills him, but he still loves his maker. So to quote nature in thus spoke Zarathustra, God is dead. And we have killed him is not the greatest greatness of this deed, too. Great for us. Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it. And so this is the moment that Roy has this true transcendence.
I always had the feeling too in this movie that Roy and all of these replicants are setting up that. There nexus sixes. What’s a nexus seven going to [00:05:00] bring us well, I think we’re going to find out and blade runner 2049 actually. Um, now. You know, it’s, it’s in the original blade runner movie. It’s tough to imagine that an extra seven is coming because the genius behind the next a six has been killed.
Uh, JF, Sebastian is then immediately afterward killed because, you know, Roy can’t leave any witnesses. He says, I’m sorry, JF, because Jeff has been so good to him and press. Um, and so he kills JF. So the two real geniuses behind the nexus six model have been killed and. So I don’t think we’re meant to anticipate an extra seven, however, um, we can only anticipate an extra seven sort of in the image of Roy rather than in the image of God.
And so this, this moment that mankind has transcended its own nature as. Under the boot of God and as a product of God, but instead a product of itself. Um, and so I anticipate [00:06:00] the next seven would be the overcoming that nature talks of the overcoming of man into becoming something greater than man into becoming, um, uh, being worthy of worship on its own.
We have that. We can clearly see that after the scene where Roy kills Tyrrell that he’s moved beyond himself, but now he’s developing this relationship with press. It’s are they moving beyond replicants here? The Androids that they’re taking on something that’s not Android and they’re not human they’re are becoming something bigger than them.
What do you think they’re trying to say here? Oh yeah. So what’s interesting is of course, as we’re moving through these scenes, we’re not talking about Dechert much. At this point, Decker has killed, um, Zuora, the serpent, um, the serpent replicant, and also Leon has been killed when Leon gets enough. With Decker and Rachel, the replicant kills Leon because she wants to protect Dechert.
So what we [00:07:00] see is that these Androids are quite empathetic, right? Rachel, Rachel wants to protect Deckert. And so she kills one of her own kind when she knows that he’s hunting. Rian because Leon six is a loose nexus or Leon because they aren’t as a loose next a six. So this is her enemy, but she still, she still protects him.
So we see this empathy developing for the replicants. When in fact there’s no evidence in the movie that the humans have any, we don’t see like an inch of empathy from them. And decorate finds out that. Uh, Chris and Roy went to Sebastian’s place after the murder of Sebastian and Tyrrell and he ends up killing PRIs after a brief fight.
And Roy, uh, come returns from having killed Tyrrell to find presses dead and [00:08:00] covered in blood. Um, and he. He agonizes at her death. He howls in agony in this very superhuman scream. He and Chris are clearly in love and he bends over, uh, and kisses her on the lips as well. So we see that Roy loves press, he loves his father figure.
Um, and so this makes us think, you know, is this the behavior of a machine designed not to have. Um, and what happened, what we find out is that by having put memories and personality into the nexus six, they develop empathy on their own. When in fact the humans have been unable to do that, which means that even in this society, even through their enslavement, uh, and even living in a world, Where nobody around them is showing empathy.
They still manage to have it, which means that somehow that they are above the influence they’re above the society that they’ve been [00:09:00] brought up in. They were above how they’ve been treated. They’re capable of holding onto the thing that in the movie is the thing that makes humans special, um, and their ability to maintain it.
When all of the humans have lost. Um, and their ability to feel and to agonize and weep and hope is I think what shows that they’ve transcended mankind. Um, and so at this point, we know that Roy is dangerous. And we questioned whether he should be left in the world, but can we call it retirement anymore?
Can Roy possibly be property? And who are we as humans to decide? There is a scene where Rachel and Decherd, they, they develop a romance together. So now we’re seeing that there’s this romance between. Between replicants, but now this, that there’s a romance and that there’s a connection between Decherd and Rachel who’s an Android.
How does that compare and contrast [00:10:00] with the relationship that Roy has developed with press? Yes. This is what I used to think was actually a. Low