Blade Runner: The Fusion of Film Genre
When Philip K. Dick penned Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep in 1968 the world was a frightening mess of dramatic polarity. Dick’s work envisioned a future world framed by “philosophical speculation, in what's real, what's fake, what's human, what's inhuman, and he used things like aliens, androids and time travel to explore all of that” (Bernstein). Considering the massive social and technological changes Dick lived through (Cold War paranoia in the 1950s, the rise of electronic mass media and the counterculture in the 1960s, and the advent of surveillance society in the 1970s), his epistemological and spiritual journey is clearly borne out in his writing. “He distrusted the world that he saw developing and had the uneasy sensation that it was not real” (Said). It is not surprising that Dick would plot his escape by looking forward in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Fast forward to 1982 and the cinematic release of Blade Runner, director Ridley Scott’s and screenwriters Hampton Fancher and David Peoples’ loose adaptation of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Billed as a “visually striking science-fiction” follow-up to Scott’s successful 1979 release Alien (McCarty), the film received a tepid response at the box office. Yet, Blade Runner garnered an underground fan base that gave the film new life in subsequent releases. Why did Blade Runner become such a hot property? Because it was more than a science-fiction genre film. This paper will examine the fusion of film genre types presented in Blade Runner and consider the generic idiosyncrasies of its various theatrical releases.
Fusion of Film Genre in Blade Runner
In undertaking any discussion of film genre one must be cognizant of the similarity and differences between two or more films to enable generic classifications. Thomas Schatz addresses genre critics by saying “we understand genre films because of their similarity with other films, but we appreciate them because of their differences” (Schatz 567).
Robert McKee’s Story contains a list of 25 film genre and subgenre types, which he refers to as the “system used by screenwriters” (McKee 80-86). Blade Runner easily fits into several film genre types – Science Fiction and Crime (including Film Noir, Detective or Thriller subgenres). It also contains the elements of Horror and Redemption Plot as well.
Blade Runner as Science Fiction. This genre type centers on “stories whose central struggle is generated from the technology and tools of a scientifically imaginable world” (Pearson). As previously stated, the 1982 release of Blade Runner was heavily positioned as a science fiction film. Theatrical trailers showed overpopulated Los Angeles 2019, flying cars, futuristic weapons, vid-phones, surreal cityscapes and androids, known in this world as replicants. Its fabula focused on the struggle between humans and replicants, in a world where humans want to escape off-world (due to pollution, overpopulation, infertility, etc.) and where replicants were syntho-genetically created as workers for more inhospitable off-world environments. Scott’s interpretation of Dick’s gritty is a dystopian vision of life locked in a struggle with technology gone awry in the case of a band of escaped Nexus Six replicants.
In many ways, the post-apocalyptic artistic vision of Blade Runner became a science-fiction benchmark for subsequent cinematic offerings like Brazil, Dark City, and The Matrix, as well as inspiring a host of other films based on other Dickian science-fiction literature.
Blade Runner as Crime (Film Noir, Detective or Thriller). McKee’s broad category for the crime genre poses a question to direct the assignment of the correct subgenre: “From whose point of view do we regard the crime?” With regard to the film noir subgenre, he qualifies the point of view as that “of a protagonist who may be part criminal, part detective, part victim of a femme fatale” (McKee 82). Rick Deckard fits this description like a glove. Without the confirmation of a criminal past, the dirty work of being a “blade runner” who “retires” replicants seems to require its share of nefarious dealings. His rouse to get into Zhora’s dressing room indicates his willingness to use any ploy – legal or illegal to accomplish his goals.
Deckard does demonstrate an aptitude for being a detective, although he is a little hesitant to sign on again for another tour as a “blade runner.” Plus, he clearly is the “victim” of Rachel’s beauty and innocence, despite knowing that she’s a replicant and could turn on him before he does his job and turns on her.
McKee’s categorization is not the only way to define film noir. When French film critics coined the term in the 1940’s, it meant black or dark film, particularly with regard “to a newly emergent quality in wartime Hollywood films” (Film Noir). Typically, this definition of film noir pointed to a film like The Maltese Falcon released in 1941. As described in Matthew Foster’s online article, Blade Runner lives by its flawed anti-hero, a wretched population, darkly lit scenes, memorable dialog, and a cynical philosophy (Foster).
Regarding the crime thriller subgenre, McKee specifies the point of view of the victim as the defining perspective. In the climatic battle between Deckard and Batty, Deckard’s position changes from hunter to the hunted and is the potential victim of Batty’s last grasp at impacting his surroundings. In a stunning reversal, Batty saves Deckard from falling, demonstrating a level of humanity that is unexpected and riveting.
Blade Runner as Horror. McKee divides his categorization of the horror genre into three subgenres, of which “uncanny” bears a striking resemblance to the human and replicant narrative conflict in Blade Runner. He defines an uncanny horror film as one “in which the source of horror is astounding but subject to ‘rational’ explanation, such as beings from outer space, science-made monsters, of a maniac” (McKee 80). The film’s antagonist Roy Batty fits all of the aforementioned criteria: he escaped from an off-world colony; he is a android creation of the Tyrell Corporation; and he has developed a maniacal drive to outlive his generically encoded four year life span. Each of the Nexus Six fugitives exhibits a violent strength beyond that of the average human being. They were created for off-world labor and programmed with particular attributes like combat, pleasure, etc.
The parallels to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein are also striking, if not intentional. Dr. Eldon Tyrell becomes a type of Victor Frankenstein, bent to circumvent the primal laws of life and in his own words boasts “‘More human than human’ is our motto” (Blade Runner, The Script). The replicant creations were made human in every way except for memories, which allows them to be fully function without a history to prompt emotional reaction. Deckard’s first encounter with Rachel, the latest Nexus model who has been given embedded memories, leaves Deckard enamored with her beauty, charm and wit. While discussing her with Tyrell, Deckard quips about his own memories while alluding to the cinematic Frankenstein when he says “I saw an old movie once. The guy had bolts in his head” (Blade Runner, The Script).
Like Frankenstein’s monster, Batty longs to be restored in relationship to his creator. He goes to Tyrell and pleads to him for more life. Batty says, “It’s not an easy thing to meet your Maker,” to which the self-exultant Tyrell responds, “And what can He do for you?” (Blade Runner, The Script). When the creator refuses to comply, Batty feigns an embrace and crushes Tyrell’s skull. Now driven to make the most of his final hours, Batty stalks Deckard (who has just killed his replicant partner Pris), howling like a wolf, exhibiting super-human strength, and, in the his final act of seeking human significance, saving Deckard from falling to his own death. The monster saves the tragic protagonist, only to reach the end of his pre-determined life span. In broken humility, Batty delivers the classic lines – “I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain."
Blade Runner as Redemption Plot. For McKee, the redemption plot is found in a film that “arcs on a moral change within the protagonist from bad to good” (McKee 81). At the beginning of the film, Deckard is introduced as just another lost soul in a sea of lost souls. Called upon to come out of retirement to tackle the task of retiring four defiant replicants, Deckard “comes to the conclusion that his task of mercilessly hunting and striking down these creatures whose only crime is a belief in their humanity has dulled his own humanity” (McCarty). Another motivational explanation for Deckard’s redemptive transformational arc can be found in his discovery of Rachel. “Deckard has hunted replicants all his life. His mission is to protect humans from replicants. Yet here is a replicant who is for all intents and purposes human. Rachel awakens Deckard’s protective instincts, and he begins to reconsider what he does for a living” (Cavagna).
This is a complicated situation for Deckard, for while pursuing the retirement of replicants he has fallen in love with one. Clearly Deckard and Rachel move closer together to the point of engaging in a physical relationship at about the midpoint of the film. The conclusion of the film brings the battered hero back to his apartment to get Rachel. Together they leave the life of a “blade runner” behind.
Blade Runner as Genre Fusion. What does it mean to be a “science-fiction/crime-noir-thriller/horror/redemptive plot” film? The multiple generic categories that can be assigned to Blade Runner reveal the film’s (and Dick’s) implied desire to provide a more universal message to a broader audience. “Ultimately, whatever criteria one uses to establish a genre should allow for a productive discussion of the stylistic and thematic similarities among a group of films, and definitions should be flexible enough to allow for change” (Elements). Combining existing genre types like “science-fiction/horror” or “detective/redemptive” are like speaking in ecstatic tongues with no one to interpret. New terms like “future noir” and “cyberpunk” speak to the establishment of new generic designations, but are not completely adequate. Even the designation of cinema as art trumps its potential role as a commentator on dominant ideologies of nations and people groups. Dick’s future as rendered by Scott in Blade Runner is closer to our present than they might have imagined. Of Philip Dick, Jonathan Lethem writes:
Dick’s visions – though he wasn’t interested in being a predictive writer, and he wasn’t systematically trying to be predictive in his extrapolations – his instincts about where the media, where commercial culture were headed was unerring. We live in a world precisely full of the kind of invasive, mind-colonizing advertising, viral marketing notions that he predicted when it seemed absurd to do so. (Library of America 5)
The fusion of genre provided audiences then and now the opportunity to consider them warned and to prepare for what is coming.
Another way of looking at the results genre fusion is as a modern morality play. One of the central themes in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and by extension Blade Runner is that of dehumanization. In his own words, Dick explains: “The purpose of this story as I saw it was that in his job of hunting and killing these replicants, Deckard becomes progressively dehumanized. At the same time, the replicants are being perceived as becoming more human” (Philip K. Dick). It is not beyond reason that Blade Runner provides its audience with the moral mandate to live more humanly and to afford others the opportunity to do the same.
Permutations of Genre in Theatrical Releases
The evolution of Blade Runner through its various modifications is both a study in studio politics and the fact that an artist is never really finished with his work. From the perspective of a study in film genre these permutations reflect minute changes in the generic perception of the film. The Wikipedia article entitled Versions of Blade Runner lists seven version of the film. This section will examine four major versions in the order of their presentation to the public, rather than creation date to facilitate discussion of audience reaction and response.
U.S. Theatrical Release (1982). Caught in the studio’s system of budgets, guarantors, and executive producers, Ridley Scott had only completed a work-print of Blade Runner for test screenings before the rug was pulled out from under him. Buoyed by confused test audiences, the ambivalent wrap-up of various storylines and the need to release the film, the studio took creative control and made several dynamic changes that set this version of Blade Runner firmly on the path of receiving a label heavily weighed toward “film noir.” Changes included the eleventh hour addition of Harrison Ford’s voice-over interspersed throughout the story like a 1940’s detective film. Another change was the shooting of a romantic happy ending scenario. Finally, the studio mandated cuts to the film removing or shortening many scenes that were too ambivalent. Supervising Editor Terry Rawlings summarized the studios cuts in this way: “If it doesn’t really mean anything we’re going to cut it out…the things that go first when they think too long are the subtleties” (Dangerous Days).
Marketed as another Ridley Scott science-fiction thriller like Alien, but delivered as the studio’s worked over “detective noir” version caused most audience members and reviewers to walk away from theaters still wondering what they just had seen. Blade Runner did poorly at the box office not surpassing its $28 million production budget in U.S. earnings (Cavagna).
Ridley Scott’s 1982 Work-Print. In 1990 and 1991, Scott’s original 70mm work-print was screened before several festival audiences in Los Angeles and San Francisco under the unauthorized title The Director’s Cut. Suddenly the public was made aware of dynamically different cut of the film that reflected Ridley Scott’s unadulterated vision of Blade Runner. Gone were the noir voice-overs (save for the one immediately after the death of Batty) and the sappy happy ending. The pace of the film was more visually driven, without the distracting voice-overs. Its futuristic artistry better befits the science-fiction genre.
In a curious tidbit of decision making while editing, an alternative take was used when Roy Batty kills Tyrell. In this version, Roy says “I want more life, Father,” instead of the phrase “fucker.” This change added a greater literary connection to Shelley’s Frankenstein and the theological horror of a creature being rejected by its creator. The cut also included additional violent footage of Tyrell’s eyes being gouged out by Roy (Versions).
The Director’s Cut (1992). The buzz created by the work-print being leaked prompted the studio to authorize an official Director’s Cut of Blade Runner and codified much of the work represented in Scott’s work-print with one exception – the inclusion of the unicorn dream sequence while Deckard sits daydreaming at his piano. The surreal sequence, coupled with the Origami unicorn left by Gaff at the end of the film, opened a completely new plot angle, fueling the theory that Deckard himself was a replicant. This reinforced a science-fiction generic categorization.
The science-fiction world picked up the ball and catapulted Blade Runner into notable volume in VHS and Laserdisc sales and from there into mainstream awareness. Since several notable science-fiction and modern noir films had been made since the initial release of Blade Runner, uninitiated viewers had an existing body of work to refer to for genre comparisons and found the film more approachable and meaningful.
One small discrepancy occurred with the return to the previous, more profane take of Batty’s words to Tyrell – “I want more life, fucker.”
Blade Runner: The Final Cut (2007). For the 25th Anniversary of the release of Blade Runner: The Final Cut focused mainly on Ridley Scott’s desire to make slight corrections to timing of scenes that were too long due to initial extension for the noir voice-over and to fix several visible flaws in the practical visual effects like wire removal on several spinner flying shots. He did provide a more extended edit of the unicorn dream sequence and a scene where Deckard’s eyes glow in an eerie way lending further credence to the Deckard as replicant theory held by many science-fiction proponents. And the original work-print render of the Batty line to Tyrell was restored to the more profound version: “I want more life, Father.”
With its theatrical release, a new generation of film-going public was exposed to this genre rich, artistic masterpiece on the big screen.
Conclusion
For more than a quarter of a century, Blade Runner has remained in the AFI Top 100 Films of all time. Despite the turmoil surrounding its post-production and the permutations of theatrical versions released, the primary vision and message of Philip K. Dick’s work is aptly transmitted through the cinematic artistry of Ridley Scott. The discussion of fusion of film genre point to the words of Thomas Schatz: “Films produced later in a genre’s development tend to challenge the tidy and seemingly naïve resolutions of earlier genre films…” (Schatz 575). Blade Runner represents both the latter evolution of several genres and the primordial emergence of something seminal and new. How will we view its lessons in 2019? I, for one, hope we will take its advice.
Works Cited
Bernstein, Richard. The Electric Dreams of Philip K. Dick. The New York Times Book Review, November 3, 1991. Web. 23 June 2009.
Blade Runner, The Script. BRMovie.com. Web. 23 June 2009.
Cavagna, Carlo. Blade Runner. About Film (aboutfilm.com). Web. 23 June 2009.
Philip K. Dick – The Last Interview. The Official Blade Runner Online Magazine (www.devo.com). Web. 23 June 2009.
Elements of Genre. Film Reference (filmreference.com). Web. 23 June 2009.
Film Noir. Film Reference (filmreference.com). Web. 23 June 2009.
Library of America Interviews Jonathan Lethem about Philip K. Dick, The. The Library of America, 2007. Web. 23 June 2009.
McCarty, John. Blade Runner. Film Reference (filmreference.com). Web. 23 June 2009.
Pearson, Barry. Movie Genre Example. Create Your Screenplay (createyourscreenplay.com). Web. 27 June 2009.
Said, SF. How Hollywood woke up to a dark genius. The Daily Telegraph. Web. 23 June 2009.
Schatz, Thomas. Film Genre and the Genre Film. Film Theory & Criticism. Ed. Leo Baudy and Marshall Cohen, Seventh Edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Print.
Versions of Blade Runner. Wikipedia (wikipedia.com). Web. 28 June 2009.