Blade Runner
Blade Runner is a 1982 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott, written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young. It is a loose adaptation of Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. The film is set in a dystopian future Los Angeles of 2019, in which synthetic humans known as replicants are bio-engineered by the powerful Tyrell Corporation to work on off-world colonies; when a fugitive group of Nexus-6 replicants led by Roy Batty escapes back to Earth, burnt-out cop Rick Deckard reluctantly agrees to hunt them down. Blade Runner underperformed in North American theaters and polarized critics, it became an acclaimed cult film regarded as one of the all-time best science fiction films. Hailed for its production design depicting a "retrofitted" future, Blade Runner is a leading example of neo-noir cinema; the soundtrack, composed by Vangelis, was nominated in 1983 for a BAFTA and a Golden Globe as best original score. The film has influenced many science fiction films, video games and television series.
It brought the work of Philip K. Dick to the attention of Hollywood, several big-budget films were based on his work. In the year after its release, Blade Runner won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, in 1993 it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally or aesthetically significant". A sequel, Blade Runner 2049, was released in October 2017. Seven versions of Blade Runner exist as a result of controversial changes requested by studio executives. A director's cut was released in 1992 after a strong response to test screenings of a workprint. This, in conjunction with the film's popularity as a video rental, made it one of the earliest movies to be released on DVD. In 2007, Warner Bros. released a 25th-anniversary digitally remastered version. In 2019 Los Angeles, former police officer Rick Deckard is detained by officer Gaff, brought to his former supervisor, Bryant. Deckard, whose job as a "blade runner" was to track down bioengineered beings known as replicants and "retire" them, is informed that four are on Earth illegally.
Deckard starts to leave, but Bryant ambiguously threatens him, he stays. The two watch a video of a blade runner named Holden administering the "Voigt-Kampff" test, designed to distinguish replicants from humans based on their emotional response to questions; the test subject, shoots Holden on the second question. Bryant wants Deckard to retire Leon and the other three Tyrell Corporation Nexus-6 replicants: Roy Batty and Pris. Bryant has Deckard meet with Eldon Tyrell so he can administer the test on a Nexus-6 to see if it works. Tyrell expresses his interest in seeing the test fail first and asks him to administer it on his assistant Rachael. After a much longer than standard test, Deckard concludes that Rachael is a replicant who believes she is human. Tyrell explains that she is an experiment, given false memories to provide an emotional "cushion". Searching Leon's hotel room, Deckard finds a synthetic snake scale. Roy and Leon investigate a replicant eye-manufacturing laboratory and learn of J. F. Sebastian, a gifted genetic designer who works with Tyrell.
Deckard returns to his apartment. She tries to prove her humanity by showing him a family photo, but after Deckard reveals that her memories are implants from Tyrell's niece, she leaves his apartment. Meanwhile, Pris manipulates him to gain his trust. A photograph from Leon's apartment and the snake scale lead Deckard to a strip club, where Zhora works. After a confrontation and chase, Deckard kills Zhora. Bryant orders him to retire Rachael, who has disappeared from the Tyrell Corporation. After Deckard spots Rachael in a crowd, he is attacked by Leon, who knocks Deckard's pistol out of his hand, attempts to kill Deckard, but Rachael uses Deckard's pistol to kill Leon, they return to Deckard's apartment, during an intimate discussion, he promises not to track her down. Arriving at Sebastian's apartment, Roy tells Pris. Sympathetic to their plight, Sebastian reveals that because of "Methuselah Syndrome", a genetic premature aging disorder, his life will be cut short. Sebastian and Roy gain entrance into Tyrell's secure penthouse, where Roy demands more life from his maker.
Tyrell tells him. Roy confesses that he has done "questionable things", but Tyrell dismisses this, praising Roy's advanced design and accomplishments in his short life. Roy kisses Tyrell kills him. Sebastian runs for the elevator, followed by Roy. Deckard is told by Bryant that Sebastian was found dead. At Sebastian's apartment, Deckard is ambushed by Pris. Roy's body begins to fail, he chases Deckard through the building. Deckard is left hanging between buildings. Roy makes the jump with ease, as Deckard's grip loosens, Roy hoists him onto the roof, saving him. Before Roy dies, he delivers a monologue about how his memories "will be lost in time, like tears in rain". Gaff arrives and shouts to Deckard about Rachael: "It's too bad she won't live, but again, who does?" Deckard finds Rachael asleep in his bed. As they leave, Deckard notices an origami unicorn
Blade Runner (1997 video game)
Blade Runner is a 1997 point-and-click adventure game developed by Westwood Studios and published by Virgin Interactive for Microsoft Windows. The game is not a direct adaptation of the 1982 Ridley Scott film Blade Runner, but is instead a "sidequel", telling an original story, which runs parallel to the film's plot intersecting with it. Set in 2019 Los Angeles, the game tells the story of Ray McCoy, an elite detective charged with hunting down a group of dangerous replicants. Although several of the film's characters appear in the game, with the original actors returning to voice them, the film's protagonist, Rick Deckard, does not appear in a speaking role. Instead, he is referred to on multiple occasions, is seen several times, his activities as depicted in the film are mentioned. Other parallels with the film include the reproduction of several prominent locations, as well as scenes and dialogue modelled on the original; the game features extracts from the film's soundtrack. Blade Runner was advertised as a "real-time 3D adventure game," since it was one of the first adventure games to use both 3D character rendering and a game world which progressed in real-time.
Unlike many games of its time, which used polygon-based renderers exploiting 3D accelerators, Westwood opted for their own software-based renderer using voxel technology. The game received positive reviews, was a commercial success, selling over one million units worldwide, it went on to win the Interactive Achievement Award for "Computer Adventure Game of the Year," and was nominated for "Best Adventure Game" by PC Gamer. Virgin Interactive wanted Westwood to make a sequel, but it was thought the cost of production would make the game commercially unviable, the idea was scrapped. Blade Runner is a point-and-click adventure game played from a third-person perspective, in which the game world is navigated and manipulated using the mouse; the pointer has four different styles depending on the given situation. Blade Runner's main focus is detective work rather than puzzles or combat, the majority of gameplay consists of searching for evidence, questioning suspects and analyzing clues; the player must solve compulsory puzzles, to progress the story, certain clues must be located.
Clues are found by searching crime scenes, come in the form of items, interviews, or unusual markings. When analyzing photographs, the player must use the ESPER system, a high-density computer with a powerful three-dimensional resolution capacity which allows for the enhancement of photos and enables the player to find details within the picture. Combat is available in the game, but is compulsory; the only weapon available to the player is McCoy's standard issue police pistol, which may be loaded with various types of ammunition. Another important investigative tool at the player's disposal is the Voight-Kampff machine, which tests people to determine if they are replicants. Voight-Kampff tests are automatically triggered at certain predetermined points in the game, although on occasion, the player has the option of administering a test; the test depicts a close-up of the subject's eye, features three needles. The further the top needle moves to the right, the more the subject is a replicant.
The third needle is on a sweeping axis and measures the intensity of the questions, the pressure felt by the subject. If the player pushes the subject too far, by asking too many high intensity questions, the test will end before a definite result can be obtained. If the player determines with certainty whether a subject is or is not a replicant, the test ends automatically; the player must decide what course of action to take, with the decision influencing the rest of the storyline. Aside from choosing how to react to Voight-Kampff results, the player must decide how McCoy conducts himself in other areas of the game, such as whether to interrogate an NPC, or talk to them, how aggressive to be in his questioning; the player can choose from one of five settings regarding McCoy's demeanor during conversations. If the fifth option is selected, conversations with NPCs will present the player with menus from which they can choose their questions, rather than the game automatically selecting questions.
Each choice will affect the storyline differently, with the player's cumulative decisions leading to one of the game's thirteen different endings. All clues, conversation histories and documents are stored in McCoy's "Knowledge Integration Assistant", where they are automatically organized for easy access; the KIA has three main sections. The "Crime Scene Panel" lists the various crime scenes, along with all known suspects and all related clues; the "
Blade Runner 4: Eye and Talon
Blade Runner 4: Eye and Talon is a science fiction novel by American writer K. W. Jeter, published in 2000 by Gollancz, it is the fourth book to continue the storyline of the film Blade Runner. The book begins with an "out-take" section, written as a movie script, which describes the scene from the original movie in which Leon is subjected to the Voight-Kampff test. However, in this version, the blade runner performing the test is a woman, Leon kills her at the end of the test; the section ends with an unknown person commenting "This one didn't work, either. The story begins with the introduction of Iris, a female Blade Runner, the best in her unit. Meyer - her boss - tells her. Meyer gives Iris the assignment to track down an owl - an rare, real owl, named Scrappy. Iris is skeptical, since if the owl is real the case seems to be nothing to do with the blade runners, but she accepts the job anyway. Returning to her apartment, Iris uses a surresper - a version of the esper machine from the original Blade Runner which behaves as a virtual reality machine rather than a simple viewer - to analyse the data Meyer gave her about the owl.
The data record contains two recorded scenes. The first shows Eldon Tyrell; the second shows Rachael's first meeting, in sight of the owl. Iris does not recognise Deckard, reacts with surprise when the surresper tells her that he was a blade runner. Iris talks the events through with her pet "chat" - an artificial cat whose fur is designed to release relaxing drugs into the owner when it is stroked. With no good leads, Iris steps out into the shopping districts of Los Angeles and starts asking around after the owl, she does not make any progress, until a mysterious man approaches, knowing both her name and what she is doing. At first, Iris attacks him, but he persuades her to trust him and takes her to his "home" within the wreckage of a downed advertising blimp; the man, tells Iris the owl's current location: hidden in a disused movie theatre nearby, guarded by men with illegal modified automatic weapons. Iris is shocked: she was never given any warning that the owl could be so guarded, her casual investigation could have gotten her shot.
Iris begins to distrust Meyer, for giving her the job. Iris calls Meyer to ask for access to the police armory, Meyer grudgingly agrees; as Iris collects the weapons, the novel describes a scene in which a director and camera operator are monitoring both Iris and Vogel as they collect and prepare the weapons, have a monitoring camera prepared for the disused theatre in which they will be used. Using the weapons, plus a drug supplied by Vogel to fool the temperature sensitive alarms and Iris together enter the building and recapture the owl. Iris betrays Vogel, leaving him in the building while she escapes with the owl via an elevator. Still not trusting Meyer, Iris takes the owl back to her apartment, where she confirms that it is the correct owl, quickly becomes afraid that she could be in danger if she is caught with the owl before she finds out what is so important about it, her chat offers her a mild'hit' to relax her, but the moment she touches the chat's head, she is slammed with a massive overdose that leaves her sprawled on the floor.
An unknown man walks into the room and takes away the owl, explaining that he booby-trapped the chat, remarking that he is doing Iris a favor by buying her more time. Iris is taken to hospital to recover from the overdose, while there she is met by Meyer, angry that Iris did not bring the owl straight back to him and - as a result - lost it, he tells her. Meyer hands Iris the one remaining item, found with the owl - a chain, used to fasten it to its perch. Once Meyer is gone, Iris realises that the scratch marks on the inside of the ring are encoded data giving a GPS location, she rushes out of the hospital to investigate. The coordinate turns out to be the location of the ruined Tyrell building. Iris is surprised to meet Vogel there. Vogel takes Iris into the ruins of the Tyrell building to show her where the owl came from, talks about Tyrell's history, including the death of Tyrell at the hands of Roy Batty. Iris has not heard of this murder, Vogel is surprised, uses a video projector in the quarters to show her the movie Blade Runner.
Vogel points out something that Iris herself had not noticed: that the Rachael replicant looks identical to Iris. In the monitoring suite, the director comments that Vogel was not supposed to say that, the camera operator asks why Iris would not have spotted it for herself; as Iris and Vogel are in Tyrell's quarters, they hear someone else trying to break in. Vogel says that he has "gone off-script", that the people coming are the film crew. Iris and Vogel escape through a tunnel in the ruins, but Iris is captured by a fleet of spinners and taken to a distant location in the desert. In the desert base, Iris asks if she will be allowed to meet the director, but the guard claims never to have heard of him, leads Iris to meet an elderly man called Carsten, he explains that their group is an alliance of former technical
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick, first published in 1968; the novel is set in a post-apocalyptic San Francisco, where Earth's life has been damaged by nuclear global war. Most animal species are endangered or extinct from extreme radiation poisoning, so that owning an animal is now a sign of status and empathy, an attitude encouraged towards animals; the book served as the primary basis for the 1982 film Blade Runner, many elements and themes from it were used in its 2017 sequel Blade Runner 2049. The main plot follows Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter, tasked with "retiring" six escaped Nexus-6 model androids, while a secondary plot follows John Isidore, a man of sub-par IQ who aids the fugitive androids. In connection with Deckard's mission, the novel explores the issue of what it is to be human and whether empathy is a purely human ability. In post-apocalyptic 1992, after "World War Terminus", the Earth's radioactively polluted atmosphere leads the United Nations to encourage mass emigrations to off-world colonies to preserve humanity's genetic integrity.
This comes with the incentive of free personal androids: robot servants identical to humans. The characters and text refer to these androids variously as "robots," "machines," and "programmed," but it is made clear that they are constructed of organic materials so similar to a human's that only a tedious "bone marrow analysis" can independently prove the difference. To save time in identifying incognito androids, various polygraph-style tests have been devised; the Rosen Association manufactures the androids on Mars, but certain androids violently rebel and escape to the underpopulated Earth where they hope to remain undetected. Therefore and Soviet police departments remain vigilant, keeping bounty-hunting officers on duty. On Earth, owning real live animals has become a fashionable status symbol, because of mass extinctions and the accompanying cultural push for greater empathy. High-status animals, such as horses, cost far more than low-status animals; however poor people can only afford realistic-looking robot imitations of live animals.
Rick Deckard, for example, owns an electric black-faced sheep. These artificial animals appear and feel identical to real animals, but are described as "electric," having "circuits" and hidden access "control panels," and requiring "repairs." Compared to the android robots, Deckard regards these electric animals as "a kind of vastly inferior robot." The trend of increased empathy has coincidentally motivated a new technology-based religion called Mercerism. Mercerism uses "empathy boxes" to link users to a virtual reality of collective suffering, centered on a martyr-like character, Wilbur Mercer, who eternally climbs up a hill while being hit with crashing stones. Acquiring high-status animal pets and linking in to empathy boxes appear to be the only two ways that humans can attain existential fulfillment. Police department bounty hunter Rick Deckard is assigned to retire six androids of the intelligent Nexus-6 model; these androids are difficult to detect, but Deckard hopes to earn enough bounty money to buy a live animal to replace his lone electric sheep.
Deckard visits the Rosen Association's headquarters in Seattle to confirm the latest empathy test's accuracy. The test appears to give a false positive on Eldon Rosen's niece, meaning the police have been executing human beings. Rosen attempts to blackmail Deckard to get him to drop the case, but Deckard retests Rachael and determines that Rachael is, indeed, an android. Deckard soon meets a Soviet police contact who turns out to be one of the Nexus-6 renegades in disguise. Deckard retires the android flies off to retire his next target: an opera singer android; when administering the empathy test on her, she calls the police. Failing to recognize Deckard as a bounty hunter, they arrest and detain him at a station he has never heard of housed by officers whom he is surprised never to have met. An official named Garland accuses Deckard himself of being an android with implanted memories. After a series of mysterious revelations at the station, Deckard ponders the ethical and philosophical questions his line of work raises regarding android intelligence and what it means to be human.
Garland reveals that the entire station is a sham, claiming that Phil Resch, the station's resident bounty hunter is an android. Resch shoots Garland in the head, escaping with Deckard back to the opera singer, whom Resch brutally retires in cold blood. Deckard uses the empathy test on Resch to confirm that he is human and on himself, finding that he has a sense of empathy for the androids. Deckard buys his wife Iran an authentic Nubian goat with his reward money, his supervisor insists that he visit an abandoned apartment building where the three remaining Nexus-6 android fugitives are. Experiencing a vision of the prophet-like Mercer confusingly telling him to proceed, despite the immorality of the mission, Deckard calls on Rachael Rosen again, since her knowledge of androids will aid his investigation. Rachael declines to help, but reluctantly agrees to meet Deckard at a hotel in exchange for him abandoning the case. At the hotel, she reveals that one of the fugitive androids is the same exact model as herself, meaning that he will have to shoot down an android that looks just like her.
Rachael coaxes Deckard into sex. However, she reveals she has slept with many bounty hunters, having been programmed to do so in order to dissuade them from their missions, he threatens to kill her, but holds b
The Human Edge
The Human Edge is a collection of science fiction stories by American writer Gordon R. Dickson, it was edited by Hank Davis. Most of the stories appeared in the magazines Astounding SF, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, If, Fantasy and Science Fiction and Worlds of Tomorrow. "Introduction: The Dickson Edge", by Hank Davis "Danger—Human" "Sleight of Wit" "In the Bone" "3-Part Puzzle" "An Ounce of Emotion" "Brother Charlie" "The Game of Five" "Tiger Green" "The Hard Way" "Jackal’s Meal" "On Messenger Mountain" "The Catch" Brown, Charles N.. "The Locus Index to Science Fiction". Retrieved 2008-01-23
A Marvel Comics Super Special: Blade Runner
Marvel Comics Super Special: Blade Runner or just Blade Runner is a comic book adaptation of the film Blade Runner, published by Marvel Comics in 1982. It was written by Archie Goodwin with art by Al Williamson, Carlos Garzon with Dan Green and Ralph Reese. With a cover by Jim Steranko, the 45-page adaptation includes one possible explanation of the title's significance in story context: the narrative line, "Blade runner. You're always movin' on the edge."This was issue 22 of the Marvel Comics Super Special series of titles, which by this time only printed Marvel's movie adaptations. It was reprinted in a two issue mini series but without the feature content contained in the special. In the United Kingdom, it was reprinted as the Blade Runner Annual published by Grandreams. Again, the feature content of the original special was not reprinted; the mass market paperback was published in black and white and contains images from the film, it is one of the rarest Marvel Comics paperbacks. The comic attempts to fill in gaps in the script.
According to author Lawrence Raw, the Marvel adaptation was poorly received and ridiculed as having bad writing and misquoted lines of dialogue from the film script. Julian Darius of Sequart stated that "most movie adaptations aren’t great comics in their own right, the Blade Runner adaptation’s no different" but noted that "the adaptation is something of a mixed bag, but the more time one spends with it, the more one likes it." Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Dust to Dust Blade Runner at the Comic Book DB Blade Runner at the Grand Comics Database
Blade Runner 2049
Blade Runner 2049 is a 2017 American neo-noir science fiction film directed by Denis Villeneuve and written by Hampton Fancher and Michael Green. A sequel to the 1982 film Blade Runner, the film stars Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford, with Ana de Armas, Sylvia Hoeks, Robin Wright, Jared Leto in supporting roles. Ford and Edward James Olmos reprise their roles from the original film. Set thirty years after the first film, Gosling plays K, a Nexus-9 replicant "blade runner" who uncovers a secret that threatens to destabilize society and the course of civilization. Principal photography took place between July and November 2016 in Budapest, Hungary. Blade Runner 2049 premiered in Los Angeles on October 3, 2017 and was released in the United States in 2D, 3D and IMAX on October 6, 2017; the film was praised by critics for its performances, cinematography, musical score, production design, visual effects, faithfulness to the original film. It is considered by many critics and audiences to be one of the best films of 2017.
Despite positive reviews, the film was a box office disappointment. Blade Runner 2049 received five nominations at the 90th Academy Awards, winning Best Cinematography and Best Visual Effects, it received eight nominations at the 71st British Academy Film Awards, including Best Director, winning Best Cinematography and Best Special Visual Effects. In 2049, replicants are slaves. K, a replicant, works for the Los Angeles Police Department as a "blade runner", an officer who hunts and "retires" rogue replicants. At a protein farm, he finds a box buried under a tree; the box contains the remains of a female replicant who died during a caesarean section, demonstrating that replicants can reproduce sexually thought impossible. K's superior, Lt. Joshi, is fearful that this could lead to a war between replicants, she orders K to retire the replicant child to hide the truth. K visits the headquarters of the Wallace Corporation, the successor-in-interest in the manufacturing of replicants to the defunct Tyrell Corporation.
Wallace staff identify the deceased female from DNA archives as Rachael, an experimental replicant designed by Dr. Eldon Tyrell. K learns of Rachael's romantic ties with former blade runner Rick Deckard. Wallace Corporation CEO Niander Wallace wants to discover the secret to replicant reproduction to expand interstellar colonization, he sends his replicant enforcer Luv to steal Rachael's remains from LAPD headquarters and follow K to Rachael's child. At Morton's farm, K sees the date 6-10-21 carved into the tree trunk and recognizes it from a childhood memory of a wooden toy horse; because replicants' memories are artificial, K's holographic AI girlfriend Joi believes this is evidence that K was born, not created. He searches the LAPD records and discovers twins born on that date with identical DNA aside from the sex chromosome, but only the boy is listed as alive. K tracks the child to an orphanage in ruined San Diego, but discovers the records from that year to be missing. K finds the toy horse where he remembers hiding it.
Dr. Ana Stelline, a designer of replicant memories, confirms that the memory of the orphanage is real, leading K to conclude that he is Rachael's son. At LAPD headquarters, K fails a post-traumatic baseline test. Joshi gives K 48 hours to disappear. At Joi's request, K reluctantly transfers her to a mobile emitter, an emanator, so he cannot be traced through her console memory-files, he has the toy horse analyzed, revealing traces of radiation that lead him to the ruins of Las Vegas. He finds Deckard, who reveals that he is the father of Rachael's child and that he scrambled the birth records to protect the child's identity. After killing Joshi, Luv tracks K's LAPD vehicle to Deckard's hiding place in Las Vegas, she destroys Joi and leaves K to die. The replicant freedom movement rescues K; when their leader, informs him that she helped deliver Rachael's daughter, K understands he is not Rachael's child and deduces Stelline is her daughter and that the memory of the toy horse is hers, her having implanted the memory amongst those of every replicant's memories whom she had designed.
To prevent Deckard from leading Wallace to Stelline or the freedom movement, Freysa asks K to kill Deckard for the greater good of all replicants. Luv brings Deckard to Wallace Co. headquarters to meet Niander Wallace. He offers Deckard a clone of Rachael for revealing. Deckard Luv kills the clone; as Luv is transporting Deckard to a ship to take him off-world to be interrogated, K intercepts and kills Luv but is wounded in the fight. He stages Deckard's death to protect him from Wallace and the replicant freedom movement before taking Deckard to Stelline's office and handing him her toy horse; as K lies down motionless on the steps, looking up at the snowing sky, an emotional Deckard enters the building and meets his daughter for the first time. Archival footage and stills of Sean Young from the original film are used to represent both her original character of Rachael and a clone of the character created by Niander Wallace. Young's likeness was digitally superimposed onto Loren Peta, coached by Young on how to recreate her performance from the first film.
The voice of the replicant was created with the use of a sound-alike actress to Young. Young was credited for her work. On March 3, 2011, it was reported that Alcon Entertainment, a production company financed by Warner Bros. was "in final discussions to secure fi
