Blade Runner

Blade Runner was one of the original visionary movies that shows the future in a very dark and disturbing way, far from the way the future had been depicted in the sci-fi genre previously. In fact, the only mainstream movie to have portrayed the same dirty grunge feel of our future was the original "Alien" which had also been helmed by visionary director Ridley Scott.

Set in the future Los Angeles. The year is 2019 and the opening scenes shows us a very chaotic Los Angeles.

In his first role since the incredible success of "Star Wars", Harrison Ford plays Rick Deckard, a semi-retired "Blade Runner", slang for a cop working with finding and "retiring" Replicants.

Replicants are genetically engineered people whose only role in society is one of slaves performing the menial, dangerous or dirty work that humans don't want to do.

In the movie a group of disenchanted replicants have escaped from one of the "off world colonies", murdered people and come back illegally to earth. Becuase of the potential dangers of replicants, they are forbidden from living on earth

It's Deckard's task to find the replicants and retire them.. Execute them.

The replicants themselves are an interesting mixture. One of them is a military model, a fearsome adversary played by Rutger Hauer (who later went on to play a very scary man from another 80's movie "The Hitcher"). Another is described as "a basic pleasure model", played by Darryl Hannah, an 'entertainer' played by Joanna Cassidy and we also have a physically powerful menial worker replicant, played by the always charismatic Brion James

What makes them special in film terms is their vulnerability and entirely 'human' aim to exceed the built-in 4 year lifespan that the manufacturers have designed as a safeguard. This is an enemy with which the audience can empathise.

Surrounding these central characters is an interesting and unusual love interest provided by Sean Young and a supporting cast of colourful characters and situations.

The movie also manages to raise fundamental questions about our own existence and our increasing reliance on technology, without sounding like an environmental propaganda movie. It may have seemed far-fetched in 1982, but today when almost anything is possible with genetic engineering, the movie could be a important reminder of how things might wind up if we are not careful with our new 'god' like power.