This article contains spoilers for both “Blade Runner” and “Blade Runner 2049.” I highly suggest seeing both before reading about either.
The Blade Runner movies are cinematic masterpieces with gorgeous visuals and aesthetics; amazing soundtracks that blend perfectly with the diegetic sound design; compelling, perfectly-cast-and-acted characters, in-depth world building . . . I could go on. I won’t, but I could. However, the philosophical themes of the Blade Runner world are why the films resonate with viewers on a deeper level.
Humans love labels. Labels help us make sense of our environments by affiliating things we see with things we already know. The problem with labels is that they are made up and very human-centric. We can only create labels for things about which we already know and we can only organize things based on prior knowledge.
The Blade Runner universe is an example of labels being challenged. Replicants are manufactured “humans” created to carry out menial tasks in off-world colonies. Replicants are indistinguishable from humans, save for the fact that they are designed to feel no emotion. Replicants challenge the definition of “human.”
If you define a human as a member of our species, replicants fit: they have DNA identical to ours.
If you define a human as a member of our species that is brought into this world using the “birds and bees” method of sexual reproduction, replicants fit: two replicants can produce a baby, as revealed in “2049.”
If you define a human as a self-aware, conscious individual of our species . . . well, that’s a rather poor definition, isn’t it? After all, how can you know if someone else is self-aware or conscious? They might appear to be, but there’s no way to prove anyone’s consciousness except your own. For more on this train of thought, you can look up “solipsism.”
And if you define a human as a member of our species that exhibits emotion, replicants fit—conditionally. Replicants straight out of the factory are designed to be void of emotion. However, as they gain worldly experience, there’s nothing their creators can do to keep them from developing emotion. K, the protagonist of “Blade Runner 2049,” is a replicant blade runner, tasked with hunting down and “retiring” rogue replicants. After each outing, K is subjected to a “baseline test” that challenges his physical reaction to phrases designed to evoke emotion in order to determine if he is developing the capacity to feel emotion. Eventually, K fails his baseline. If we consider the last definition, is he now a human? And how do we define when he became human?
This muddying of established definitions is part of what makes Blade Runner so great. Blade Runner grabs you by the collar and says, “You’re not special. Look, we made this guy in a factory and he’s just like you.” It asks us, as “humans,” to realize the bias behind every view we have of the universe. It takes a hammer to the inflated ego of humans as a species.
"Blade Runner 2049" takes it a step further. We meet K’s holographic wife, Joi. Joi is a mass-produced AI meant to provide emotional comfort to the lonely men of the Blade Runner world. Joi is incredibly lifelike: she holds conversations, prepares holographic meals and goes so far as to say she loves K. There is a strong argument that Joi is a conscious, emotional being. However, there is no way to prove it. Anything she does or says could be chalked up to her advanced programming. It is impossible to tell if she is emoting or programmed to emote.
The inclusion of Joi in “Blade Runner 2049” brings the philosophical dilemmas closer to our modern life. Each day, huge strides are being made in machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). For example, take Sophia (the actor talking to Sophia actually appears in “Blade Runner 2049”). As this technology progresses and AI become more and more indistinguishable from a real human being, as a species, we will have to face difficult questions. Should AI be counted as citizens? Can AI be owned? Can AI vote? Do AI have civil rights?
While the visuals, music and plot lines of the Blade Runner movies are unparalleled, it would be a crime to ignore the questions the movies pose about life. If nothing else, Blade Runner should make you feel a little more humble.
