Ridley Scott’s 1982 film loosely based off of the novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, by Philip K. Dick, Blade Runner takes us to dystopic future where artificial humans superior in strength and agility known as “replicants” are created by the Tyrell Corporation for slave labor in dangerous off-world colonies. They are later declared illegal on Earth after a brutal mutiny carried out by replicants in an off-world colony goes wrong. Special police squads known as “Blade Runners” are ordered to kill all trespassing replicants, a process not known as “execution”, but as “retirement”. Deckard, a former Blade Runner, played by Harrison Ford, is forced back into duty when four Replicants are said to have been brought back to Earth. At the same time, he falls in love with another, Rachael, played by Sean Young.

            Blade Runner shows us the possibility of what may occur as a result if human kind utilizes its intelligence and technology to play God in hopes of enhancing our progressiveness into a more advanced future. We are shown a world that is succumbed to global warming. Animals are virtually driven to extinction. Overpopulation is rampant. Los Angeles alone is a perfect example of just how bleak conditions are worldwide. Off-world colonies are established in hopes of finding a replacement for our dying own. That’s where the replicants come in. With the exploration of new planets being hazardous and dangerous for ordinary human beings, fake ones are created to do the work we fear to do ourselves.

            What happens, though, when Replicants begin to develop human desires – to live as long as an average human would, and be treated equally to other human beings? They start to recognize the oppression they must undergo, as their masters only see them as nothing more than a disposable workforce, an asset that could easily be replaced. With that, they rebel, which leads them to be marked illegal on Earth as well as the creation of the Blade Runners to be rid of them.

            In the film, we see Rachael, the replicant Deckard falls, insisting that she is human, and attempting to prove this by recounting her memories, which in reality were manufactured by the Tyrell Corporation as they were developing her. Additionally, the leader of the four illegal Replicants, Roy Batty, played by Rutger Hauer, asks CEO and founder of the Tyrell Corporation, Eldon Tyrell to be given a longer life span. When Tyrell replies that he cannot, Roy brutally murders him.

            At the film climax, after a violent confrontation between the two. Roy tells Deckard that to be a slave is to live in fear. It is here we see the famous “Tears in Rain” monologue by Roy, where which he recalls everything he has witnessed in space, saying that all his memories “will be lost in time, like tears in rain”. “Time to die” he utters, as he lets go of an artificial pigeon he had been gripping on to.

            When Deckard returns home, he finds Rachael asleep on his bed. As they leave, Deckard notices a unicorn left on a table by his colleague, Gaff. It’s unknown for sure what it signifies, some believe that it means that Gaff is onto them and knows their affair, others also theorize that it reveals that Deckard, himself, is a replicant.