"He say you Blade Runner."

   From this post, the 6th-10th movies I've watched this year:

1. 12 Monkeys (95)
2. Alien (79)
3. Blade Runner (82)
4. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (07)
5. The Big Sleep (46)

   Two things first: Ripley for President, and I love Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart 4eva and eva amen.

   AND NOW, let's talk about Blade Runner. Blade Runner mixes science fiction and film noir and I could talk about this for awhile because I've been reading a great deal about it for a paper, BUT what I'm going to talk about is Roy.

   Roy is the most well-rounded, most interesting, and the most human character in this movie. He and Pris have a more developed relationship and more nuanced interactions than Rachel and Deckard ever would, and I'm here to say that Roy and not Deckard ought to be considered the main character of this movie. I don't care whether or not Deckard is a replicant (which he obviously is, as is the origami-folding policeman) when I consider Roy's more complicated issues of OH I'M DYING SOON, AND I WANT TO LIVE LONGER AND SAVE AS MANY OF MY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE. (Spoilers ahead) Roy not only kills his creator/father* but also the genetic designer whose DNA helps keep replicants short-lived. Roy, in one moment, faces his mortality, does something truly selfless in saving Deckard, and delivers the best dying speech ever, topping even Boromir's "I would've called you my brother, my captain, my king". NB exhibit Tears In The Rain:

"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 Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die."

   I know, right? It means almost nothing and yet means everything. The "Tannhäuser Gate" is literally nonsense, it's not a real thing and it's not even referenced in the rest of the movie. But that doesn't matter because Roy is talking about his fear that when he dies, he's gone and his life and the memory of it will disappear. And don't we all fear that? That after we die our existence on earth is slowly erased until even the people who remembered us aren't remembered anymore. It's even in the Bible:

For the living know that they will die,
    but the dead know nothing;
they have no further reward,
    and even their name is forgotten. 
 Their love, their hate
    and their jealousy have long since vanished;
never again will they have a part
    in anything that happens under the sun.

    Blade Runner is kind of choppy and messy and has heaps of holes, but I think the most interesting issue it addresses happens when the Voight-Kampff test is administered and it, essentially, measures shame. Rachel is ashamed to be a replicant, Deckard is ashamed that she would even suggest he take the test, and they, notably, are the replicants (assuming here that Deckard is indeed a robot) most associated and involved with humans. Leon takes the test and it makes him angry because he doesn't understand it, Roy never takes the test but he also never displays shame. He does what he feels he has to do, and it doesn't matter if that means he has to murder people or use his dying moments to save Deckard and then speak about memory and fear. He has strength of purpose. The whole movie centers around his quest for more time to live, and his final act is to give that to someone else, to someone who has been trying to kill him the whole time. By the end, his primary emotion is sorrow, while Deckard remains in fear and shame.

    All this to say, Roy is the character to watch closely in this movie, not Deckard. Some other notable things Roy does/says: he says "quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave", wins a chess game against a genius, punches his head through a wall, mourns Pris when he finds her dead (and then saves the person who killed her), and supports and cares about Leon even though Leon is a bit dumb, plus he is increasingly accompanied by Messianic imagery throughout the film. He just wants to live longer than four years and then he can't. ACH, Roy. Roy > Deckard.

   Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? has now been added to my to-read list in a major way.


   *Ridley Scott clearly has a thing with questioning origins and where we come from and how we feel about that and react to meeting our maker, and I don't think it's ever more clear than when David says "doesn't everyone want their parents dead?" in Prometheus**.

   **Watch Prometheus. I think it does a better job of delivering its message than Blade Runner does, and it's just an all-around great movie.