Often abbreviated DADoES. Originally published in 1968
Basis for the
1982 film Blade Runner
Plot Summary: By 2021, the World War had killed millions, driving entire species into extinction
and sending mankind off-planet. Those who remained coveted any living creature, and for people who couldn't afford one, companies
built incredibly realistic simulacrae: horses, birds, cats, sheep. . . They even built humans.
Emigrees to Mars received
androids so sophisticated it was impossible to tell them from true men or women. Fearful of the havoc these artificial humans
could wreak, the government banned them from Earth. But when androids didn't want to be identified, they just blended in.
Rick Deckard was an officially sanctioned bounty hunter whose job was to find rogue androids, and to retire them.
But cornered, androids tended to fight back, with deadly results.
The film takes place in the year 2019, replacing the novel's 1992. Despite these differences, several post-1982
editions of the novel have been published under the title Blade Runner, and changed the year it takes place to 2021.
Study Guide for Philip K. Dick: Blade Runner (1968)
These study guides were created
to help students prepare for literature classes. They are meant to serve several functions.
1) Some of them provide
background to help readers understand what they are reading and why they are reading it (the historical status of the works).
2) They provide useful information, explaining allusions, obscure terms, etc. in the texts and provide translations
of passages written in languages other than English.
3) They try to focus students' attention on issues that we will
discuss in class.
This guide was created to help students prepare for literature classes. They are meant
to serve several functions.
1) Some of them provide background to help readers understand what they are reading and
why they are reading it (the historical status of the works).
2) They provide useful information, explaining allusions,
obscure terms, etc. in the texts and provide translations of passages written in languages other than English.
3)
They try to focus students' attention on issues that will be discussed in class. Copyright Paul Brians 1995
An attractive website containing information worthy a Blade Runner enthusiast's visit! Contains an abstract, character
section, cast bios, bloopers, and other misc. Not all sections are available, seems to be a 'work in progress'.
This site contains MANY treasures for the mind. In the case of Blade Runner, "it" has roots and connections
beyond our individual thinking. Everything to do with Blade Runner from the movie, to songs inspired by the movie to morphology
and to Nirvana.
Enjoy!
The different versions of the movie Blade Runner published may be found here
Documentary on the sci-fi cult classic movie, Blade Runner. The video deals mostly with the ideas of the film
and the history of how the film became to be.
"The Monster Reconsidered - 'Blade Runner' Replicant As Romantic Hero." Extrapolation, 1993 Winter, V34 N4:340-350.
Albrecht, Donald.
"'Blade Runner' cuts deep into American culture." (motion picture) New York Times v142, sec2 (Sun, Sept 20, 1992):H19(N),
H19(L), col 1, 20 col in.
Battaglia, D.
"Multiplicities: An anthropologist's thoughts on replicants and clones in popular film." Critical Inquiry 27 (3):
493-514 SPR 2001
Barns, Ian.
"The Human Genome Project and the Self." Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 1994 Spring-Summer, 77:1-2, 99-128.
Beard, John.
"Science fiction films of the eighties: fin de siecle before its time."(depiction of the future in motion pictures) Journal
of Popular Culture v32, n1 (Summer, 1998):1 (1 page).
"Visions of the future are depicted in the science fiction films of the 1980s. The film 'Escape from New York' shows a
city that has turned into a wasteland while the movie 'Blade Runner' portrays the city of Los Angeles, CA, to be a dying and
diseased city. Both ways, the future is depicted as dark and decaying. Other films have followed which do not match the quality
of the two movies but the trend is expected to continue toward a similar future." [Magazine Index]
Begley, Varun.
"Blade Runner and the Postmodern: A Reconsideration." Literature/Film Quarterly. 32 (3): 186-92. 2004.
"The two versions of Ridley Scott's 'Blade Runner' reflect the diverse and divided critical responses to the film. The
theologies of interpretation evident in criticism of 'Blade Runner' particularly its problematic encounter with postmodernism
are explored." [Expanded Academic Index]
Benjamin, A.
"At Home With Replicants, The Architecture Of 'Blade Runner'" Architectural Design, 1994, N112:22-25.
"Part of a special section on architecture and motion pictures. The writer discusses the interplay of film and architecture
in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. The chronological setting of the movie, its urban location, and the presence of replicants--an
advanced form of robot--connect history, in the form of the future; architecture, in the form of Los Angeles and its urban
environment; and the body, for example, in terms of the necessity to distinguish between replicant and human. The importance
of this movie is that it allows a way of tracing a specific formation of these three elements, raising questions about the
future and how it will be built." [Art Abstracts]
"Blade Runner."
In: Science fiction filmmaking in the 1980s : interviews with actors, directors, producers, and writers / by Lee
Goldberg ... [et al.]; with a foreword by David McDonnell. Jefferson, N.C. : McFarland & Co.,
"Examines the relations between the new technologies of virtual reality & racial politics. Visions of the future depicted
in such films as Blade Runner, the Mad Max series, & Demolition Man have replicated imnages of black otherness & difference,
often associating them with subalternate social identities or Third World/dystopian conditions. In contrast, virtual reality
software, eg, Sim City 2000 & Reality Engine, eliminate the category of race in their operations. Sim City 2000, a simulation
game where the objective is to successfully act as administrator for an urban utopia, is analyzed as a raceless space of experience.
It is suggested that by not directly acknowledging issues of race, enough colluding representations exist in the game to elicit
the use of racial categories when participating. It is concluded that the game fails to recognize struggles for racial justice
while still presenting a realistic simulation of an urban area that elicits racial hierarchies within the user." [Sociological
Abstracts]
Booker, M. Keith.
"Blade Runner." In: Alternate Americas : science fiction film and American culture / M. Keith Booker. Westport,
Conn. : Praeger, 2006.
"Internet Fandom and the Continuing Narratives of Star Wars, Blade Runner and Alien." In: Alien zone II : the spaces
of science-fiction cinema / edited by Annette Kuhn. pp: 50-72. London ; New York : Verso, 1999.
--Main Stack PN1995.9.S26.A8184 1999
Brooker, Will.
"The Blade Runner Experience: The Legacy of a Science Fiction Classic"
Wallflower Press. 2005
ISBN 1-904764-30-4
ISBN 1-904764-31-2
Brooks, Christopher K.
"'More Human Than Human': In Search of the Human Condition." Journal of American Culture vol. 11 no. 4. 1988 Winter.
pp: 65-71.
Bruno, Giuliana
"Ramble City: Postmodernism and Blade Runner." October 41 (1987:Summer) 61
Bukatman, Scott
Blade Runner / Scott Bukatman. London: British Film Institute, 1997. BFI modern classics
--Main Stack PN1997.B633.B8 1997
Bukatman, Scott
"Fractal geographies." (comments on the movie Blade Runner) (Film) Artforum v31, n4 (Dec, 1992):6 (2 pages).
Most science fiction films are said to be centered more on vision than other genres. This reference to vision is embodied
in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, where the film presents an Eyeworld and a huge disebodied eye in some of its scenes. Visual
design was done by Lawrence Pauli and Syd Mead and was derived from the art style of Heavy Metal magazine. Special effects
were supervised by Douglas Trubull and are described as profoundly contemplative and reflexive, reflecting the films as a
technological marvel of vision.
Bullaro, Grace Russo.
"Blade Runner: The Subversion and Redefinition of Categories." Riverside Quarterly vol. 9 no. 2. 1993 Aug. pp:
102-08.
Byers, Thomas B.
"Commodity Futures: Corporate State and Personal Style in Three Recent Science-Fiction Movies." Science-Fiction Studies
vol. 14 (3) no. 43. 1987 Nov. pp: 326-339.
Byers, Thomas B.
"Kissing Becky: Masculine Fears and Misogynist Moments in Science Fiction Films." Arizona Quarterly: A Journal of American
Literature, Culture, and Theory vol. 45 no. 3. 1989 Autumn. pp: 77-95.
Carr, Brian.
"At the Thresholds of the 'Human': Race, Psychoanalysis, and the Replication of Imperial Memory." Cultural Critique,
1998 Spring, 39, 119-50.
Casimir, V.
"Data and Dick's Deckard: Cyborg as Problematic Signifier" (`Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep', `Blade Runner', `Star
Trek') Extrapolations, 1997 Winter, V38 N4:278-291.
Chevrier, Yves.
"Blade Runner: or, the Sociology of Anticipation." Science-Fiction Studies vol. 11 no. 1 (32). 1984 Mar. pp: 50-60.
Cifuentes, D
"'Blade Runner', or, Theseus' struggle with the Minotaur." Pensamiento 54 (210): 449-456 SEP-DEC 1998
Collins, Glenn.
"Film: 'Blade Runner,' grisly sadism and cruelty." New York Times v131 (Wed, June 30, 1982):21(N), C19(L), col
1, 33 col in.
"Blade Runner." Artforum International v. 41 no. 7 (March 2003) p. 123
Crogan, Patrick
"Blade Runners: Speculations on Narrative and Interactivity." South Atlantic Quarterly. 101(3):639-57. 2002 Summer
Crooks, Robert
"Retro noir, Future noir: Body Heat, Blade Runner, and Neo-Conservative Paranoia." Film and Philosophy. 1994; 1:
105-110
Cupitt, Cathy
"Eyeballing the Simulacra: Desire and Vision in Blade Runner."
Dalton, Jennifer.
"Chasing replicants at home: the armchair Blade Runner." (Review) (audio-visual reviews) Performing Arts Journal,
n60 (Sept, 1998):118 (4 pages).
Desser, David
"Blade Runner: Science Fiction and Transcendence." Literature/Film Quarterly 13.3 (1985):172-9.
Discusses the film's connections to the Bible, Milton's Paradise Lost and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
Desser, David
"Race, Space and Class: The Politics of Cityscapes in Science-Fiction Films." In: Alien zone II : the spaces of science-fiction
cinema / edited by Annette Kuhn. London ; New York : Verso, 1999.
--Main Stack PN1995.9.S26.A8184 1999
Deutelbaum, Marshall.
"Memory/Visual Design: The Remembered Sights of Blade Runner." Literature-Film Quarterly v17, n1 (Jan, 1989):66
(7 pages).
Doll, Susan.
"Blade Runner and Genre: Film Noir and Science Fiction." Literature/ Film Quarter, vol. 14 no. 2. 1986. pp: 89-100.
"Blade Runner: special photographic effects; excerpts from an interview with excerpts from an interview with David Dryer."
American Cinematographer v 63 July 1982. p. 692-3+
"Films foretell the future." American Cinematographer v 80 no12 Dec 1999. p. 36-7
"Jeb Brody of the American Museum of the Moving Image in New York has programmed an insightful array of films featuring
a variety of fatalistic post-millennial milieus to welcome the year 2000. Films to be screened include Fritz Lang's Metropolis,
Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, William Cameron Menzies' Things to Come, Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville, and Woody Allen's Sleeper."
[Art Abstracts]
Fischer, Norman.
"Blade Runner and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?: An Ecological Critique of Human-Centered Value Systems." Canadian
Journal of Social and Political Theory, vol. 13 no. 3 (1989), pp. 102-113.
Fisher, William.
"Of Living Machines and Living-Machines: Blade Runner and the Terminal Genre." New Literary History 1988 20(1):
187-198.
"Uses the 1982 film Blade Runner to illustrate a theoretical terminal genre that makes use of the interplay between technology
and utopianism and to show how this genre is the successor of European and American avant-garde films." [America: History
and Life]
Fitting, Peter.
"Futurecop: The Neutralization of Revolt in 'Blade Runner.'" Science Fiction Studies, 14:3 (Nov. 1987) pp:340-
Gerblinger, Christiane.
""Fiery The Angels Fell": America, Regeneration, And Ridley Scott's Blade Runner." Australasian Journal Of American
Studies [New Zealand] 2002 21(1): 19-30.
"Analyzes Ridley Scott's 1982 film Blade Runner to show how America in the 1980's sought to regenerate itself by looking
to its past, rather than attempting to progress forward. The "fiery the angels fell" reference to William Blake's "America,
a Prophecy" (1793) with which one of the film's main characters opens the feature, is a deliberate misquotation. Motifs and
characters from Blade Runner reveal the social and political changes of the 1980's that required a new perspective on America's
national character." [America: History and Life]
The Gospel According to Philip K. Dick [Videorecording] New York : First Run/Icarus Films, 2000.
A profile of the life of the influential science fiction writer, Philip K. Dick presented through interviews with contemporaries
and excerpts from his writings. Dick's writing and ideas on reality, humanity and technology which blend West Coast utopianism,
counterculture paranoia and mystical experience have been adapted into films, including Blade Runner and Total Recall. Since
very little interview footage exists of Philip K. Dick, this documentary relies on audio taped interviews with Dick, allowing
him to comment in his own words.
--Media Center VIDEO/C 7650
Gravett, Sharon L.
"The Sacred and the Profane: Examining the Religious Subtext of Ridley Scott's 'Blade Runner.'" Literature-Film Quarterly
v26, n1 (Jan, 1998):38 (8 pages).
The religious subtext of Ridley Scott's 'Blade Runner' has been overlooked in favor of discussion of other more obvious
genres. 'Blade Runner' draws on the creation story in Genesis, but also on the founding of the nation of Israel and the patriarch
Israel. In 'Blade Runner' the replicants represent the new Adams and Eves, but there are parallels between Jacob, his twin
brother Esau, Deckard and Batty.
Haynes, Roslynn D. From Faust To Strangelove: Representations of the Scientist in Western Literature. Baltimore,
Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press, Copyright 1994.
Higley, S.L.
"A Taste for Shrinking: Movie Miniatures and the Unreal City." Camera Obscura no. 47 (2001) p. 1-35
"The writer examines the reception of the illusion created by miniatures in seven films: Fritz Lang's Metropolis, David
Butler's Just Imagine, Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, Tim Burton's Batman and Edward Scissorhands, and Alex Proyas's The Crow
and Dark City. In each of these films, on which thousands or millions of dollars were spent on elaborate miniature photography,
viewers are treated to an aerial vista of a city into which they descend along with the protagonists. While the express ambition
of the effects artists is to provide an illusion of a believable city viewed from above, the full pleasure of the film relies
on its being seen as a set to be gazed at, beyond anything that either Disneyland or the 1939 World's Fair could offer. Rather
than menacing viewers, the filmic miniature permits them to disarm and colonize troubling cultural spaces in what it suggests
and omits of America's actual inner-city problems." [Art Index]
Instrell, Rick
"Blade Runner: The Economic Shaping of a Film." In: Cinema and fiction : new modes of adapting, 1950-1990 / edited
by John Orr and Colin Nicholson. pp: 160-70. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, c1992.
--Main Stack PN1995.3.C56 1992
Jakaitis, Jake.
"Ridley Scott and Philip K. Dick." Science-Fiction Studies v19, n2 (July, 1992):251 (6 pages).
Jones, Marc T.
"Blade Runner Capitalism, the Transnational Corporation, and Commodification: Implications for Cultural Integrity." Cultural
Dynamics, 1998, 10, 3, Nov, 287-306
Kang, Gyu Han.
"[Between Man and Machine: The Question of Androids in V., Blade Runner, and The Bicentennial Man]." Journal of English
Language and Literature/Yongo Yongmunhak. 50 (3): 715-32. 2004.
Katz, B.
"Fast forward." ID v. 49 no. 1 (February 2002) p. 75
"What distinguishes Ridley Scott's 1982 film Blade Runner from older science fiction films is its ambivalent evocation
of our urban destiny. The film depicts the city of tomorrow not as a gleaming technotopia that has completely supplanted our
own faltering civilization, but as an archaeological layering of past, present, and future. Just as it was beginning to fade,
the film's message has returned with a vengeance: Our cities are fragile, complex, imperfect artifacts, and though we try
to design them, they actually design themselves." [Art Index]
Kennedy, H.
"21st century nervous breakdown." (Ridley ("Alien") Scott strikes again, this time with Harrison Ford as a 21st-century
gumshoe)(Blade runner) Film Comment v 18 July/Aug 1982. p. 64-8
Kermode, Mark.
"Endnotes." (Vangelis's music for Ridley Scott's 'Blade Runner') Sight and Sound v4, n8 (August, 1994):63.
Vangelis's score for Ridley Scott's 'Blade Runner' was released after 12 years of differences between the director and
the composer. The differences arose from Scott's decision to use source music without Vangelis's permission. The album does
not differ from the original score. The album includes dialogue clips from important scenes in the movie.
Klein, Norman M.
"Building Blade Runner." Social Text vol. 9 no. 3 (28). 1991. pp: 147-52.
Kolbe, William.
"Blade Runner: An Annotated Bibliography." Literature/ Film Quarter,v18, n1 (Jan, 1990):19 (46 pages).
"There's Some of Me in You: Blade Runner and the Production Realities of Adapting Science Fiction Literature into Film."
In: The Aesthetics of ambivalence : rethinking science fiction film in the age of electronic (re)production / Brooks
Landon. pp: 45-58. New York: Greenwood Press, 1992. Contributions to the study of science fiction and fantasy ; no. 52
--Main Stack PN1995.9.S26.L36 1992
--Moffitt PN1995.9.S26.L36 1992
Landsberg, Alison.
"Prosthetic Memory: Total Recall and Blade Runner." In: The Cybercultures reader / edited by David Bell and Barbara
M. Kennedy. pp: 190-201. London; New York: Routledge, 2000.
--Moffitt QA76.9.C66.C898 2000
Lev, Peter.
"Blade Runner." In: American films of the 70s : conflicting visions / Peter Lev. 1st ed. Austin, TX : University
of Texas Press, 2000.
The science fiction films 'Star Wars,' 'Alien' and 'Blade Runner' serve as a vehicle for the presentation of political
ideology. In 'Star Wars,' George Lucas presents the future as a revision of King Arthur, a return to heroism and traditional
morality and conservatism. 'Alien' and 'Blade Runner' are Ridley Scott's interpretation of liberalism: a distrust of authority
and an openness to those outside traditional definitions.
Lightman, Herb-A; Patterson, Richard.
"Cinematography for Blade Runner." American Cinematographer v 80 no3 Mar 1999. p. 158-60+.
"In a reprint of an article that appeared in the July 1982 issue of American Cinematographer, the writers discuss Jordan
Cronenweth's cinematography for Ridley Scott's film Blade Runner. The film has been placed ninth in a list of the top ten
best-shot films made between 1950 and 1997, which was based on the results of American Cinematographer's first-ever readers'
poll. The key ingredients in the look of this film are the use of backlighting and contrast and also of sharp shafts of light,
which immediately evoke images from classic black-and-white films. The writers go on to discuss how various special effects
were created for the film." [Art Abstracts]
Linn, Charles.
"Blade Runner still on the cutting edge, familiar as it is." (motion picture) Architectural Record v182, n10 (Oct,
1994):27.
" The future of architecture can be glimpsed in Ridley Scott's 1982 science fiction thriller, Blade Runner. Set in Los
Angeles in 2019, the film features a landscape dominated by megastructures similar to the huge projects Paul Rudolph designed
for the Lower Manhattan Expressway in the 1960s. The film's main character lives in a 97th floor apartment whose design recalls
those of Frank Lloyd Wright. Another character lives alone in a huge, dilapidated structure that is actually Los Angeles's
Bradbury Building before it was restored. Blade Runner is reassuring because it suggests that people will like the same things
in the future that they like today." [Art Abstracts]
Marder, Elissa
"Blade Runner's Moving Still." Camera Obscura 27 (Sept. 1991):88-107.
A reassessment of the film ten years after its first release, arguing that it is one of the most powerful and influential
examples of cinematic postmodernism.
The destruction and restoration of individual difference that is the theme of Philip K. Dick's novel 'Do Androids Dream
of Electric Sheep?' also forms the center of Ridley Scott's 'Blade Runner,' the film based on Dick's book. 'Blade Runner'
depicts most humans as emptied of spirit by the multiple assaults of technology, filtering invented images in a doomed attempt
to fill the void. The film's sense of psychic space allows the main character to rediscover his nearly-obliterated individuality.
Meades, J.
"Future retrospection." (Ridley Scott's latest fantasy film Blade runner) Architects' Journal v 176 Sept 22 1982.
p. 28-9
Morris, Robyn.
"Making Eyes: Colouring the Look in Larissa Lai's When Fox Is a Thousand and Ridley Scott's Blade Runner." Australian-Canadian
Studies: a Journal for the Humanities & Social Sciences. 20(1):75-98. 2002
Morris, Robyn.
"'What Does It Mean to Be Human?': Racing Monsters, Clones and Replicants." Foundation: The International Review of
Science Fiction. 33 (91): 81-96. 2004 Summer.
Morrison, Rachela.
"'Casablanca' Meets 'Star Wars': The Blakean Dialectics of 'Blade Runner'." Literature/ Film Quarter, vol. 18 no.
1 1990. pp: 2-
Myman, Francesca
""Skirting the Edge": Costume, Masquerade, and the Plastic Body in Blade Runner"
Neale, Stephen
"Issues of difference : Alien and Blade runner." In: Fantasy and the cinema / edited by James Donald. London :
British Film Institute, 1989.
--Main Stack PN1995.9.F36.F361 1989
--Moffitt PN1995.9.F36
Pastorino, Gloria.
"The Death of the Author and the Power of Addiction in Naked Lunch and Blade Runner." In: Science fiction, critical
frontiers / edited by Karen Sayer and John Moore. pp: 100-15 New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000.
--Main Stack PS374.S35.S333 2000
Pearson, Ann.
"Apocalyptic Visions-Beyond Corporeality." Journal of Religion and Film. 2 (3): 14 paragraphs. 1998.
Peim, Nick.
"'If Only You Could See What I've Seen with Your Eyes': Blade Runner and La Symphonie Pastorale." In: Classics in film
and fiction / edited by Deborah Cartmell ... [et al.]. pp: 14-33. London ; Sterling, Va. : Pluto Press, 2000. Film/fiction
; v. 5
--Main Stack PN1997.85.C56 2000
Platt, Charles
"Do Androids Dream of Philip K. Dick?" Horizon 25:5 (1982:July/Aug.) 38
The story-behind-the-story of the new Harrison Ford movie, "Blade Runner": an intimate portrait of the genius who created
this and other strange (but strangely familiar) worlds.
Pyle, Forest.
"Making Cyborgs, Making Humans: Of Terminators and Blade Runners." In: The Cybercultures reader / edited by David
Bell and Barbara M. Kennedy. pp: 124-37. London; New York: Routledge, 2000.
--Moffitt QA76.9.C66.C898 2000
Retrofitting Blade Runner: Issues in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner and Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric
Sheep? Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, c1991.
--Main Stack PN1997.B283.R4 1991
"Ridley ("Alien") Scott strikes again, this time with Harrison Ford as a 21st-century gumshoe." Film Comment 18:4
(1982:July/Aug.) 64
Romero, Rolando J.
"The Postmodern Hybrid: Do Aliens Dream of Alien Sheep?" Post Script: Essays in Film and the Humanities vol. 16
no. 1. 1996 Fall. pp: 41-52.
Romney, Jonathan.
"Replicants Reshaped." (new version of film 'Blade Runner') New Statesman & Society v5, n230 (Nov 27, 1992):33
(2 pages).
The 1982 movie 'Blade Runner' is the premier postmodern science fiction film and its themes of recycling, instability
and the future of the city have been influential. A new 'corrected' version of the film was released in 1992.
Ruppert P.
"'Blade Runner', The Utopian Dialectics Of Science-Fiction Films." Cineaste, 1989, V17 N2:8-13.
Rusing, Janice Hocker; Frentz, Thomas S.
"The Frankenstein Myth in Contemporary Cinema." Critical Studies in Mass Communication v6, n1 (March, 1989):61
(20 pages)
"Examines the films Rocky IV, Blade Runner, and The Terminator, pointing to an evolving dystopian myth - "the Frankenstein
Myth" - in contemporary cinema that implies that American culture must reintegrate feminine values into its consciousness
in order to heal the increasing division of technological agency from human agent." [America: History and Life]
Sammon, Paul M.
Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner / Paul M. Sammon. New York: HarperPrism, 1996.
--UCB Main PN1997.B569 S26 1996
Schwartz, Richard Alan
The films of Ridley Scott / Richard A. Schwartz. Westport, Conn. : Praeger, 2001.
--Main Stack PN1998.3.S393.S394 2001
Scifi files. 4, Living in the Future.[Videorecording]
For centuries, science fiction has predicted the future. This film series explores the history of this art form using
clips from films and expert commentary. Part 4 examines science fiction movies that project into the future of mankind. By
tracing the evolution of the city, attitudes towards women, sex and relationships and the continuing fascination with building
ourselves a Utopia--perhaps on Mars, the film examines the dream of what the future may bring. Includes discussions of Films
reviewed: 1984 -- Forbidden planet -- Rocketship X-M -- Stepford wives -- Barbarella-- Robot monster -- Flash Gordon -- Devil
girl from Mars -- Queen of outer space -- Metropolis -- Woman in the moon -- Terminator 2 -- Blade runner -- Soylent
green -- Johnny Mnemonic -- Total recall. 50 min. UCB Media Ctr VIDEO/C 5990
Scott, Simon H.
"Is Blade Runner a Misogynistic Text?"
Seidel, Kathryn Lee. Wang, Alvin Y.
"Asians and Aliens in Cyberculture Film and Fiction." Hybridity: Journal of Cultures, Texts and Identities. 1 (1):
17-29. 2000.
Senior, W.A.
"'Blade Runner' and Cyberpunk Visions of Humanity." Film Criticism v21, n1 (Fall, 1996):1 (12 pages).
"The writer discusses the depiction of human nature in cyberpunk culture with specific reference to Ridley Scott's 1982
film, Blade Runner. Similar to most cyberpunk fiction, Blade Runner does not propose any definite criteria for humanity but
insinuates a wide range of constantly metamorphosing humanities from a regressive underclass to superhuman replicants. The
film focuses on the character of Rick Deckard, who is a Blade Runner, a special type of detective employed to hunt down and
destroy renegade replicants--genetically engineered human beings. Throughout the film, however, Deckard's similarity to and
affinity with the replicants becomes evident, implying that distinctions between human and replicant ultimately do not matter.
Thus, the film explores the question of what constitutes humanity, positing the notion--no doubt an uncomfortable one for
some--that humanity expands to occupy many different forms." [Art Abstracts]
Sey, James "The Body of the Cyborg: The Case of Blade Runner," In Loes Nas and Lesley Marx (eds.), Inter Action
2: Proceedings of the Second Post-Graduate Conference held at Bain’s Kloof, September 1993 (Department of English,
University of Capetown, 1994).
Shapiro, Michael J.
"'Manning' the Frontiers: The Politics of (Human) Nature in Blade Runner." In: In the nature of things: language, politics,
and the environment / Jane Bennett and William Chaloupka, editors. pp: 65-84. Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press,
c1993. Chaloupka, William, 1948
--UCB Main Stack GF21.I53 1993
Sharrett, Christopher
"Ramble city : postmodernism and Blade Runner." In: Crisis cinema : the apocalyptic idea in postmodern narrative film
/ edited by Christopher Sharrett. Washington, D.C. : Maisonneuve Press, 1993. PostModernPositions ; v. 6.
--UCB Main Stack PN1995.9.S6.C75 1993
Shetley, Vernon; Ferguson, Alissa.
"Reflections in a silver eye: lens and mirror in Blade Runner." Science-Fiction Studies v28, n1 (March, 2001):66
(11 pages).
"The authors the metaphor of vision in the movie Blade Runner. Author Abstract: Blade Runner is a film centrally concerned
with vision. Prostheses of vision--the Voigt-Kampff test and the Esper machine--permit detective Rick Deckard to probe physical
and even mental space, and extend his search for android "replicants" into distant rooms and into the minds of the characters
he encounters. In the Esper sequence, Deckard analyzes the photograph cherished by the replicant Leon, an analysis that turns
on the presence of a convex mirror at the center of the image. This photograph echoes the mirror seen in Jan van Eyck's famous
painting, The Arnolfini to the way these works sustain an extended mediation on pictorial or cinematic vision. In Blade Runner,
the form of vision embodied by the Esper machine--which is characterized as probing, dominating, and ultimately lethal--is
played off against a mode of vision tentatively but crucially present in the moment when Rachael's photograph "comes alive"
in Deckard's hands, a mode of vision that turns on imaginative empathy." COPYRIGHT 2001 SF-TH Inc.[Magazine Index]
Silverman, Kaja.
"Back to the Future." Camera Obscura, vol. 27. 1991 Sept. pp: 109-32.
"An examination of the amalgamation of science fiction film, and film noir in Blade Runner. An essential article, which
encompasses Freud, Lacan, post-structuralism and referentiality, as well as gender, différance, and binarism. The essay provides
an excellent analysis of undercutting the referential value of the photographs looked at by Deckard, Rachel, and Leon in the
film." [from Queens University (Belfast) web bibliography]
"Future Noir: Contemporary Representations of Visionary Cities." East-West Film Journal, vol. 3 no. 1. 1988 Dec.
pp: 20-44.
Also in:
Alien zone II : the spaces of science-fiction cinema / edited by Annette Kuhn. London ; New York : Verso, 1999.
--Main Stack PN1995.9.S26.A8184 1999
Stein, Michael Eric.
"The New Violence or Twenty Years of Violence in Films: An Appreciation.(part 1) Films in Review v46, n1-2 (Jan-Feb,
1995):40 (9 pages).
Stoehr, Ingo R.
"The Return of Frankenstein." Dimension2: Contemporary German Language Literature, 1993-1994, 15-17.
Stoekl, Allan.
"Execution and the Human." Intertexts, 1999 Spring, 3:1, 3-31.
Strick, Philip.
"Age of the Replicant." Sight and Sound 51:3 (1982:Summer) 168
Philip Strick considers Philip K. Dick, Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner", Tony Scott's "The Hunger" and robots indistinguishable
from humans.
Strick, Philip.
"'Blade Runner': telling the difference." (comparative criticism of old and new versions of the science fiction film starring
Harrison Ford) Sight and Sound v2, n8 (Dec, 1992):8 (2 pages).
The so-called original director's cut of 'Blade Runner' differs from the first release in its deletion of actor HarrisonFord's
voice-over narration and its shortened ending - changes enhance the film. The final image of a tinfoil unicorn adds a symbolic
image to the ending of the director's cut and the removal of the narration enhances the communicative impact of the film's
images. The omission proves that the narration was unnecesary in the first place. Each version, however, must be evaluated
as separate films, disregarding whatever effects their differences may have on either one.
Telotte, J.P.
"Human Artifice and the Science Fiction Film" Film Quarterly 36:3 (1983:Spring) 44
Science renders the question of what it is that makes us human increasingly problematic, and "The Thing, Invasion of the
Body Snatchers" and "Blade Runner" struggle with the ensuing menacing paradoxes
Telotte, J.P.
"The Tremulous Public Body: Robots, Change, and the Science Fiction Film. Journal of Popular Film and Television
v19, n1 (Spring, 1991):14 (10 pages).
"In such recent science fiction films as Blade Runner (1982), Robocop (1987), Cherry 2000 (1988), and Total Recall (1990),
robots symbolize contemporary man's struggle to reclaim his humanity in the face of repressive forces." [America History &
Life] Tiitsman, Jenna. If Only You Could See What I've Seen with Your Eyes: Destabilized Spectatorship and Creation's Chaos
in Blade Runner. Cross Currents. 54 (1): 32-47. 2004 Spring.
Tiitsman, Jenna.
"If Only You Could See What I've Seen with Your Eyes: Destabilized Spectatorship and Creation's Chaos in Blade Runner."
Cross Currents. 54 (1): 32-47. 2004 Spring.
"Recognising a 'Human-Thing': Cyborgs, Robots and Replicants in Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
and Ridley Scott's Blade Runner." Critical Survey vol. 3 no. 3. 1991. pp: 297-304.
Also in:
The postmodern arts : an introductory reader / edited by Nigel Wheale. London ; New York : Routledge, 1995. Critical
readers in theory and practice.
--Main Stack NX456.5.M64.P67 1995
Williams, Don
""If you could see what I've seen with your eyes..." : post-human psychology and Blade runner." In: Jung & film
: post-Jungian takes on the moving image / [edited by] Christopher Hauke and Ian Alister. Hove, East Sussex ; New York
: Brunner-Routledge, 2001.
--Main Stack PN1995.J86 2001
Williams, Douglas E.
"Ideology as Dystopia: An Interpretation of Blade Runner." International Political Science Review, Vol. 9, Issue
4, p. 381, October 1988
Wilmington, Mike.
"The Rain People." (restoration of 'Blade Runner') Film Comment v28, n1 (Jan-Feb, 1992):17 (3 pages).
A new version of director Ridley Scott's masterful science fiction film 'Blade Runner' has been released in Los Angeles.
It tries to sanitize the original's conveyance of angst and despair but to little avail. The original vision still permeates
through.
Winston, Brian.
"Tyrell's Owl: The Limits of the Technological Imagination in an Epoch of Hyperbolic Discourse." In: Theorizing Culture:
An Interdisciplinary Critique after Postmodernism / edited by Barbara Adam, Stuart Allan. New York: New York University
Press, 1995.
--Main Stack HM101.T4743 1995 225-35.
Wollen, Peter
"Blade runner : 'Ridleyville' and Los Angeles." In: The hieroglyphics of space : reading and experiencing the modern
metropolis / edited by Neil Leach. London : Routledge, 2002.
--Environ Dsgn HT111.H45 2002
Wong, Kin-yuen.
"On the Edge of Spaces: Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell, and Hong Kong's Cityscape." Science Fiction Studies,
2000 Mar, 27:1 (80), 1-21
" Author Abstract: Sf films such as Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell take a deep interest in the Hong Kong urbanscape
at the turn of the century. With its history of dislocation, migration, and marginality in its colonial days, Hong Kong emerges
as a model city for the sf genre of "future noir"; its overcrowded, disjunctive cityscape provides a perfect setting for multiculturalism
in a postmodern context. This article takes readers on a guided tour of a unique shopping mall at the hub of Hong Kong urbanscape,
Times Square, as an illustration of how we can read out of it an "urban secret located at the intersection" of sf and the
postmodern." COPYRIGHT 2000 SF-TH Inc. [Magazine Index]
Yaszek, L.
"Of Fossils and Androids: (Re)Producing Sexual Identity in `Jurassic Park' and `Blade Runner'" Journal Of The Midwest
Modern Language Association, 1997 Spring, V30 N1-2:52-62.
Yuen, Wong Kin.
"On the Edge of Spaces: Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell, and Hong Kong's Cityscape." Science Fiction Studies.
27 (1 (80)): 1-21. 2000 Mar.
Zizek, Slavoj.
"'The Thing That Thinks': The Kantian Background of the Noir Subject." In: Shades of Noir: A Reader. London / edited
by Joan Copjec. pp: 199-226. London; New York: Verso, 1993.
