Description: Blade Runner (1982) was overshadowed by larger science fiction films at the time, but this movie has many profound messages for society, culture and technology. We are joined today by Xander and Erik from the podcast Reconsider to discuss the many deep messages of this film.

 

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Reconsider

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Begin Transcript:

Welcome. Today we are going to talk about the 1982 movie Blade Runner based on the Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. The book and the film are set in the near future. Postapocalyptic dystopia. One of my favorite genres as is common with the dystopian science fiction genre. Blade Runner addresses a number of political and political science issues political theory and even philosophy are important for our frameworks. While Blade Runner is not overtly political it does tie deeply into questions of humanist and theological philosophy and to morality as well. Ultimately all of this is critical for us deciding on what political action which is just our own moral personal moral action on collective scale to take. That's why it's fascinated Eric for so long and I'm very happy to be joined by Eric and Zander hosts of reconsider podcasts. Thank you guys so much for coming on today.

We are happy to be here. Thanks for having us.

Reconsider is actually a political podcast to help you contextualize current politics and history and broader forces and political theory reconsider helps you rise above the one liners. The 140 character politics and tribal narratives. Their motto is We don't do the thinking for you and they really don't. That's why it's such an amazing podcast and one of my personal favorites. Thanks.

Before we dig too deeply here's some production details. We watched the final cut which is the director's addition. Eric you had commented on that. Why do you think that that's a better cut of the film than it went through several evolutions.

Yeah I actually went through for the theatrical cut the international CUT THE DIRECTOR'S CUT AND THE FINAL CUT THE FINAL CUT being the one that Ridley Scott the director liked the best. And I have strong opinions on this and I think most other diehard Bladerunner fans do. There's a consensus generally that the final cuts the right one not only because Ridley Scott liked best. I don't know if Philip K. Dick liked it best but the reason we like it best is that the theatrical cut has a number of scenes. The biggest of which is the ending. The second biggest of which is the fact that Harrison Ford does a monologue. Does it like a backwards memory monologue. Like a lot of noir like she walked in and was you know the most beautiful woman I'd ever say. Mike's up to hair kind of thing.

And unfortunately what that does is it not only sounds stupid in the context of what is otherwise a beautiful movie but it also takes away the opportunity for you to do that thinking yourself so you know sort of as is our podcast motto I hate when things do the thinking for me. And so the the both the director's cut and the final cut take that those two key elements out. The Final Cut adds another element which is a unicorn dream that's really important to how you interpret. One of the big questions of the movie so if you guys haven't seen it yet on the show I know that listening. I'd h...