tears-in-rain

through the ceiling, hangs off steel and the final speech of Batty takes place with the
neon lights glittering in the distance.
I state all of this because I wish to discuss something; power. That old age
thematic which still plagues cinema today with the especial likes of The Social Network
and the works of Christopher Nolan. What is Roy Batty, in the hierarchy of power in
Blade Runner? I’ve touched on this discussion before, but it’s interesting to consider
that his mass of power is exactly what destroys him. He can command no social
position because he is a Replicant, an outsider, but he can still remind Deckard of his
humanity. His segregation almost a reminder of the Civil Rights movement through the
1960s. Diversity is humanity... right?
Batty is a master, a commander of humanity. He does not realize it until saving
Deckard’s life, in fact it’s his triumph. He lives on through Deckard’s memories, through
his transfer of humanity, through saving his life. The hunter saves the hunted, just as
the tables of ‘hunter and hunted’ actually changed, to remind the blade runner of
something. His humanity. That he isn’t a bureaucratic killing machine, but a human
being.
This is where Batty’s masterful craft comes into play. His super-human strength,
his philosophies and almost ‘Aryan’ presence. He is the master over Deckard, but he
dies. Why? Because this world is a world of masters, and Roy realizes he has killed
Tyrell, he has killed many who brought him into this world. He has killed those who
control it and has perhaps kicked off a chain of events to bring down the Orwellian
clouds, to turn Room 101 into rubble, and here he passes the torch to Deckard. In this
world of destruction, in this world of Orwell, we have to hang on to our humanity. Our
love. Just as Winston Smith does.
I think it’s a statement of either two things. The first, that the nineteen eighties
were full of this media-mogulism that practiced the elevation of corporations and
maniacal ‘elite’ who grasped the economy in their hands. That when we start to lose our
arts, our opinion and our money; we have to remember what keeps us human. Love.
Memories. All that good stuff.
Secondly, I believe it to be a warning. The whole film is Orwellian in its genejuices
and it includes that ‘warning’. 1984 was written at the time of Stalin’s sweeping
control, as he destroyed culture and built his palace around a cult of personality and
destructive reckoning of any opposition. Blade Runner is a warning of the future, it’s
even set in the future, that we will lose our humanity to these ‘masters’. I believe Blade
Runner has never been more relevant, with ‘those responsible’ masters now held to
their sins. Murdoch on trial, MP’s expenses scandal and all sorts of under-table dealings
with the likes of Gaddafi. In the end, humanity triumphs.
Right?
Except we’re constantly reminded about what happens when we let them get too
far. When the masters can push the buttons. Blade Runner was written just out of Cold