The typical narrative method of a movie is usually to create a goal for the character. This goal becomes the motivation of the protagonist. The protagonist sets up some challenges and obstacles in the process of achieving this goal, and finally tells everyone at the end of the movie whether the protagonist has achieved this goal. Generally, the goal is achieved, the goal is not reached, or the protagonist’s motivation changes in the process of reaching the goal and finally a compromise is reached. The audience brings themselves from the process of how the protagonist overcomes these challenges and obstacles. All the challenges and obstacles produce a contradiction and dramatic tension to the goal the protagonist wants to achieve. This is where the artistic charm of ordinary movies lies.
There is also a kind of movie. This kind of movie has a more humble attitude. It is a kind of participation or recording of an event from the perspective of a bystander. In this kind of film, the goals and motivations of the characters are not so important. Although the movie still gives the protagonist most of the shots and dialogue to create the character, the focus of the movie is no longer to highlight the protagonist’s efforts to overcome obstacles and challenges in order to achieve the goal. It is to tell a story from the perspective and experience of the protagonist. This kind of film can weaken people's substitution of the protagonist from a certain angle and pay more attention to the story itself. The four gospels in the New Testament use this method to highlight the character of Jesus Christ and his salvation to mankind. There are also some great films in film history that use this technique to present stories to the audience, such as "Citizen Kane", "Rashomon" and so on. If we look at these two movies from the perspective of watching the Marvel series, we will be disappointed. However, when we zoom out our perspective and watch these two films from the point of view of the whole incident, you will find that the stories they want to tell are so interesting.
This article contains spoilers
Let us first look at the setting background of the two movies:
In 2019, mankind has been involved in deep space colonization and man-made technology. Artificial humans are widely used in all aspects of human life. From life and entertainment, work and production, to the transformation of deep space colonies and cannon fodder in military conflicts. Thanks to the advancement of biochemical technology, the artificial human (Nexus 6) has to crush humans in strength and agility, and the intelligence is equivalent to humans. In order to avoid being replaced by their own creations, humans have given these artificial humans an ultimate insurance: a life span of 4 years. The artificial humans in the deep space colonies only need to do dirty work, so there is no need to implant emotions and feelings for them. However, in a limited life, the artificial man developed emotions and feelings on his own. The artificial man eventually rebelled in the colony after bloody suppression. Deep-space artificial humans are forbidden to appear on Earth. Any artificial man who enters the earth illegally will be hunted down by special police called Blade Runner. The method Blade Runner uses to identify artificial humans is the empathy test: testing artificial humans with immature emotions through some questions, observing and recording their mood swings to determine whether they are ordinary humans or artificial humans.
This setting is very interesting in itself, because it derives a very big proposition: What is a person?
In 2049, due to the continuous riots and "big power outages" of the previous cyborgs, the government enforced the control of Tyrael, and eventually stopped production, which led to Tyrael's bankruptcy. In 2020, the Wallace Group, which was in full swing for providing food technology during the Great Famine, acquired Tyrell’s artificial human technology and restarted manufacturing artificial humans on the premise of ensuring that the artificial humans are completely obedient to humans. At the same time, part of the old Nexus 8 robot, that is, the model with no life time limit, also survived. The police department began to use Wallace’s new cyborg as a "Blade Runner" to hunt down the older Nexus 8 model. In order to ensure that the cyborg Blade Runner will not produce "compassion" and "sympathy" and other emotions resulting in "rebellion" in the process of hunting down Nexus8. Therefore, all new Blade Runners need to undergo "benchmark tests" on a regular basis. Blade Runners who fail the test will also be hunted immediately because of the tendency to "rebel".
Let us interpret the main lines of the two movies:
Blade Runner 2019: Blade Runner Dika (Harrison Ford) received an order from his superiors to hunt down and kill 5 illegally entered androids, the head of which is a Nexus 6 type android (Roy). In order to better understand this type of cyborg, Dika visited Tyrael Company and met Tyrael himself and Rachel.
Rachel’s name is very interesting. The character in the Old Testament of Rachel is the daughter of Laban and the wife of Jacob (Israel). At first he was unable to bear children, but later prayed to God for two sons. The two sons were Joseph (later became the prime minister of Egypt) and Benjamin (the ancestor of the tribe of Benjamin in Israel, Israel’s first king Saul was from that tribe, and the apostle Paul in the New Testament was also from that tribe) Rui Qiu later died of dystocia (born Benjamin) Rachel was described in the Old Testament as "born beautifully." Jacob was deeply attracted when he saw Rachel.
Tyrell wants Dikar to perform an empathy test on Rachel to evaluate his new type of android. Rachel answered well because he was implanted in the memory of Tyrael's niece, but Dikar finally confirmed that Rachel was a human being. Here, Ridley Scott laid the groundwork for it. After that, the story developed from three lines, one is that Dika relies on his detective's excellent detection ability to chase and eliminate the robots all the way. The other is that Dika and Rachel continue to intersect and attract each other. The third is that artificial people want to find a way to continue their lives. This is why cyborgs ventured to earth. They want to find Tyrael himself and get a way to lift the 4-year life limit. When Tyrael himself told him that he had no solution, Roy killed his creator himself. Get in here for a while. In Ridley Scott's "Prometheus", the boss of the Welland Company launched an interstellar expedition for the same purpose, to meet his creator in search of a way to continue his life. As the main character of 2019, Roy has an extraordinary charm. He is violent and brutal, and at the same time affectionate. Sometimes he is as innocent and straightforward as a child, and sometimes he works every step of the way to achieve his goals. When he rescued Dikar who killed his lover, he said the most touching dialogue in this movie: "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attchk ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain. Time to die."
"You can't imagine what I have seen. I have seen a battleship set on fire at the edge of Orion. I have seen C-rays shining in the darkness near the Don Wise Gate. All these memories will eventually be lost in time, like tears. Disappeared in the rain."
Harrison Ford once said in an interview that there was no full-blown action performance in the play. As he said, although Dika's character has a keen sense of smell, he can find clues based on his very insight and follow the movements of Roy and the cyborg all the way. However, the director deliberately set the role of Dikar to be very fragile, and his life is often hanging by a thread. As if he didn't have the ability to change the course of the whole story, he was just recording and observing. Take the audience to witness Roy's evolution from just surviving to developing feelings and personality. And when Roy chose to let Dika finally embrace his death at the end of the film, it was like a struggling and entangled soul calmly accepting and facing his own death at the end, and summed up and explained his life. The climax of the film here once again reminds us of the big proposition of "Why do we think people". When Roy rescued Dikar and said the lines that sublime the entire film. He is already more human than human. It’s like when he asked Tyrael to ask for a longer lifespan and Tyrael answered him "The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long and you have burned so very, very brightly, Roy." The flame of light can only burn for half the time, Roy, your light is so shining.
The film has too strong religious implications in this scene, from Roy piercing his palm with a nail to repair the function of his arm, to the white dove in his hand, at the moment when he is furious. soar. It seems to be a metaphor that Roy exists as Jesus. Jesus was crucified to pay for all his sins. The price of sin is death. So whether it's Roy or Dika, whether it's a human or a man-made. On the surface, humanoids are human slaves, and they want to gain freedom through their own efforts. Human beings are also slaves to death. We have exhausted our lives, constantly struggling, struggling, and trying to get rid of the shackles of death and let life continue. Jesus' sacrifice on the cross paid for the cost of human sin. But Jesus was raised from the dead to conquer sin, so he gave people the hope of eternal life. We can live the way we should be if we are no longer the slaves of sin and death.
At the end of the film, Di Ka chose to give up his identity as a Blade Runner and the android Rachel runs away (si) and runs (ben), to some extent, Di Ka's awakening and liberation of his own identity. This awakening was triggered by Roy's salvation. If he had reservations about Rachel because she was a human being, then when he was saved by Roy and witnessed Roy's calm death, he no longer had any prejudice against the human being. His consciousness has elevated the artificial human to the level of life and soul. The decision he made shows that his current view of the cyborg is the opposite of the result of his previous empathy test with Rachel. This is also Roy's real purpose and motivation to save Dikar.
Before we start interpreting Blade Runner 2049, let’s take a look at Tyrael’s motives.
Tyrell himself did not lie when he explained to Roy that he could not grant Roy immortality from the technological level, but his position has always been on the side of copying people. It's just technically impossible. However, he used another method to achieve immortality of artificial humans, that is, to allow artificial humans to obtain the ability to bear children. Therefore, the encounter between Rachel and Dika was actually Tyrael's careful arrangement, and the Roy incident eliminated Dika's original doubts about the artificial people. One of the reasons that Blade Runner 2049 is arguably the best sequel to science fiction is that the director and screenwriter completely interpreted the main idea of the first and further elaborated it.
Thirty years have passed in a blink of an eye, and human beings are still full of fear and prejudice against artificial humans. At the beginning of the film, the detective (Blade Runner) K played by Commander Gao chases and kills a Nexus 8 humanoid and finds a remains under the tree in front of his house. The remains were identified as a female, and the cause of death was dystocia. The subsequent discovery shocked everyone, and they found a series of serial numbers on this fertile skeleton. In other words, this woman who has given birth to pregnancy is a human being. And this skeleton is Rachel in Silver Wing 2019. The female leader immediately ordered the news to be blocked and the evidence to be eliminated, and ordered K to fully trace the whereabouts of the baby. On the other hand, although Wallace acquired the technology of Tyrell, the key artificial human reproduction technology was missing due to the power outage. Therefore, the goal and motives of the movie Zhonghua Rais are also exposed. He wants to obtain the ability to create life, that is, to obtain the ability of artificial humans to reproduce.
Need to insert here. The first chapter of the creation of the world in the Old Testament of the Bible has the following description: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. The earth was empty and chaotic. The abyss was dark. The spirit of God was running on the water. God said, if there is light, there will be Light. God saw that the light is good, so he separated the light and the dark. God called the light day and the darkness night. There was evening and morning, and this was the first day. God said that there must be air between the waters, Put the moisture up and down. God creates the air and separates the water below the air from the water above the air. This is what happened." Let’s look at the architectural style of Wallace’s Earth Headquarters, where light and dark overlap each other. The light, the reflection of the waves on the water surface is reflected in the stairs and walkways. The neatness of the building surface is full of chaos. All of them prefigured that Wallace considered himself a god. Wallace himself called the human being an angel, and said that Love was his best angel (Zhua) (Ya). And he cannot become a god because he lacks the ability to create life. So babies born by artificial humans are of great significance to him. The ultimate technology of Tyrael, the carrier of this baby, is the fertility technology of a human being. When a person disobeys Jehovah’s command and eats the forbidden fruit on the tree of wisdom (good and evil, beginning and ending is a special expression in Hebrew, Jehovah says that I am the beginning and the end, which means he is All. From the beginning to the end. In the same way, good and evil represent all knowledge.) A person was driven out of the Garden of Eden because the Lord God said that the person is already similar to us and can know good and evil. Now I am afraid that he stretches out his hand and eats the fruit of the tree of life, and he will live forever. So Wallace himself wants to be a god, but the fact is that he is like Adam who was driven out of the Garden of Eden.
Returning to the plot from the beginning, just like Dikar in 2019, K in 2049 also follows the clues to find the whereabouts of the android child. The clue here consists of two clues, one clue is Ming. That is, the records of the archives lead him to the orphanage. One is a clue to K's implanted memory. This clue led him to a Trojan horse found at the bottom of an incinerator after arriving at the orphanage. In this process, since K is an artificial human, his memory is implanted. He came to Wallace to outsource a virtual memory company that implanted memories. After obtaining the author's confirmation that his memory is not virtual, it is the memory of someone who has lived. So he once thought that he was the baby of artificial life. Following this Trojan horse clue, he came to Las Vegas and found Dikar. And Dikar himself didn't know the whereabouts of the baby. Afterwards, people from Wallace Company followed suit and arrested the child's father Dikar. K was rescued by the cyborg rebel army. Here, all three forces have surfaced. They are 1) government authorities that want to eliminate the evidence of the birth of artificial human babies, and maintain the existing order and state; 2) see the baby as a hope that fires, and want to overthrow the existing system and fight for freedom. 3) Wallace who wants to obtain the key of life and become a god-like existence. No matter which faction they are, they want to use their own way to achieve their goals. And like Dikar in 2019, K is looking for his identity and meaning in the struggle and entanglement of the three forces. The cyborg rebels want K to end the arrest of Dikar. Thus ending the risk of Dikar exposing the rebels. Knowing that going to the Wallace headquarters to assassinate Dikar must be an errand of a lifetime of death, the Rebels put forward a tempting point of view, "Our individuals are not worth mentioning compared to the coming revolution. For the cause of justice. And death, this is the most human thing we can do".
The story of K and his virtual girlfriend must be inserted here. Another line in the whole film is that K, as an artificial human blade runner, has been ostracized and discriminated against by society, whether it is LAPD's colleagues and leaders, neighbors and prostitutes. His only comfort is the purchase of an artificial intelligence virtual girlfriend. He will celebrate her anniversary, date her, and take her to experience different environments. And this virtual girlfriend "loves" K without hesitation. Always stand on his side, always considerate, comfort him, and trust him. Later, the storage device of this virtual girlfriend was destroyed, and K also lost this girlfriend forever. When K passed the billboard again, the familiar voice and face appeared again. K finally understands that this virtual girlfriend is just a set program, and all the gentleness, consideration, and comfort are not his own choice, but the feedback of the preset program according to the changes in the surrounding environment. If K takes orders from the rebels to assassinate Dikar, he is no different from his previous virtual girlfriend. When he killed the first man-made human, the other party said to K, "The reason you kill the same kind is because you have never seen a miracle" (a miracle refers to the birth of a human-made baby). At that time, an impossible thing becomes possible, and a situation beyond understanding and imagination occurs in reality. This is the enlightenment of the artificial man's free will awakening. After that, K intercepted the convoy escorting Dika and eliminated Love who was escorting Dika. He made his own choice. He chose to let Dika go and let Dika reunite with his daughter. At this point in the film, K has finally completed the process from a obedience to self-doubt, and then to self-awakening. From a man-made person to a soul, a self-transformation with free will. The miracle of Enlightenment K is that he realized that the real memory he was implanted actually came from the producer of the virtual memory, the daughter of Dika and Rachel. While K accepted that he was an artificial human, he also got rid of the "programming" of implanting memory and the temptation of reality, and finally produced a complete personality.
Many people feel that the Silver Wing series is very depressing, and the development of the plot is also very procrastinated. I personally like Ridley Scott's science fiction films very much. His films always contain religious symbols and metaphors. As a Christian, I often think about the changes in the worldview and values before and after I became a Christian. Some people say that as human beings, we have a body, and the body generates various needs. The so-called free will is just an illusion of our imagination. Our body is our prison. He was indoctrinated with various moral thoughts since he was a child, and was tempted by various material consumerisms after he stepped into the society. What do people think of people? What kind of miracle can make a person awaken himself. Liberation from the enslavement of the material, from the flesh, from the social system to the environment. The movie doesn't give us an answer, but it can remind us to think about the situation deep in our own hearts. In order to seek true self and freedom. Otherwise, we will all be used like programmed AI or tools tempted by various ideas. Of course, making movies can earn a box office like the Marvel superhero series. Some movies are not very popular at the beginning, but careful taste can be thought-provoking. The director shares his thoughts on life with the audience. Just like what Van Gogh said, "I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say'he feels deeply, he feels tenderly'." Said that he thought deeply and felt very soft.
Finally, I will mention the author of the original Philip Dick. I personally like his novel very much. He is very keen on artificial humans, memory implants and other settings. Blade Runner is adapted from his short story "Do Bionics Dream of Electronic Sheep?" In addition, his "Total Reminiscence", "The Strange Man in the High Castle" And so on has also been put on the screen in the form of movies and TV series. Fans who are interested can pay attention.
Lastly, I still remember that Internet cafes were not even popular when I was in elementary school. Once I went to my cousin's house and found that he had bought a new computer. Then he was playing a game in which the scene exploded Super Mario and Contra, with movie clips interspersed in the middle. I was fascinated by this game in an instant. This game is Blade Runner made by Westwood. Fully loyal to the original, using fragments of the original to allow players to play the role of Di Ka immersive experience of the entire plot. I still clearly remember that if you investigate an egg on the table, Dikar will say, "I still remember that I ate a real egg when I was a kid, and that egg tasted like flowing sunlight. It was damn good."
View more about Blade Runner 2049 reviews
