LITR 4632: Literature of the Future

Student Future-Visions Presentation 2009

Kathryn Cutting

Blade Runner: What is Human?

Objective 1 – Narrative of the Future

a.       evolutionary

Objective 2 – Visions of the Future

a.       Low tech; actual reality

b.      Dystopia

Summary: A former blade runner, Rick Deckard, comes out of retirement to hunt down 4 replicants so that he can retire them.  The replicants are biologically – engineered humanoid beings that only have a life span of 4 years. They are used for labor on different planetary colonies. These replicants that Deckard is looking for have escaped from one of the colonies and killed 23 people on their way back to earth. They have returned to earth to find their creator so they can discover a way to lengthen their lifespan.

Discussion questions:

1.      If there was no way to distinguish humans from replicants, would that mean that a replicant is really human?

2.      Is it right for the humans to enslave the replicants since they are like humans? What would have to change about the replicants to make it ok to use them as labor?