Blade Runner

This is the trailer for the original 1982 release of Blade Runner. The dystopic visual elements are very evident, as well as the noir influence. I think this trailer gives an effective overview of some of the main dystopic elements of the movie, specifically that of the Tyrell Corporation's capitalist-fueled malevolence and the complex problem created by their product, human replicants.

I would like to point out that it is (almost) always raining in Blade Runner's 2010 Los Angeles, an excellent example of an overbearing environmental element that is an important part of a well-developed dystopia. Resultantly, umbrellas are highly specialized in the Blade Runner world, complete with lighted center poles to illuminate the crushing bleakness.


Notice the gigantic video billboard of a geisha eating a meal-pill. These types of billboards are now very common, an interesting point to ponder in that it would have been cutting-edge technology at the time of the film's release.

Geisha video billboard, Los Angeles 2010, in Blade Runner, 1982.


Video billboard upon a floating vessel, Pudong, Shanghai, China, 2007.

One should also note the architecture of the Tyrell Corporation building, which is comparable stylistically with buildings in Metropolis as well as ziggurats. Although in Blade Runner this monolithic building type has been increased in size to seven hundred stories and updated with futuristic technology, it still retains and evokes the same imposing and controlling feel as its predecessors.
Tyrell Corporation, Los Angeles 2010, in Blade Runner, 1982.

Ziggurat at Ur, Iraq, 2005.


This film is based upon the 1968 Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?