ijcai 09

2019, following various environmental accidents, the Earth has become a suspended world. The nuclear disaster of Eastern Europe that took place several decades ago has transformed the landscape, disrupting the climate and destroying almost all animal life. Power is handled by a consortia where huge companies' that dictate their laws and share the various branches of activity of this future society. Given this situation, the population of the wealthy left the Earth to the Martian colony. Los Angeles, "City of Angels", has become a sprawling city where pollution is synonymous with overcrowding.

The Tyrell Corporation is a company specialized in cybernetics. The megalomania of its president and founder has led the firm to create an artificial being close to perfection, the Nexus 6. Stronger, and more durable memories implanted in the cerebral cortex, the Nexus are unaware of their true nature, including their lifetime, which is extremely short. They are used as labor for dangerous work on inhospitable planets.

But when the truth emerges, some androids, qualified as replicants, decide to fome a rebellion and Nexus are declared illegal on Earth. A brigade of special units called "Blade Runner", has the mission to find and kill the replicants that fraudulently entered on Earth. This is not an execution, the term used is "withdrawal". Rick Deckard is a retired Blade Runner. The arrival of a group of four replicants in Los Angeles requires him to resume service.

Ridley Scott and science fiction

Blade Runner marks the return of Ridley Scott in science fiction (he made 3 years earlier, in 1979, the first installment of the Alien saga) with this adaptation of the novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" by Philip K. Dick. With this film, visionary, he takes us through the beautiful images in his vision of Los Angeles in 2019. The city, full of character in the film, became a huge multi-ethnic metropolis, the Baroque architecture, diving under a constant rain, giving it a feverish atmosphere and haunting.