Frankenstein Blade Runner
At the onset of the Industrial revolution with romanticism drawing to a close Shelley released her sci-fi, promethean-esque thriller ‘Frankenstein’. Similarly at the dawn of another new era that of the capitalistic-consumerist, increasingly globalized and technologically dominated late 20th century Ridley Scott unleashed his enigmatic future noir film ‘Blade Runner’. The similarity of these texts in exploring themes of humanity and playing God through a tone of moral warning to a looming dystopian reality create the environment to explore how similar content in a different context will reflect changing but also constant values.
Whilst the term may have been referred to as ‘playing God’ in Shelley’s time the decreased relevancy that religion has in a modern context creates the need to label this theme in Blade Runner as exceeding human boundaries/using divine powers, immediately providing a contextual difference. In both texts creators Tyrell and Victor attempt to reach into the divine and create a human, which in Victor’s case is for the advancement of science and personal glory (quote) whilst for Tyrell is purely done for commercial gains (quote). Both say something to the values of the time, Shelley suggesting that scientists with the aid of the industrial revolution and the new theories of galvanism would have limitless opportunities to exceed the bounds of nature and in a risk of not opening Pandora’s box science must be carried out with caution. Scott foresees a future setting where by the value of money is (placed above all else) the sole dictating force.
The implications of attempting to emulate these divine powers illustrate the costs of exceeding human boundaries. Victor loses his friends, family and finally his own life directly due to his attempts to subvert the natural world. While Tyrell also meets his death, the more horrific and drawn out process that Dr Frankenstein incurs alludes to the possibility that Tyrell’s moral crime is less serious....
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