The God/Human Struggle of Blade Runner

My wife and I recently saw both 'Atonement' and 'There Will Be Blood' at the movies. These 2 flicks have been widely acclaimed in critical circles and are gobbling up all sorts of nominations and awards. Yet, my wife and I were decidedly underwhelmed by both. Such disappointment with what's passing for 'great' filmmaking these days incited a desire to go back and watch a movie (recently altered/improved by Director Ridley Scott) that truly was great, 'Blade Runner'. Most of the spirited debate surrounding this movie over the last 25 years has centered on whether the Harrison Ford character of Deckard is or isn't a replicant (Scott's 2007 Final Cut seems to lean toward the affirmative, although in my view, it remains a tantalizingly open question). But an equally interesting (and not unrelated) current in the movie concerns the nature of humanity and its relationship to God. I would suggest that Blade Runner offers us a provocative mixture of Judeo-Christian and Nietzschean influences which offer much food for thought.

I apologize in advance for those not particularly indoctrinated in the Blade Runner storyline, characters, or terms. This post might sound like it's in code. But similar to my take on the use of language in the Fourth Gospel, I would encourage readers to use this post as an impetus to see the movie and become familiar with it. It'll be worth your time.

Set in the year 2019 (which is unfortunate; 2020 would have been better given the almost constant drumbeat of eyes and eyesight throughout the movie), we are told that the Tyrell Corporation has specialized in creating 'replicants' of humans for purposes of off-world exploration and other dangerous missions/tasks. Importantly, their motto is 'More human than human', and the rest of the movie very skillfully analyzes the implications of this both from the standpoint of replicant and human (Deckard's vague status on the spectrum only adds to the depth of these issues). These replicants have the ability to feel and express emotion, and in a major advance, the latest models have been implanted with memories so that it is no longer easy for either humans or the replicants themselves to know that they are replicants. This, of course, is one implication of the movie - if a being has emotions and memories, how unhuman are they?

At the beginning of the film, the audience is treated to a panaromic scene of the Tyrell Corporation headquarters. I would suggest that in many ways, the building resembles a great Temple. When Deckard visits Tyrell, the man who created the Tyrell Corporation, one immediately gets the sense that Tyrell is a Nietzchean godlike figure. He is frail, emotionally detached and distant, his vision is weak, yet he nonetheless has the power to 'control the weather' (when Deckard says it's too bright in his office, Tyrell effortlessly dims the impact of the sun), and to create 'life' in creating the replicants. Tyrell is a flawed puppetmaster in the Nietzchean mold.

The replicants created by Tyrell have the ability to feel and express emotion. But these emotions are very immature and unpredictable, and problems have resulted. As a result of this, replicants are built to have only a 4 year life span so that they are automatically 'retired' (terminated) before their emotions spin completely out of control, and they are not allowed on Earth once becoming operational. The problem is that 4 replicants have escaped from an off-world colony and are roaming the streets of a decaying Los Angeles. The leader and most advanced of these replicants is Roy, played by Rutger Hauer. As it turns out, as he nears his automatic retirement, Roy has come back to Earth primarily to speak with Tyrell about extending his life span. This sets the stage for the dramatic interplay between Roy and Tyrell at the corporation's headquarters - an interplay between religion and Nietzchean anti-religion.

With the aid of a high-level Tyrell employee named JF Sebastian, Roy penetrates the Tyrell Temple and gets on the elevator to go up and see Tyrell. Similar to the curtain layer in the OT Temple/tabernacle, the elevator initially only goes so far up the building. Tyrell lives in the top of the building, and no one is allowed in without his say-so. This is a clear allusion to the Holy of Holys in the OT tabernacle/Temple where the Ark of the Covenant and God's Spirit resided. Sebastian and Tyrell have been engaged in a long-distance chess match. With Sebastian and Roy in the stopped elevator and Tyrell on speaker, Sebastian (following Roy's instructions) delivers what he believes is a decisive move that results in checkmate (again, we see that Tyrell is flawed). The amusely impressed Tyrell invites Sebastian up for a talk, unaware that Roy is with him. The elevator then moves up to the Holy of Holys where the confrontation takes place.

Once inside this holy of holys, Nietzche's flawed god meets Nietzche's Uberman, Roy. The exchange between them is filled with biblical imagery. Tyrell proudly refers to Roy as the prodigal son who has returned home, while Roy, in an almost devotional tone, refers to Tyrell as 'Father' and considers Tyrell to be 'his maker'. Having met his maker, Roy pleads for a longer life. Even though Roy is a replicant, the pursuit of immortality is 'more human than human'. Tyrell says that nothing can be done about Roy's lifespan; that it was fixed during the creation process and cannot be changed. Roy proposes various ideas for how it could be done. Tyrell, being the godlike figure in the story, has already investigated and tried them all, and tells Roy that none of them work. Tyrell is confirming Roy's death sentence here. Roy then confesses that he has done 'questionable things', which is a clear confession of sin where Roy is coming to his god to find forgiveness. Instead of offering forgiveness, Tyrell excuses Roy's indiscretions by pointing out the 'great things' Roy has done.

What happens next is classic Nietzche. Roy realizes that 'his maker' is actually a flawed, immoral, distant and ultimately impotent god who has ingrained his created beings with irreparably fatal flaws. Roy then proceeds to kill Tyrell as both an act of anguish and liberation. The classic Nietzchean line of anguished triumph, "God is dead, and we have killed him", is displayed for us in this powerful scene. For Nietzche, and for Blade Runner, man stands in judgment over God, and he is right to do so because this god is no god at all, but simply a flawed puppetmaster condemning his creatures to death while living above it all. To lash out and refuse to be a puppet any longer is the most human thing we can do in this paradigm.

In the end, Roy becomes a poignant figure who saves Deckard's life before giving up his own life. Roy's death scene at the end of the movie (which is again filled with religious imagery) is one of the most moving scenes I've ever seen, and is at once haunting, tragic, beautiful, and convicting. Roy becomes something of a christ figure in the end. It is not incidental that Ridley Scott considers himself to be a very deliberate agnostic. Scott has said elsewhere that in his mind, being a Doubting Thomas enables one to ask the best and toughest questions, which is something atheism and fundamentalism are incapable of doing because they are too certain and absolute about their beliefs.

In respectful response, I would say that in framing the spectrum this way, Scott himself is being entirely too absolute and is avoiding being confronted by tough questions that hit too close to home for him. Blade Runner reflects this with its co-mingling of diametrically opposed worldviews. In the end, Scott's presentation of God is a convenient one that justifies a certain stance on humanity's grasp and pursuit of the infinite that leaves us in an ethical and ontological mess. While such conclusions are considered marks of sophisticated avante-garde thinking, this isn't automatically so. Scott's god in Blade Runner is a god that ironically doesn't ask tough questions; it only makes arrogant decisions. It should be no surprise that humans who ideally do more of the former than the latter would rebel against this god. But by stacking the deck this way, Scott conveniently avoids addressing the much harder question of whether humanity's relationship to God really looks like this, and what happens if it doesn't. After all, one might say that Scott's vision of God lacks thoughtful probing and is a rather arrogant endeavor in its own right. It has often been said that if Deckard is in fact a replicant, he is the very thing he is hunting down. One might say the same about Scott and Tyrell.