Rocco D’Ambrosca: 05/13/2010
With every technological invention there is potential for use and abuse. Even going back to the simplest of man’s inventions, the spear, this is perfectly evident. Man took a fallen tree branch and fashioned it into a long shaft with a sharp point. Man now possessed a tool to aid in his ability to feed himself through hunting wild animals. However, like all tools, this spear also had a means of abuse or misuse. One man could easily decide that instead of chasing after an animal himself, it would be far easier to take this spear and thrust it through his stationary neighbor, who had just hunted an animal, and take his food. If such easy abuse could come from even such a simple invention, what would happen if man was capable of creating himself? This is one of the many questions that the film Blade Runner attempts to answer or at the very least explore. The main narrative of the film is the practice of “retiring” replicants, or artificial humanoid machines, where retirement signifies termination. It will be shown that such practice is not only logically correct, but absolutely imperative to the survival of the human race.
In the film, the Tyrell Corporation is the creator of these replicants and has the motto, “More human than human.” This motto serves to exemplify the major superiorities of the replicants to average humans; most notably: intelligence and strength. These replicants are not simply robots, but fully self-aware and incredibly intelligent beings which appear to be human in appearance. Replicants, like most inventions, were created to serve a purpose. What purpose is this? Nothing less than manufactured slaves. Attractive female replicants created as prostitution models with a onetime fee, labors that never need any wages than their initial purchase, etc etc. But these slaves just like the slaves of earth’s history, and in some cases present, are aware of their condition and exploitation. The only possible result of such a situation is revolt, and such is the case here as we are told in the films introduction. The very use of this invention carries within itself its possible abuse.
The film tells us that a violent replicant uprising had taken place on Earth resulting in the universal ban of replicants on Earth and exclusive use on off-world colonies. The institution of this ban on earthly replicant habitation has produced a new breed of police officer, the Blade Runner. Blade Runners are given the task of hunting down and “retiring” replicants who escape bondage and come to earth. Retiring replicants often results in grand public displays of violence. In one scene of the film, a female replicant is brutally shot in the back several times while running away in a public street. Why isn’t arrest an equally, if not better option? At the very least, arresting a replicant allows the presumable option for them to be reprogrammed and returned to their off-world colony slave camp. Why wouldn’t this be preferable than wastefully destroying a useful commodity?
The answer lies in the very wording of the question. The advent of replicants has had the intended result of making the human condition manufacturable and in turn a commodity. Just as human slaves are/were a tradable commodity such are the replicants. The difference here being the ability to create more slaves at will, and presumably relatively cheaply. The entire notion of what it means to be human has been overwhelmingly challenged. The notion of being human has been cheapened and trivialized. If we can easily create beings that are smarter and stronger than us, what does that say about our own humanity? Even if the replicants were simply equal in ability to us, they would still devalue normal humans as trivial. We are no longer a unique beautiful wonder to behold now that we can create replicants. To make matters worse these replicants are superior to us! We have for the first time in history created a predator to humans!
This is why they must be indiscriminately terminated. We have created a threat to our own existence. They must be banned from earth not simply to prevent another uprising; surely this could occur and most likely does occur on the off-world colonies, but because of their extremely dangerous ability to hide among us in plain sight. This capacity to easily hide among us is extremely useful in creating an exceedingly viable and most likely successful underground resistance and eventual takeover of the planet. Think about it, they are smarter, stronger, and can’t easily be distinguished from an average human. They are the absolute perfect predator to man with every motivation to exterminate us, their oppressor, and take the planet for themselves.
This is why it is absolutely logical and imperative to kill rogue replicants on sight. The inherent loss in property in doing so is far less costly than the potential threat a rogue replicant possesses. Now that the proverbial genie is out of the bottle there is no going back, the only option is to attempt and control the situation. Presumably, the galactic economy is reliant upon this labor force of replicants and can’t go back to a time without them. So, Blade Runners will continue to hunt down and retire rogue replicants. And so what of their indiscriminate termination, after all we can always make another one…
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