The Future Was Now: Madmen, Mavericks, and the Epic Sci-Fi Summer Of 1982
by Chris Nashawaty · 251pp · 86,553 words
sci-fi classics were simultaneously released in theaters only to be met by critical venom and confounding indifference from moviegoers: Ridley Scott’s dystopian brainteaser, Blade Runner, and John Carpenter’s master class in subzero paranoia, The Thing. One had been adapted from an intellectually dense novel written by one of
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he was working on was. Mead replied that it was a new sci-fi film from Ridley Scott, the director of Alien. It was called Blade Runner. * * * Although Star Trek: The Motion Picture had turned out to be a hugely deflating experience for critics and audiences (save the most hard-core
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a catchy name, the scope and scale of what had been built—and, more importantly, what still needed to be built—made it clear that Blade Runner was burning through Filmways’ cash at a ridiculous clip. In the meantime, however, Scott had a more pressing concern than Filmways’ accountants: he still
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, he also had a sticky reputation as a notorious ditherer who could be maddeningly indecisive. Hoffman would make good on that rap once again on Blade Runner. After Deeley, Scott, and Fancher flew to New York to meet with the actor in his completely unfurnished apartment on the Upper West Side,
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two long months before Hoffman eventually bowed out as everyone suspected he might. Unfortunately, time was now an issue. Scott needed to start shooting Blade Runner in less than three months in order to complete the film before a looming strike by the Directors Guild of America. He needed a new
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of the Lost Ark. Spielberg was raving about Harrison Ford and how he was about to be the biggest superstar in Hollywood. Knowing that Blade Runner was desperate for a bankable name to slap on its one-sheets, Hershey passed along this tidbit to Fancher. Scott and Deeley called Spielberg
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for $12 million. Double that figure seemed likelier. And when Deeley upped his estimate to $20 million, Filmways blinked and finally backed out. Technically, Blade Runner was put into turnaround, meaning that Deeley was now free to shop the project around to other studios as long as the new backer also
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, the director, who was wrapping up Alien at the time, cut the meeting short, saying that he was already committed to his next picture—Blade Runner. Stone and Pressman didn’t have much time to lick their wounds after the meeting was over, though. Because just hours after Scott had turned
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). But perhaps Peoples’s most important contribution was one of semantics. The writer felt that the word android felt all wrong in the context of Blade Runner. Instead, he coined the term replicants. It turned out that Peoples’s daughter Risa was doing work in microbiology and biochemistry at the time.
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reshot over and over again due to lighting problems, it should have been interpreted as an ominous sign. Because somehow, after three days of shooting, Blade Runner was impossibly two weeks behind schedule. Scott’s perfectionism seemed to know no bounds. For Ford, enough was enough. The actor was used to
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violent love scene, some crew members found Ford’s performance to be more violence than love. It made them deeply uncomfortable. “Harrison hated Sean,” said Blade Runner production executive Katy Haber. “That was not a love scene, that was a hate scene.” Added Young, “Personally, it’s not one of my
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his misery. No, another constant source of frustration for the director was his inability to pick up a camera on his own set. Prior to Blade Runner, Scott had only directed movies in the UK. There, he was able to essentially function as his own camera operator and cinematographer. But in
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Hollywood, strict union regulations prevented him from doing those duties. And even though Scott deeply respected Blade Runner’s talented director of photography, Jordan Cronenweth, he was the kind of obsessive-compulsive filmmaker who was convinced the last word was not only his
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low after Scott gave an all-too-candid interview to The Guardian. Asked to compare working in England on Alien and working in Hollywood on Blade Runner, Scott railed against the clueless unions and their petty rules and even the attitudes of American film crews. He seemed to imply that they
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“Yes, guv!” The next morning, copies of the Guardian article were piled next to the coffee machine on the set for everyone to peruse. Blade Runner’s makeup supervisor, Marvin Westmore, printed up T-shirts that said YES, GUV—MY ASS! Others still were emblazoned with the line WILL ROGERS NEVER
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surprise waiting for him there … Bud Yorkin. On July 11, Tandem’s lawyers informed Scott and Deeley that they had been fired from Blade Runner. According to their ledgers, Blade Runner had gone somewhere between $5 million and $11 million over budget. And under the terms of the contract they had signed, Tandem
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intriguing meeting with Steven Lisberger to discuss Tron, Syd Mead hustled back to the Warner Bros. lot to keep fine-tuning his designs for Blade Runner’s futuristic flying police cars. But Mead found that his mind kept drifting back to the strange new movie being made back at Disney.
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question was: How the hell do we get people into theaters to see it? 13 On July 11, 1981, less than two weeks after Blade Runner had wrapped production, Ridley Scott and his producer, Michael Deeley, officially received word from attorneys representing Tandem Productions that their services were no longer required
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they both knew that the moneymen were about to make their lives miserable. Their fears would be spot-on. During postproduction on a film of Blade Runner’s scale, literally hundreds, if not thousands, of decisions are made daily. Editing, sound mixing, special effects, the score, color correction, shooting additional insert
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making the film richer, more layered, and more intellectually knotty in the tradition of all the best sci-fi storytelling, was not part of the Blade Runner screenplay (although it is hinted at in Philip K. Dick’s source novel). But it actually elevates the film to a loftier existential plateau.
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and ultimately win a Best Picture Oscar). Now, heading into the summer, most of the studio’s marketing efforts would be pushing not only Blade Runner but also Clint Eastwood’s Firefox and Robin Williams’s The World According to Garp. Anything that the already-profitable Road Warrior raked in stateside
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major critical and commercial disappointments, topping out at $27.6 million and $19.6 million, respectively. After all the battles he had fought with Blade Runner’s financial backers—not to mention his own cast and crew—Scott would lick his wounds and return to the world of advertising. As for
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: The Wrath of Khan (Paramount): $78.9 million Poltergeist (MGM): $76.6 million Conan the Barbarian (Universal): $39.6 million Tron (Disney): $33 million Blade Runner (Warner Bros.): $27.6 million The Road Warrior (Warner Bros.): $23.7 million The Thing (Universal): $19.9 million But this is merely where one
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time. Shortly after Harmetz’s article appeared, the nominations for the Fifty-Fifth Academy Awards were announced on the morning of February 17, 1983. Blade Runner was recognized for art direction and visual effects, Tron received nods for costume design and sound, and Poltergeist was in the race for sound editing
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the summer of 1982 would finally get to battle again on more congenial terms. They were no longer competitors, they were comrades. E.T., Blade Runner, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and Tron were all nominated for Best Science Fiction Film. Conan the Barbarian was nominated for Best
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some cases inspiring young film buffs to become future directors themselves—directors who championed and evangelized for these once-dismissed masterpieces. In the case of Blade Runner, it would also have the added benefit of being rereleased in 1992 in a director’s cut that allowed Ridley Scott to finally get
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You could even argue that it was never more relevant or spoke more forcefully than it did during the COVID pandemic. Meanwhile, the once-DOA Blade Runner would, in short order, become the visual blueprint for just about every science fiction film that followed in its footsteps. Its shadow is inescapable.
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the present. We went to the movies and were convinced that the future was now. EPILOGUE After his “miserable experience” during the making of Blade Runner, Ridley Scott returned to England and the world of advertising, where he would direct what is still regarded as the greatest Super Bowl commercial of
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to direct Thelma & Louise, Gladiator, and Black Hawk Down—all of which earned him Best Director Oscar nominations. In 2017, he would executive produce Blade Runner 2049, a sequel to the film he once thought he’d never live down. Michael Deeley would become the CEO of Consolidated, a television production
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film about a serial killer, starring Owen Wilson. In 2019, he published a screenwriting manual titled The Wall Will Tell You. He also cowrote Blade Runner 2049. Harrison Ford would become one of the biggest movie stars in Hollywood for the next four decades, reprising his roles as Han Solo and
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CHAPTER 2 Canby, Vincent. “Screen: ‘Alien’ Brings Chills from the Far Galaxy: A Gothic Set in Space.” New York Times, May 25, 1979. Deeley, Michael. Blade Runners, Deer Hunters, and Blowing the Bloody Doors Off: My Life in Cult Movies. Reprint ed. New York: Pegasus Books, 2011. Hughes, David. The Greatest Sci
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Kentucky, 2019. Pavich, Frank, dir. Jodorowsky’s Dune. Culver City, CA: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2013. Sammon, Paul M. Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner. Rev. ed. New York: Dey Street Books, 2017. Zinoman, Jason. Shock Value: How a Few Eccentric Outsiders Gave Us Nightmares, Conquered Hollywood, and Invented Modern
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Kreski. Star Trek Movie Memories. New York: HarperCollins, 1994. Solomon, Charles. “The Secrets of TRON.” Rolling Stone, August 19, 1982. CHAPTER 7 Deeley, Michael. Blade Runners, Deer Hunters, and Blowing the Bloody Doors Off: My Life in Cult Movies. Reprint ed. New York: Pegasus Books, 2011. Kezich, Tullio, and Alessandra Levantesi
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: University Press of Mississippi, 2005. LoBrutto, Vincent. Ridley Scott: A Biography. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2019. Sammon, Paul M. Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner. Rev. ed. New York: Dey Street Books, 2017. Schwarzenegger, Arnold. Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013. Segaloff, Nat.
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.” Fangoria, August 1982. Carpenter, John, dir. Commentary track. The Thing, collector’s ed. DVD. Universal City, CA: Universal Studios Home Entertainment, 2003. Deeley, Michael. Blade Runners, Deer Hunters, and Blowing the Bloody Doors Off: My Life in Cult Movies. Reprint ed. New York: Pegasus Books, 2011. Hogan, David J. “The Incredible
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University Press of Mississippi, 2005. LoBrutto, Vincent. Ridley Scott: A Biography. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2019. Sammon, Paul M. Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner. Rev. ed. New York: Dey Street Books, 2017. CHAPTER 10 Gross, Edward. The Making of the Trek Films. Rev. ed. New York: Image Publishing, 1992
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.” Fangoria, August 1982. Carpenter, John, dir. Commentary track. The Thing, collector’s ed. DVD. Universal City, CA: Universal Studios Home Entertainment, 2003. Deeley, Michael. Blade Runners, Deer Hunters, and Blowing the Bloody Doors Off: My Life in Cult Movies. Reprint ed. New York: Pegasus Books, 2011. Knapp, Lawrence F., and Andrea
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: University Press of Mississippi, 2005. LoBrutto, Vincent. Ridley Scott: A Biography. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2019. Sammon, Paul M. Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner. Rev. ed. New York: Dey Street Books, 2017. CHAPTER 14 Amis, Martin. “The World According to Spielberg.” Observer Magazine, November 21, 1982. Billson, Anne.
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(1976) Attenborough, Richard AVCO Embassy Begelman, David Bennett, Harve Beresford, Bruce Besch, Bibi Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, The (1982) Black Hole, The (1979) Blade Runner (1982) awards and nominations box office sales budget casting “classic film” status development and writing Philip K. Dick and director’s cut rerelease (1992) filming
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postproduction release reviews score special effects “tears in rain” scene test screenings Warner Bros. and Blade Runner 2049 (2017) Blob, The (1958) Borgnine, Ernest Bottin, Rob Boxleitner, Bruce Bradbury, Ray Brandywine Productions Bridges, Jeff Bronson, Charles Bryant, Chris Buck Rogers in
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Stood Still, The (1951) Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982) Deeley, Michael De Laurentis, Dino Conan the Barbarian King Kong Dick, Philip K. Blade Runner and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Diller, Barry Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Dillon, Melinda
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Black Hole, The; Ellenshaw, Harrison; Miller, Ron; Tron Disney, Walt Dorf, Shel Dune (Herbert) Dykstra, John Easy Rider (1969) Ebert, Roger on Alien on Blade Runner on Conan the Barbarian on E. T. on The Thing on Tron Eisner, Michael Raiders of the Lost Ark and Star Trek: The Motion Picture
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reviews Universal and Evans, Robert Fancher, Hampton Fellini, Federico Filmways Pictures Flash Gordon (1980) Flash Gordon serial films Forbidden Planet (1956) Ford, Harrison American Graffiti Blade Runner Raiders of the Lost Ark Star Wars Ford, John Foster, Alan Dean Foster, David Fox, 20th Century. See Alien; Ladd, Alan, Jr.; Porky’s;
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casting filming Milius’s influence on release Sid Sheinberg and success and impact test screenings Universal and Jodorowsky, Alejandro Jones, Tommy Lee Kael, Pauline on Blade Runner on E. T. on Poltergeist on Start Trek II: The Wrath of Khan Kaplan, J. Stein Kasdan, Lawrence Katzenberg, Jeffrey Kaufman, Joseph Kaufman, Philip
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Maslin, Janet on Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan on Tron Mathison, Melissa McCarthy, Joseph McCausland, James McQueen, Steve Mead, Syd Méliès, George merchandising Blade Runner E. T. Star Trek Star Wars Meyer, Nicholas MGM. See Begelman, David; Poltergeist Milius, John Miller, Frank Miller, George medical education and formative experiences Violence
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, Ridley Boy and Bicycle death of brother Frank The Duellists education and early career Ridley Scott Associates (RSA) Star Wars’ influence on See also Alien; Blade Runner Selleck, Tom Seydoux, Michel Shatner, William Shaw Brothers Sheinberg, Sid Shusett, Ronald Siskel, Gene Skerritt, Tom Spielberg, Steven awards and nominations Firelight (home movie)
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E. T. the Extraterrestrial; Jaws; Sheinberg, Sid; Thing, The Vangelis Victor/Victoria (1982) Wallace, Tommy Lee Wang, James Warhol, Andy Warner, David Warner Bros. See Blade Runner; Road Warrior, The Watergate scandal Wayne, John Weaver, Sigourney Weir, Peter Welles, Orson Wilhite, Tom Williams, Dennis Williams, John Wilson, Maer Wise, Robert Wizard of
Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology
by Adrienne Mayor · 27 Nov 2018
too, with orthodox creeds affirming that Jesus was “begotten, not made.” The theme arises in modern science fiction as well, as in the 2017 film Blade Runner 2049, whose plot turns on whether certain characters are replicants, facsimiles of real humans, or biologically conceived and born humans. Since archaic times, the difference
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born, and his “birth” is a fiction implanted by his manufacturers, much as eidetic, emotional memories are manufactured and implanted in the replicants in the Blade Runner films (1982, 2017). Recent studies in human-robot interactions show that people tend to anthropomorphize robots and Artificial Intelligence if the entities “act like” humans
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the Talos myth, the sorceress Medea perceived the issues that have become themes in science fiction from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) to Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982) and Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017) to Her (Spike Jonze, 2013) and Ex Machina (Alex Garland, 2014). The Talos myth was an early exploration of
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or millennia of memories? The interrelationship of human memory, love, and awareness of a finite life span was central to the modern science-fiction film Blade Runner (1982). The android workers in the dystopia are genetically engineered to have life spans of only four years—too short to develop a real identity
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described as an idealized woman, more perfect than any real female. So Pygmalion’s replica “surpasses human limits,” much like the sex replicants in the Blade Runner films that are advertised as “more human than human.”8 Ovid, notably, does not describe her skin and body as feeling lifelike. Instead Ovid compares
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named Paphos, a magical feat of reproduction intended to show that the ideal statue became a real, biological woman. Notably, the plot of the film Blade Runner 2049 turns on a similar magical reproduction of a replicant, the biological birth of a baby to the replicant Rachael, which is supposed to be
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exact skeletons and internal organs, evident in the Prometheus gems and in this Chinese tale, recurs in modern science fiction. For example, in the film Blade Runner 2049, the discovery of the buried skeletal remains of the runaway replicant Rachael reveals that replicants have “human” physiology—and might even be able to
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revived by philosopher John Gray in Soul of a Marionette (2015) and novelist Philip Pullman in the epic trilogy His Dark Materials (1995–2000). The Blade Runner films (1982, 2017) are another example of how science-fiction narratives play on the paranoid suspicion that our world is already full of androids—and
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it would be impossible to apply a Turing test to oneself to prove that one is not an android.34 One of the replicants in Blade Runner repeats, “I think, therefore I am,” the famous conclusion by the French philosopher René Descartes (1596–1650). Descartes was quite familiar with mechanical automata of
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and undying, were born; they possess memory and have offspring. Like the perfect maiden Galatea molded by Pygmalion and the instantly adult replicants of the Blade Runner films, Pandora has no parents, no childhood, no history, no memories, no emotional depth, and no self-identity or soul. Though sometimes thought of as
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Library 3.11.2. CHAPTER 3. THE QUEST FOR IMMORTALITY AND ETERNAL YOUTH 1. Mayor 2016. “Cheating Death” 2016. Raphael 2015, 192–93. Boissoneault 2017. Blade Runner was loosely adapted from the science-fiction novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick (1968). In Jo Walton’s science-fiction
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. Cave 2012, 64, 67–71. Friend 2017, 56–57; de Grey 2007, 8 and 379n2; de Grey 2008, “global nursing home.” 28. The replicants of Blade Runner die too soon, before they can become human, Raphael 2015. Talos, Buxton 2013, 78. The ancient Greek concept of living too long is explored through
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and compares modern narratives of female sex robots, which, unlike the ancient myth, have unhappy endings. 8. Marshall (2017) compares the female replicants of the Blade Runner films to Pygmalion’s creation. 9. Some interpret Apollodorus Library 3.14.3 to suggest that a son, Paphos, and a daughter, Metharme, were born
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to Pygmalion’s living statue. Similarly, the plot of Blade Runner 2049 turns on the magical existence of two children, a girl and a boy who is an exact copy, born to the replicant Rachael, who
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of clay, yet later authors could not resist claiming that she gave birth to offspring. A similar “miracle” is the theme in the 2017 film Blade Runner 2049. 17. Faraone 1992, 18–19, 29n1. Marconi 2009. 18. Faraone 1992, 19–23, 13n8. Pharmaka “animates” the statues with a kind of “soul” or
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Lilly Kahil, ed. P. Linant de Bellefonds et al., 49–50. Athens. ———. 2015. The Greeks in Asia. London: Thames and Hudson. Boissoneault, Lorraine. 2017. “Are Blade Runner’s Replicants ‘Human’? Descartes and Locke Have Some Thoughts.” Smithsonian, Arts and Culture, October 3. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/are
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-blade-runners-replicants-human-descartes-and-locke-have-some-thoughts-180965097/. Bonfante, Giuliano, and Larissa Bonfante. 2002. The Etruscan Language: An Introduction. Manchester: University of Manchester Press.
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, V. 1952. Yantras or Mechanical Contrivances in Ancient India. Bangalore: Indian Institute of Culture. Raphael, Rebecca. 2015. “Disability as Rhetorical Trope in Classical Myth and Blade Runner.” In Rogers and Stevens 2015, 176–96. Raven, Maarten Jan. 1983. Wax in Egyptian Magic and Symbolism. Leiden: RMO. Reeder, Ellen. 1995. Pandora: Women in
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, 3, 96, 150, 220 blacksmiths, and their tools, Plate 3, Plate 4, 25, 135, 136, 139, 164–65, 243n21. See also Hephaestus Blade Runner (film), 11, 29, 45, 108, 123, 160 Blade Runner 2049 (film), 2, 11, 29, 108, 121, 123, 160 Blakely, Sandra, 24 blood: bloodletting and circulation of, 27–28; bull’s
Ready Player One
by Ernest Cline · 15 Feb 2011 · 458pp · 137,960 words
to demagnify the scan of the wrapper and center the image on my display. As I did this, it reminded me of a scene in Blade Runner, where Harrison Ford’s character, Deckard, uses a similar voice-controlled scanner to analyze a photograph. I held up the wrapper and took another look
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the wrapper into a paper airplane and sailing it across the room. That made me think of origami, which reminded me of another moment from Blade Runner. One of the final scenes in the film. And that was when it hit me. “The unicorn,” I whispered. The moment I said the word
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a tail, a head, and finally, a horn. The wrapper had folded itself into a silver origami unicorn. One of the most iconic images from Blade Runner. I was already riding the elevator down to my hangar and shouting at Max to prep the Vonnegut for takeoff. Continue your quest by taking
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knew exactly what “test” that line referred to, and where I needed to go to take it. The origami unicorn had revealed everything to me. Blade Runner was referenced in the text of Anorak’s Almanac no less than fourteen times. It had been one of Halliday’s top ten all-time
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films. And the film was based on a novel by Philip K. Dick, one of Halliday’s favorite authors. For these reasons, I’d seen Blade Runner over four dozen times and had memorized every frame of the film and every line of dialogue. As the Vonnegut streaked through hyperspace, I pulled
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the Director’s Cut of Blade Runner up in a window on my display, then jumped ahead to review two scenes in particular. The movie, released in 1982, is set in Los
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, hyper-technological future that had never come to pass. The story follows a guy named Rick Deckard, played by Harrison Ford. Deckard works as a “blade runner,” a special type of cop who hunts down and kills replicants—genetically engineered beings that are almost indistinguishable from real humans. In fact, replicants look
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and act so much like real humans that the only way a blade runner can spot one is by using a polygraph-like device called a Voight-Kampff machine to test them. Continue your quest by taking the test
The Comedy Film Nerds Guide to Movies
by Graham Elwood and Chris Mancini · 31 May 2012 · 314pp · 86,795 words
genre, will stay with you. Unfortunately that’s true of bad science fiction films too. While I love thinking about the original Star Wars movies, Blade Runner (without the voice-over, and I can’t even remember which cut that is anymore) or Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, I wish
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under? Of course, dystopian when the robots (The Terminator) or trash (Wall-E) take over. There’s much more fucked up shit going on in Blade Runner than there is in Star Trek. One has rogue robots killing people, the other has a holodeck where you can play tennis. The ultimate dystopian
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” to movies and video games—even if it was quickly overused and went from cool to annoying in a very short period of time. 6. Blade Runner (1982) A thousand cuts of this movie exist. Just see the director’s cut. You don’t need the voiceover and yes, Deckard is a
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. Always on the best list cause it is shrill. Instead, watch The Big Combo and enjoy yourself. 5. Strange Days (1995) More sci-fi noir. Blade Runner beats this movie like a tom-tom. 6. Sin City (2005) You liked it, I did not. 7. Miller’s Crossing (1990) Yes, it’s
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crazier than me. She’ll quote Ash with me in Army of Darkness, or understand the importance of the lights-off silence when you watch Blade Runner. Together we’ll count how many times Rowdy Roddy Piper gets hit during the fight scene in They Live. We’ll annoy everyone around us
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genre. The humor of This Is Spinal Tap. The audience participation of Rocky Horror Picture Show. The way-before-its-time sci-fi noir of Blade Runner. The over the top comic gore of Re-Animator and Evil Dead II. The stoner and slacker favorites of Dazed and Confused and Clerks. Cult
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booze. ALL of it. 3. Evil Dead II (1987) (Or any of the Evil Dead films, really). Bruce Campbell has been given deity status. 4. Blade Runner (1985) One of my fave films ever. Sci-fi noir? Yes, please. 5. Brazil (1985) Perhaps the best of Terry Gilliam’s work. 6. Blue
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that the villains get what they deserve, AND, though it doesn’t really have much relevance, this film takes place in the same universe as Blade Runner. It’s written by the same writer. I suspect I am one of maybe twelve people who have seen this, and even less who like
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’s a noir private eye story set in a futuristic Dubai-like city. Red light district, serial killer, devout Islamic mob boss. The Godfather meets Blade Runner. I can’t think of the Arab actor I want . . . but it’s a 33-year-old Arab version of a Bob Hoskins/Harrison Ford
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(1974) – 196 The Black Cauldron (1985) – 186 Black Narcissus (1947) – 52 Black Sabbath (The Three Faces of Fear) (1963) – 43, 47 Black Sunday (1960) – 43 Blade Runner (1982) – 3, 4, 8, 114, 199, 201, 204, 218, 230 The Blair Witch Project (1999) – 46 Blazing Saddles (1974) – 14, 59 Blood Simple (1984) – 114
The Human Age: The World Shaped by Us
by Diane Ackerman · 9 Sep 2014 · 380pp · 104,841 words
and make your mirror neurons quiver. Equally realistic squishy bodies aren’t far behind. One can easily imagine the day, famously foretold in the movies Blade Runner and Alien, when computers with faces feel silicon flavors of paranoia, love, melancholy, anger, and the other stirrings of our carbon hearts. Then the already
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Million Dollar Man (who inspired many a roboticist), Star Trek’s Captain Picard (who has an artificial heart), or the species of moody Replicants in Blade Runner. Now we think nothing of strolling around with stainless steel knees and hips; battery-operated pacemakers and insulin pumps; plastic stents; TENS pain units that
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Green World. New York: North Point Press, 2002. Pipher, Mary. The Green Boat: Reviving Ourselves in Our Capsized Culture. New York: Riverhead, 2013. Pistorius, Oscar. Blade Runner. Rev. ed. London: Virgin, 2012. Ridley, Matt. The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves. New York: Harper, 2011. Rifkin, Jeremy. The Biotech Century: Harnessing the Gene
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, 13 bioprinting, 238, 245–46 bipolar disorder, 285 birds, 216 extinction of, 139 bird’s-foot trefoil, 166 black bears, 126 “Black Marble” photograph, 17 Blade Runner (film), 228, 253 Blanc, Patrick, 79–82, 84–85, 207 bleeding hearts, 125 Blizzard Nemo, 58 bloomers, 191 blue-jay feathers, 91 “Blue Marble” photograph
The Myth of Capitalism: Monopolies and the Death of Competition
by Jonathan Tepper · 20 Nov 2018 · 417pp · 97,577 words
acquired Boston Dynamics, as well as eight other robotics companies, to create a new robotics division called Replicant, named in honor of the cyborgs in Blade Runner. The robotics industry was excited that the 800-pound gorilla in technology was throwing money at research. However, it turned into a disaster. Over time
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the absence of regulation and without consumer awareness—since consumers don't generally see the price due to insurance—the sky is the limit.”16 Blade Runner is now considered a classic of science fiction, but it bombed when it first came out. The film is now regarded as a masterpiece, with
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skyline of Los Angeles in 2019. Ridely Scott, the director, had worked in advertising and knew the power of brands. In the original version of Blade Runner, Harrison Ford navigates a dark, rainy future as giant advertisements glimmer in the background. Scott was tapping into a deep fear that corporations will control
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our lives. This theme has run through science fiction for generations. Terminator had Cyberdyne Systems, Robocop had Omni Consumer Products, and Blade Runner had the Tyrel corporation. As Ford's character goes about his grisly job of killing replicants in the movie, you can see ads for RCA
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went bankrupt or were wiped out by competition after being featured in the film. Appearing in Blade Runner turned out to be a harbinger of oblivion. Critics even began to refer to “The Commercial Curse of Blade Runner.”17 The companies Scott depicted were completely dominant, and some were even monopolies. Atari had an
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brand has aged well like a good whiskey. Coca-Cola survived. TsingTao beer is still the most popular beer in China. In the recent sequel Blade Runner 2049 many corporations paid for ad placements: Johnnie Walker whisky, Sony, Peugeot, and Coca-Cola.18 Time will tell which brands will survive. What is
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certain is that there is no Blade Runner curse. The film shows that even though corporations make wonderful movie villains, they are often completely impotent when it comes to simply surviving. For example
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1955 were still in it by 2011.19 Fewer than 10% of the 400 wealthiest Americans who appeared on the Forbes list in 1982, when Blade Runner was released, were still on the list in 2012.20 Capitalism is at its core dynamic, fluid, and daring. Young companies are always coming up
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.modernhealthcare.com/article/20171228/NEWS/171229930. 17. http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/31664223/the-curse-of-blade-runners-adverts. 18. https://www.wsj.com/articles/science-affliction-are-companies-cursed-by-cameos-in-blade-runner-1506356096. 19. https://www.nationalreview.com/2013/03/hey-wheres-my-corporate-dystopia-kevin-d-williamson/. 20
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Big Business and the Third Reich (Schweitzer), 148 Big Data, Big Brother (relationship), 112 Big Is Beautiful (Atkinson/Lind), 6, 52 Birkenstock, piracy accusation, 103 Blade Runner (movies), 170–171 Blankfein, Lloyd, 189–190 Blonigen, Bruce, 40–41 Bogle, Jack, 202 Booth School of Business (University of Chicago), 163 Bork, Robert, 155
Shantaram: A Novel
by Gregory David Roberts · 12 Oct 2004 · 1,222pp · 385,226 words
movie posters—Lauren Bacall in a still from To Have And Have Not, Pier Angeli from Somebody Up There Likes Me, and Sean Young from Blade Runner. A young and very beautiful woman sat on the large bed in the centre of the room. Her blonde hair was long and thick, ending
The Smart Wife: Why Siri, Alexa, and Other Smart Home Devices Need a Feminist Reboot
by Yolande Strengers and Jenny Kennedy · 14 Apr 2020
including wife Vanessa in Austin Powers (1997, 1999, 2002), Ava in Ex Machina (2015); Samantha in Her (2013), and Pris and Rachael from the original Blade Runner (1982)—to name but a few. These women are typically sexualized, demure, and slightly dysfunctional, yet ready to retaliate against their male makers, owners, and
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. Figure 1.3 Film stills of smart wives as depicted in sci-fi movies. Sources: The Perfect Woman; The Stepford Wives; Austin Powers; Ex-Machina; Blade Runner. We know from research carried out in the fields of robotics, human-computer interaction, and psychology that humans assign emotional as well as personal traits
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Westworld (first released as a movie in 1973 and a TV series in 2016), Humans (2015; a UK remake of the Swedish show Real Humans), Blade Runner 2049 (2017), and Ex Machina. Quick to distinguish Neons from AI assistants such as Google Home and Alexa, the Neon website describes this new creation
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ideals: women made and destined for the service of men. Let us remind you of some of the cast. Figure 5.6 Film still. Source: Blade Runner 2049 Back in 1964, the lifelike android Rhoda Miller TV show My Living Doll was described by the male lead as a perfect woman because
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she “does what she’s told” and “doesn’t talk back.”65 On the big screen, in Blade Runner 2049, K (himself a replicant, or in other words, an artificially intelligent being that looks and acts like a human) is in a relationship with
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model” whom Joi can holographically project herself onto. It makes for a fascinating threesome. Then there’s Pris, the “basic pleasure model” in the original Blade Runner (1982). There’s also Ava and a variety of sexualized (and racialized) housekeeping robots featured in Ex Machina ; Samantha the disembodied love interest and OS
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, 175, 193 Big Five, 85, 107, 189 Big Mother, 193 Bipedal FT (efutei), 71 Birhane, Abebe, 174 Black Mirror (TV series), 218–219 Blade Runner (film), 14, 15, 64, 125 Blade Runner 2049 (film), 125 Blue Origin, 81 Body F (RealDoll), 119 Bogost, Ian, 164 Borg (Star Trek), 102–105, 106, 198 Borg, Anita
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) Jewish communities, 93 Jibo, 21, 49, 59, 249n42 Jobs, Steve, 10, 193 Johansson, Scarlett, 133, 134 Joi (Blade Runner 2049), 125 Joler, Vladen, 97–98, 99, 103, 107, 189, 220 June smart oven, 40 K (Blade Runner 2049), 125 KAI (Kasisto), 170–171, 219 Kawaii (cuteness), 68–70 Kember, Sarah, 150 Kessler, Suzanne, 62
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, 68–69 Manners when using smart wives, 167–168 Manual work involved with smart homes, 43 Marcussen, Benita, 131–132 Maria (Metropolis), 67, 153 Mariette (Blade Runner 2049), 125 Marital rape, 8 Marketing smart wives to women, 182–186 Marriage and wife drought, 6–8 Marriage to smart wives, 126, 221 Marriage
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virtual reality, 13, 118, 123–124 Poster, Winifred, 155 Posy, 49, 71, 72 Pranks played with smart wife devices, 175–176 Precautionary principle, 105 Pris (Blade Runner), 14, 125 Privacy risks managing, 203, 221, 224 sources of, 177, 187–189, 192, 194, 195, 196, 197 Proximate future, 97 Q (genderless voice), 171
Four Battlegrounds
by Paul Scharre · 18 Jan 2023
my face, then a quick snapshot as I was recorded. A smiling icon on the screen said in English, “Welcome!” Rather than a densely packed, Blade Runner–esque cityscape of pollution and high rises, Beijing is spacious and green. The day I landed, the skies were blue (an unusually good day for
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believing a bot was human? The sudden appearance of AI-generated voice bots that were good enough to pass as humans accelerated interest in a “blade runner” law that would prohibit using machines to impersonate humans. Named after the 1982 dystopian sci-fi film in which Harrison Ford plays a
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“blade runner,” a police detective tasked with tracking down rogue synthetic humans, “blade runner” laws mandate that bots disclose they are a bot when interacting with a human. In the wake of the controversy
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legal mandate at the time to do so. Other companies might not be as voluntarily transparent as Google. In September 2018, California passed the first “blade runner” law requiring bot disclosure. Security researchers nevertheless began to worry about myriad misuses of AI-generated audio and video, from increasingly realistic robocalls to fake
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. My best defense against this scam is my ability to recognize that the message is recorded. I worry about the day when we cross into blade runner territory, when AI-generated content is good enough that we can’t tell the difference between a bot and a human. That day may be
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recognition, but more could be done. The fact that California is both a hotbed of tech innovation and policy innovation constraining technology, from bot disclosure (“blade runner”) laws to facial recognition, should be a signal to the rest of the country about the necessity of tech regulation. The U.S. Congress has
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and Creative AI Design,” TechCrunch, May 10, 2018, https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/10/duplex-shows-google-failing-at-ethical-and-creative-ai-design/. 121“blade runner” law: Tim Wu, “Please Prove You’re Not a Robot,” New York Times, July 15, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/15/opinion/sunday
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Something Big,” Vox, June 27, 2018, https://www.vox.com/2018/6/27/17508166/google-duplex-assistant-demo-voice-calling-ai. 122California passed the first “blade runner” law: Bots: disclosure. SB 1001 (state of California legislative document), September 28, 2018, http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB1001; Thomas
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, Mohammed, 141 biometrics, 80, 84; See also facial recognition “Bitter Lesson, The” (Sutton), 299 black box attacks, 240–41 blacklists, 99–100 BlackLivesMatter, 143, 148 “blade runner” laws, 121–22, 170 blind passes, 249 Bloomberg, 118 Bloomberg Government, 257 Boeing, 193, 216 Bolivia, 107 bots, 118, 121–22, 142, 144–49, 221
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also GPT-2; GPT-3; OpenAI Laos, 108 Laskai, Lorand, 96 Laszuk, Danika, 128, 140 Latvia, 108 Lawrence, Jennifer, 130 laws and regulations, 111–13 “blade runner,” 121–22, 170 data privacy, 21–22, 111–12, 170–71, 174–77 facial recognition, 113 and Microsoft, 111 for surveillance, 108–9 learning, unintended
In Our Own Image: Savior or Destroyer? The History and Future of Artificial Intelligence
by George Zarkadakis · 7 Mar 2016 · 405pp · 117,219 words
Maria of Metropolis. Her sexuality is a danger to society, a fact poignantly underlined by the artificial, satanic python she uses for her striptease number. Blade Runner is set in the year 2019, and as such is not too distant from the year 2026 in which Metropolis takes place. However, in this
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, in love. Rachel is Galatea reloaded, the female partner every man should want. She is not rebellious like Zhora, but caring, sensitive, fragile and submissive. Blade Runner is one of a number of films and books to use the android metaphor to pose questions about the self and what it means to
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a cyborg, machine and human all in one. The delineations that once separated the artificial from the ‘natural’ are no more. At the end of Blade Runner, Rick Deckard suspects that he might also be an android. So might you be, too. Indeed, how do you know that you are not? What
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if the conscious machines of the future decide that we are not their friends but their enemies? What if the robots rebel, like Zhora in Blade Runner or Maria in Metropolis, and turn against us? What if The Matrix and Terminator are right in predicting our forthcoming slaughter by our ungrateful mechanical
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’. Predicting the discovery of the uncanny valley, paranoid feelings about doubles form a leitmotif in Philip K. Dick’s work. Rick Deckard’s dilemma in Blade Runner is to decide if Rachel is ‘real’. Can he really love an artificial Rachel? Could he also be an android? In a future world populated
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first auto-nomous vehicle. Early 1980s: The Internet is invented. 1982: The 5th Generation Computer Systems Project is launch-ed by Japan. 1982: The film Blade Runner is released, directed by Ridley Scott, based on a short story by Philip K. Dick. 1989: Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web. 1990
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55, 57 big bang of the modern mind 10, 12–15 big data economy 249–55 binary arithmetic 149 binary logic 198 bioinformatics 123, 249 Blade Runner (1982 film) 53–4, 57, 72 Bletchley Park codebreakers 234–6 body, role in consciousness 169–71 body–mind dualism 124 and the simulated universe
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