Blade Runner and Frankenstein

Although composed in different time periods, Mary Shelley’s novel ‘Frankenstein’ (1819) and Ridley Scott’s epic film ‘Blade Runner’ (1991) portray similar social paradigms of their differing era. Both are cautionary tales of the dangers of an untempered pursuit of knowledge via dangerous and out of the norm ideas and explore the constitution of the human condition. This said exploration challenges people to reflect on their contribution to the world.
Scott’s science fiction film Blade Runner conveys the many fears surfacing from the United States, evoking self-reflection on contribution to the decay of the world. Especially the 1980s influence, through a tech-noir stylistic warns of the possible dangers associated with environmental deterioration, scientific advancements and genetic engineering.   They both utilise the Creators to represent human aspirations to overreach nature, ultimately becoming a victim of their own myopic hubris. However their differing composition is shaped by the composer’s context to reflect the possibilities of their time. Both pieces have a serious moral message, about the dangers of trying to play God, and about the potentially destructive results that can occur when a creation becomes more powerful than its creator. Shelley is influenced by the conflicting eras of Romanticism in the 19th Century, ergo through depicting an individual persona naively overreaching nature for personal glory critiques the extents individuals are willing to go to for the instant gratification in congruency with the lack of foresight. Whilst Scott is influenced by the globalisation and consumerism prevailing the 1980s and ergo depicts a society obliterating nature beyond repair in the name of commercial progress, emphasising that in a world of rising artificiality, human connection to ethics/morals become blurred.
Created with a post-modernistic influence, with the advent of ‘reason’ and the onset of significant scientific advancements on the imitation and...