Blade Runner
In June 1982, three science fiction films were being released in American cinemas, namely Star Trek 2: The Wrath of The Khan, Alien E.T., and Blade Runner, who struggled to survive the cracks between the first two works and eventually made a pitiful $33 million at the box office with an investment of $28 million. Not only that, but the film's rating has gradually declined, and it was even rated as a bad film at one point.
Stanley Kaufman, then a film critic at New Republic magazine, commented on Blade Runner: "This work is nothing more than a cliché about the threat of human beings to humanoid and inhuman creatures. ”
Kaufman's remarks reflected the mainstream attitude of the critics at the time, and the film's appeal to the audience only stayed on the visual, because it was written by director Ridley Scott, and coupled with actors like Harrison Ford, it disappointed more people.
However, we now review the work of "Blade Runner", and its label has become a classic in the history of science fiction films, and the philosophical connotations and artistic values behind it have been sought after.
Most people attribute this phenomenon to the release of the Director's Cut in 1992 and the Final Cut in 2007. It is true that the appearance of multiple versions has given Blade Runner a chance to be re-examined and evaluated, but through the mouth of director Ridley Scott, we can know that no matter how the creators and the studio modify it, the original theme and connotation of the film cannot be changed.
The ultimate clipping cover
Nearly 40 years later, which version are you watching as an audience member? Maybe you don't know it yourself.
Obviously, Blade Runner is a work that is ahead of its time, and the limitations of the times make it impossible for people at that time to really see the original appearance of the work, and now we can understand the meaning of it.
In this article, we will start from the perspective of the times and look at how "Blade Runner", which was once rated as a mediocre work, has gradually been praised as a god's work through the development of artificial intelligence and human-like intelligence.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" > artificial intelligence that is gradually being valued</h1>
In recent years, artificial intelligence has gradually entered the public's field of vision, especially after AlphaGo defeated the world's number one human Go player Ke Jie in 2017, which set off a boom in artificial intelligence. On the other hand, humanity is constantly aware of the menace of this technological innovation.
We can detect the above problems through science fiction movies, such as "Mechanical Enemy" in 2004, "Mechanical Ji" in 2015, or the drama series "Westworld" that has been broadcast since 2016, all of which have designed a strong artificial intelligence character image in the image, which can compete with humans in all aspects and can do anything that humans need to do.
But these examples are all products of this century, and as the "Blade Runner" of the last century, it seems even more "ancient"
2004 Mechanical Enemy
Putting aside the labels of cyberpunk and film noir, "Blade Runner", tracing its origin is actually a reflection and exploration of artificial intelligence, which comes from the film's original novel "Do Bionic People Want Electronic Sheep?" 》
In the book, Philip M. Using the analytic philosophy of the 1960s, K. Dick describes a test logic that judges one's identity by replicating one's inexperienced lack of experience with certain concepts of the real world.
Philip P. K. Dick, "Do Bionic Humans Want Electronic Sheep?" 》
We can simply understand certain concepts as a symbol, such as in the background setting of the novel and the film, the animal has disappeared from the real world, and the memory of this symbol only stays in the human brain of the previous era.
But let's think about it, if the next generation of people didn't have the concept of animals since birth, what is the difference between them and the created replicants?
And the animals here can be replaced by many things, such as BB machines, Nokia, etc., when people of different eras react to these symbolic concepts, we can analyze their era.
Therefore, Philip M. This test method, designed by K. Dick, is highly flawed and fundamentally different from the famous Turing test. The significance of the Turing test is to determine whether this artificial intelligence meets the standard, while the former is to judge the threat and eliminate the threat, that is, to kill the replicants.
Therefore, "Blade Runner" is actually a reflection on the threat of strong artificial intelligence like replicants, and around this line, it extends various directions such as self-identity judgment and artificial intelligence awakening.
But will this kind of reflection and exploration really be concerned in the 1980s?
Reality tells us: almost nothing.
Replicant Roy
At that time, artificial intelligence had just entered the knowledge-centered development stage, that is, simulating intelligence through learning, reasoning and other methods, and creating more suitable products for commercial use, which has been nearly 30 years since the concept of artificial intelligence was proposed, and the slow pace of development is obvious.
In director Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Hal 9000 represents the highest application of this phase, but in real life we still can't create such a product.
2001: A Space Odyssey Hal 9000
Therefore, blade runner's discussion of the threat of strong artificial intelligence is too advanced, and the human world has not even ushered in the era of weak artificial intelligence in all aspects.
* The difference between strong AI and weak AI is creativity, with weak AI like AlphaGo merely surpassing humans in a single computation, while replicants in Blade Runner can create things like humans without consuming the resources of the human world.
AlphaGo is a typical type of weak artificial intelligence
At the same time, we often mention that science fiction works of art often precede the real world decades ago, and Blade Runner and its original novels are the best proof of this.
Today's real world is in an era where weak artificial intelligence has begun to be widely used, and they have gradually entered human life, such as voice assistants in mobile phones, etc., so we will inevitably think: When the next stage comes, what will happen to human beings?
As we mentioned above, the 21st century films have been created, they are thinking in the same direction as Blade Runner, and are more or less influenced by it, and even derived works like Avengers 2: Age of Ultron that explore super artificial intelligence.
Since entering the 21st century, Blade Runner's status has gradually emerged and become particularly important, it is not only a classic in the history of science fiction films, but also inspired a series of works on the theme of artificial intelligence.
Super artificial intelligence: AI's computing and thinking capabilities have far surpassed the human brain, and AI at this time is no longer understandable and imaginable by humans.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-center-line" > the recovery of human-like intelligence themes</h1>
As mentioned above, AI is often divided into three different categories: super strong and weak.
Around strong artificial intelligence, the term human-like intelligence has been extended, that is, to create an artificial intelligence similar to the human form.
Obviously, Blade Runner and a number of works that portray ai-like images as human-like humans satisfy the concept of human-like intelligence, but this sub-genre, which is classified as science fiction films, was not popular in the North American film market in the 1980s.
"Mechanic Hime"
In the case of Blade Runner's contemporaries, Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan is a space opera that is similar to Star Wars, while Stephen Spielberg's "Alien E.T." is a human exploration of alien creatures, both of which were the mainstream of science fiction movies at the time.
The reason for this phenomenon is very simple, at that time, the Conservatism in American society was broken, the wind of lending was just beginning, the people were more willing to accept the easy-to-understand and brain-opening science fiction works, and the lower-cost "Blade Runner" was easily recognized by the audience as a B-grade film.
Alien E.T.
Just as Stanley Kaufman thought at the time that Blade Runner was just a derivative of "Magic Flower", the problem behind it was that the theme of human-like intelligence had been misunderstood by audiences.
This misunderstanding, which began in Frankenstein (Frankenstein) in 1931, also originated as a writer," and was inevitably regarded as a classic when Mary Shelley created the first humanoid intelligent character in the history of science fiction literature in the 19th century.
However, when people mention the work again, they often only talk about gothic and horror movies, and their sci-fi essence is ignored, just like the cyberpunk label on Blade Runner is greater than science fiction.
Frankenstein (1931) was often recognized by the public as a Gothic horror film
The misalignment of audience identification is often the helplessness of the film production of human-like intelligence themes.
When Blade Runner was produced, director Ridley Scott did not have too much budget, but instead needed to reduce the brightness of the picture, adding rain or fog to reduce costs, but unexpectedly appeared cyberpunk and film noir style.
In order to present better visual effects at low cost, Ridley Scott also needed to blacken and atomize the picture under the premise of using the model
So, why is the humanoid intelligence genre of "Blade Runner" valued today?
In layman's terms, one of the most important reasons is the awakening of humanoids. For example, in most of the humanoid intelligent works we see, we often notice that the direction of the story is actually the path of humanoid awakening.
Additional Knowledge: In 1981, Hillary Putnam famously proposed the "brain in the bowl": we cannot conceive of a completely controlled object having a level of intelligence that we are satisfied with. Or conversely, a satisfactory AI must break through the shackles of behavior control and must have a "living world" outside the threshold of behavior control.
The audience sees the real-world problems in the awakening of the humanoid, that is, when people gradually lose their own identity, it is no different from the humanoid seeking self-reflection.
Therefore, we will always remember that passage of Roy's confession in Blade Runner:
"What I have seen, you humans absolutely cannot believe. I watched battleships burning on fire along the edge of the constellation Orion, and I watched C-rays shine in the darkness near Don's Gate, all these moments that will eventually be lost in time, like tears disappearing in the rain. The time of death has come. ”
Blade Runner Roy
In the latest episode of the recent hit Season Three of Westworld, Keller, who has been living in the human world, told receptionist Dolores, "You're the only real thing I've encountered in a long time." ”
When human beings slowly find themselves swallowed up by the technological society, the awakening of humanoids seems to provide us with a feasible path, and the cruelty and helplessness in it are also revealed.
Season 3 of Westworld
With the self-thinking brought about by the boom in science and technology, the theme of humanoid intelligence has been continuously valued in recent years.
At the 2016 Academy Awards, Mechanic beat Star Wars: The Force Awakens, The Martian Rescue, and Mad Max: Fury Road to win best visual effects, the most important award for science fiction films.
But behind it, what we should see more is that the film revolves around a series of theme connotations such as Turing tests and humanoid awakenings, which seems to defeat those mainstream science fiction genres for "Blade Runner" many years ago.
Blade Runner has gone through nearly four decades of ups and downs from being initially ignored to being rated as a science fiction movie classic. But from the perspective of the times, we have seen many overlooked problems, and have brought inspiration to many future science fiction works.
Maybe in the future we can see more artificial intelligence, human-like intelligence movies, but don't forget the "Blade Runner" that opened the way forward.