Ninth International Conference on The Image

Abstract

This paper is an analysis of climate fiction genre in cinema. The case study of “Blade Runner” (dir. by Ridley Scott, 1982) and “Blade Runner 2049” (dir. by Denis Villeneuve, 2017) endows to examine two key questions around this subject. Firstly, how is the cinematic vision of high-tech future changed from first Blade Runner to its sequel? And secondly, what kind of effect is this change predisposing? “Blade Runner”, a loose adaption of Philip K. Dick’s novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep”, brought in 1982 to silver screens all over the world a vision of dystopian future of 2019, of a time that is now around the corner. Following “Blade Runner 2049” jumps forward another thirty years and sequels a perception of the forthcoming with highly different thematic weight ratio. While the climate crisis has a visually dominant part in both films, the tones and proportional emphasis have substantially changed. What once was a combination of anticipation of the high-tech progress mixed with fear of its aftereffects has now turned into a warning of the consequences, which are inevitable if we fail to change our present behaviour and energy technologies. The hypothesis of this analysis is that cinematic visions of future are one of the most telling reflections of a present state of mind. Their analytical mapping can both open up dialogues surrounding the startling issues and reason the affective ramifications, if we only take an effort to have a closer look.