Blade Runner is set in future Los Angeles (2019). Harrison Ford stars as Rick Deckard a cop who has to hunt down a group of highly advanced androids who were designed as slaves. The androids anger towards there human creators is very large due to the fact that they only have a very short lifespan.
The screenplay is based on the novel "Do Androids dream of electric sheep" by Phillip K Dick. There are many themes that are taken from the book which are never explained in any detail but seem to add to the feeling of this future world. It doesn't explain in the film that the majority of the humans have left the pollution ridden earth and that Sebastian (William Sanderson) the robotics expert is ageing prematurely due to staying on the decaying planet. The animal life on the planet has been all but destroyed and now surviving animals are artificial. Reference is made to this in the "android empathy test" where the lack of sensitivity on the androids part towards animals is said to show they have no "true feelings".
The amount of information given to the audience just through the mise en scene of the film is huge. Blade Runner was a groundbreaking science fiction film of its time showing how visually exciting and informative the science fiction genre can be. Blade Runner owes a lot to film noir, the setting dark it is usually raining. An oriental population dominates the city. It has heavy traffic (high tech cars alongside bicycles), neon advertisements are everywhere alongside shabby dark and dank buildings.
The film is so visually stimulating in every set that it is sometimes hard to keep up with the narrative. Blade Runners exaggerated dark cityscape seems very relevant to our modern technological age, with technology almost threatening to overtake the world. The film has numerous layers, it is thrilling yet unsettling, sometimes dark science fiction other times detective film noir. It has the ability to seem realistic in a completely alien environment and yet some scenes have an almost dreamlike quality.