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Religious/Philosophical Parallels:

# The replicants are fallen angels (fallen from the heavens/outer space), with Roy as Lucifer.

# Tyrell lives in a giant pyramid (like a Pharaoh), which looks like a cathedral inside, whereas Sebastian lives in an abandoned apartment with a "toilet bowl plunger" on his head.

# Tyrell creates. He builds his creations imperfect. Once of his creations resents the in-built imperfection (since the creator had no reason apart from fear to inhibit his creations), and he returns to the creator to fix him. This parallels the baby spiders killing their mother.

# Tyrell's huge bed, pedestaled and canopied, is modeled after the bed of Pope John Paul II.

# Roy:
Firey the angels fell,
Deep thunder roll'd around their shores,
Burning with the fires of Orc.

This is a paraphrase of William Blake's America: A Prophesy:

Fiery the angels rose, and as they rose deep thunder roll'd
Around their shores: indignant burning with the fires of Orc.

# When Roy finally confronts Tyrell, he calls him his "maker," and "the god of biomechanics." In the light of the parallels this film draws between the plight of the replicants and that of all human being -- four years against fourscore -- this scene has strange reverberations. If Roy can condemn his creator for determining his life span at four years, why can we not condemn our Creator (if we choose to believe in one) for placing us under a death sentence at birth. Can we sit in judgment of God?

# Insofar as he creates artificial life and is killed by it, Tyrell is another Dr. Frankenstein. Tyrell and Frankenstein both are cruel towards their own creations, and yet it is these creations, not the creators, who are persecuted. We are sympathetic towards both Roy and Frankenstein's creature, as they are inherently benign creatures who become violent only when spurned by a paranoid society. Our creations tell us more about the ugliness of ourselves than they do about the created. The "Frankenstein" parallel is not perfect, however, as Dr Frankenstein is not directly killed by his creation.

# Roy puts a nail through his palm, a symbol of Christian crucifixion. Dan Newland has put together a page discussing the Christian Symbolism in Blade Runner.

# In Milton's Paradise Lost, Satan is, despite himself, the most attractive and interesting character. Roy is, of course, both Christ and Lucifer, but the important thing is that, almost despite ourselves, we are obliged to locate our sympathy where we do not want it to go. On a theological level, the "felix culpa", our "fortunate fall" through which we are redeemed, is occasioned by Satan, just as Deckard's "fortunate fall" is through Roy -- Roy not only saves him from plummeting, but in fact elevates him to the heavens -- a redeemed world.

# When Batty dies, he is released from torment as he releases the dove. (The laserdisc notes say that they couldn't get the dove to fly off into the rain.)

# After Roy's death Deckard muses: "All he'd wanted were the same answers the rest of us want. Where do I come from? Where am I going? How long have I got. All I could do was sit there and watch him die." According to an essay in Retrofitting Blade Runner, these three questions are the title of a painting by Gauguin during one of his more suicidal phases: "Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?"

Murray Chapman

The Fallen Angel: Analysis of the Final Scenes of Blade Runner

Director Ridley Scott's Postmodern reply to the modern consists of recognizing that the past, since it cannot be destroyed, because it's destruction leads to silence, must be revisited.

So memories and emotions are meaningless without immortality. " Like tears in the rain." Director Scott has a chilling story to tell, and there is a complex web of allegory and meaning lurking in the background.

The final scene of Blade Runner reveal religious and philosophical parallels and these are Milton's Paradise Lost and humanity itself. God is questioned, mocked and finally destroyed. The use of tightly framed shots, reaction shots, and mise en scene are used to highlite the allegoricall relationship to Christianity.

Humanity itself is brought up for definition in this film, as the Replicants are in many ways more human than the " real humans" they are interacting with. The mise en scene suggests a vision of the future that is not only a sprawling, technological metropolis, but an empty soulless place. Through it's characters a sense of quiet desperation. They are withdrawn almost, living in a mellow dream which when disrupted, is painful and struggling. The characters seem random, everyday people of the city, but united by the will to survive because there is nothing else, nothing but fear. Death to the replicants is represented by their own mortality and the outside embodiment of the Blade Runners; stalkers. Roy and his followers: Pris, Zora and Leon are Milton's fallen angels. They are created by Tyrell ( God ) and given a limited life span. Roy a symbol of mankind is separated by his maker, when he is sent off world ( expelled from heaven ). And like Lucifer, is obessed with the same questions of mortality: How much time do we have?

Were are we going? Milton's battle takes place in heaven. Here it is fought on earth. Roy cannot approach Tyrell directly. He uses an intermediary;

Sebastian ( Jesus Christ ) as his link to God. Bibical teachings has it that God can only be approached through His Son, Jesus Christ.

Sebastian is the only true human. He is the composite of both man and replicant as Jesus is a composite of God and man. Just as Jesus lived among men,

Sebastian lived among the replicants. The Bible syas the score between

Lucifer and Christ is yet to be settled, Ridley Scott decides to to take advantage of the liberties afforded him by Postmodernism by deciding to rewrite the future. With God and Christ dead, satan becomes almost a Christ-like figure. Light and shadow is evoked to show Roy in a new role as all knowing and all seeing. Extreme close-up of Roy's eye reveal a person who is enlightened and empowered with knowledge. A further significance to substaniate Roy's transition into Christ is that he pierces his hand with a nail, a symbol of Christian crucifixian.

The final scenes were Roy becomes the hunter takes place high above the city. The concerns of the people no longer permiate the scenes.

Dekkard is filmed from a high angle to suggest vulnerbality and a lack of understanding, with his eye's closed as his clings to life; a keep of blindness to the world around him. With the end near Roy Batty goes through yet another change. This manifests in the fact that he prevents Dekkard from falling to his death and becomes his savior. As they face each other, the proxemics patterns change and for the first time Dekkard and

Batty are frame tightly together. Roy brings himself down to his opponants level of understanding by sitting eye to eye. As they face each other, Roy seemms to come to terms with his own mortality and the inevitability of death. He ceases to struggle against what he cannot change, the hand of death. By the time Roy dies, he has redeemed himself by following in the footsteps of Christ. In order for God to forgive him, he spares the life of the men trying to kill him. As he dies a high angle frames a white dove flying free towards a clear sky. Finally his soul is purified.

Scott, Ridley, dir. Blade Runner.

With Ford and Rutger Hauer. The ladd Company. 1982