A casual viewer can soak in Blade Runner, more or less accept it as a visually breathtaking sci-fi action tale, and walk away satisfied. Deckard is the protagonist, played by an actor we recognize from previous heroic roles. He kills the criminals he's told to kill at the beginning of the story, and then he gets the girl. From that perspective, Blade Runner follows a familiar, comforting formula.

But wait. Deckard is ordered to execute Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) and all of his friends on sight without any due process, for the sole crime of existing on a planet they're not supposed to be on. That doesn't quite seem fair, does it?

Why can't Roy sue the Tyrell Corporation for a life extension? Why can't he hire an attorney to help him make a case before a jury of his peers? Well, he can't because replicants don't have rights. Under the law, they're not considered people. But who gets to decide who counts as a person?

In this case, humans function as a metaphorical majority that, by the mere unchallenged virtue of being the majority, dictates the norm. This social paradigm leaves those who fall outside the norm replicants, in this case open to exploitation and abuse. It's almost as if Deckard, by working to uphold unjust laws, is a trooper in some sort of empire, and Roy is rebelling against that empire. In fact, Roy is part of a whole entire alliance of rebels. Hmmmm.

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Why Blade Runner is the best sci-fi movie of all time - Looper

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