Humanity in Ridley Scotts Blade Runner Essay -- Film Movies

Humanity in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner The issue of humanity is one of the central themes in "Blade Runner." Countless arguments have taken place over whether or not Deckard is a replicant. The replicants are supposed to be "better humans than humans." Director Ridley Scott has many ways to communicate this theme, but one of the most prevalent is eyes. Human eyes are featured both in the beginning of the film and near the end. After a brief introductory text crawl which explains the world in which the movie takes place, "Blade Runner" cuts to a dark, futuristic Los Angeles. There are some flying cars, but mostly we see dark, smog-filled skies and smokestacks belching fire. As the camera moves across this landscape, blue eyes are superimposed on the screen. These eyes first establish traditional humanity as a force in the film. The eyes belong to Holden, a blade runner. Blade runners are police officers who hunt down and kill, or "retire", replicants. Holden is administering the Voight-Kampff test, which determines whether its subject is a traditional human or a replicant, to "Leon." Leon is a replicant, and when Holden asks him a question that he can't answer, Leon shoots him. Eyes are often thought of as the windows to the soul. It is this nebulous concept of the soul which is often used as the line in the sand dividing humanity from everything else. The Voight-Kampff test is designed to measure emotional responses. If the subject doesn't have any, it's a replicant. Leon was going to fail the test and be killed, so he killed Holden. Isn't that a display of the particular emotion known as rage? Well, maybe it's a rational decision or an instinctual survival reaction. However, a later scene lends weight to the... ...l are in love and want to run off together. As they are leaving his apartment, Deckard sees an origami unicorn on the floor. One can interpret this as Gaff showing Deckard that his memories are implants. Regardless of whether one accepts the unicorn interpretation given here, the question of what it means to be human is a core theme in "Blade Runner." After-the-fact directorial revelations aside, by leaving an element of ambiguity in Deckard's identity, Scott mirrors ambiguity in the question. He doesn't have a definite answer, he's not pushing some agenda. Even now, with little help from technology, we face a species-wide identity crisis. The whole issue of the legality of abortions stems from a disagreement over what constitutes a human. This is an important question that we're going to have to do a better job of answering, and Scott makes an excellent start. Humanity in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner Essay -- Film Movies Humanity in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner The issue of humanity is one of the central themes in "Blade Runner." Countless arguments have taken place over whether or not Deckard is a replicant. The replicants are supposed to be "better humans than humans." Director Ridley Scott has many ways to communicate this theme, but one of the most prevalent is eyes. Human eyes are featured both in the beginning of the film and near the end. After a brief introductory text crawl which explains the world in which the movie takes place, "Blade Runner" cuts to a dark, futuristic Los Angeles. There are some flying cars, but mostly we see dark, smog-filled skies and smokestacks belching fire. As the camera moves across this landscape, blue eyes are superimposed on the screen. These eyes first establish traditional humanity as a force in the film. The eyes belong to Holden, a blade runner. Blade runners are police officers who hunt down and kill, or "retire", replicants. Holden is administering the Voight-Kampff test, which determines whether its subject is a traditional human or a replicant, to "Leon." Leon is a replicant, and when Holden asks him a question that he can't answer, Leon shoots him. Eyes are often thought of as the windows to the soul. It is this nebulous concept of the soul which is often used as the line in the sand dividing humanity from everything else. The Voight-Kampff test is designed to measure emotional responses. If the subject doesn't have any, it's a replicant. Leon was going to fail the test and be killed, so he killed Holden. Isn't that a display of the particular emotion known as rage? Well, maybe it's a rational decision or an instinctual survival reaction. However, a later scene lends weight to the... ...l are in love and want to run off together. As they are leaving his apartment, Deckard sees an origami unicorn on the floor. One can interpret this as Gaff showing Deckard that his memories are implants. Regardless of whether one accepts the unicorn interpretation given here, the question of what it means to be human is a core theme in "Blade Runner." After-the-fact directorial revelations aside, by leaving an element of ambiguity in Deckard's identity, Scott mirrors ambiguity in the question. He doesn't have a definite answer, he's not pushing some agenda. Even now, with little help from technology, we face a species-wide identity crisis. The whole issue of the legality of abortions stems from a disagreement over what constitutes a human. This is an important question that we're going to have to do a better job of answering, and Scott makes an excellent start.

“No Name Woman” by Maxine Hong Kingston Essay

In this passage from â€Å"No Name Woman,† Maxine Hong Kingston imagines what old world China was like, and paints a picture of a repressive, strictly ordered society in which people were essentially unable to have private lives. Everything had to be done for the sake of the family’s or village’s well-being. In such a world, Kingston’s aunt represents the worst kind of transgressor, one whose private lusts disrupted the social order and threatened the very existence of the village. Kingston uses interesting and imaginative stylistic techniques to represent the â€Å"circle† or â€Å"roundness† of Chinese life and the struggle this creates for both the village and No Name Woman. The village that Kingston’s aunt lives in was very strict and had their own set rules on how society should live. â€Å"If my aunt had betrayed the family at the time of large grain yields and peace, when many boys were born, and wings were being built on many houses, perhaps she might have escaped such severe punishment.† (11-14) Kingston explains to the reader that if the village is doing really well in maintaining stability, then maybe she could get away with having a child out of wedlock. But because this happened while the village is not doing so well at the time, they made her pay for what she had done. No Name Woman’s scenario shows the reader the unfair rules the village abides by. If the village is doing well, they will push any problem associated with their rules of â€Å"roundness† aside, but if they are not doing so well at the time a rule is broken or a problem erupts, they will make that person suffer the consequence of their action. The villagers blamed her for all the unfortunate events that were happening in the village at the time. â€Å"People who refused fatalism because they could invent small resources insisted on culpability. Deny accidents and wrest fault from the stars† (33-36) in these two sentences, Kingston shows the reader that the people in the village who do something wrong, would blame other people because their ego was so strong they believe they do nothing wrong to cause any problems. So when another person does wrong, they were not hesitant to point the finger at someone. The village’s whole life was based on the idea of â€Å"roundness†. Kingston shows the reader what the idea of â€Å"roundness† means to the village by using symbolism. â€Å"The frightened villagers, who depended on one another to maintain the real, went to my aunt to show her a personal, physical representation of the break she made in the â€Å"roundness.† (4-7) the village views the idea of â€Å"roundness† as the universe, or unity. They believe that the â€Å"roundness† was the cycle of life; the way the community functions. Kingston uses imagery to give the reader an image of the village â€Å"The round moon cakes and the round doorways, the round tables of graduated size that fit one roundness inside another, round windows and rice bowl-these talismans had lost their power to warn this family of the law: A family must be whole, faithfully keeping the descent line by having sons to feed the old and the dead who in turn look after the family.† (21-26). the sentence proves to the reader how much the village emphasizes the idea of â€Å"roundness†. They have tables, doors, and windows that are all round. Kingston’s vivid imagery shows the reader that their whole life and universe is based on the idea of â€Å"roundness†. When Kingston’s aunt was pregnant without being married, the villagers felt like she was disrupting their â€Å"roundness†. Kingston shows the reader how the villagers feel about her aunt, â€Å"The villagers were speeding up the circling of events because she was too short sighted to see that her infidelity had already harmed the village.† (27-29) this tells us that the villagers feel what she was doing was wrong and had an effect on the whole village. They were enraged at her because she had disrupted their whole universe. They felt she had done it on purpose which upset them even more. Their belief system was that if anyone disturbs their roundness, they were to get rid of them. Their roundness was their universe. Their whole life was based and influenced on the idea of roundness. If someone had disturbed it, they needed to get rid of them because that meant somebody was disturbing their universe. â€Å"Awaken her to the inexorable† (33) the villagers mean to punish her so bad that she feels herself waking up to a horrible and unbearable life. They want her to realize exactly what she had done, and how bad she has caused chaos in the village. No Name Woman was a villager whose action caused disruption in the â€Å"circle† or â€Å"roundness† of the Chinese way of life. The villagers felt the need to remove her because they thought she was the problem. They assumed by getting rid of her, they could restore their â€Å"roundness† way of life. They did not want to admit that other issues and other people were also associated with their village’s problems.

The Environmental Crisis Of Kenya And The United Nations...

The environmental crisis is the biggest crisis of our time, climate change, scarcity of fresh water and bio diversity loss are just a few of the problems caused by the environmental crisis. National and international organizations try combat the dire effects of the environmental crisis like The Green Belt Movement in Kenya and The United Nations framework on Environmental Change, they create initiatives like sustainable development but they have not succeeded. My essay will introduce my interpretation of the environmental crisis, then follow with the relationship between poverty and affluence discussed by scholars Deborah Sik in, Environment and Development and Maggie Black in, Enter â€Å"Sustainability† and propose, Deborah Sik’s insights on property rights and participatory approaches offer the best explanation for the environmental crisis but Maggie Black’s Resource Based Management for small communities gives better long lasting solutions for the environment al crisis. My interpretation of environmental crisis and why it has grown exponentially. The environmental crisis is the most exigent matter of our time. This is evident by environmental changes today, for example in Enter Sustainability, Maggie Black discusses the probability for water wars due to over extraction and consumption of water (Black). This claim is corroborated by an article by The Smithsonian suggesting that shrink water aquifers captured by NASA are partly to blame for the war inShow MoreRelatedClimate Change Challenges986 Words   |  4 PagesA strong argument among scientists exists that anthropogenic climate change is the greatest contemporary global threat to sustainable development in the 21st Century, and that, the risks associated with climate change will become more severe affecting all aspects of human livelihoods (IPPCC 2014, FAO 2013, Shiferaw et al 2014, UN 2015. 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