Essay Plan
‘A deeper understanding of disruption and identity emerges from considering the parallels between Frankenstein and Blade Runner.’
Texts act as indicators highlighting the central values and ideas of the composer’s text. Texts change over time in order to reflect the changing values and concerns to suit a new audience. Its inherent adaptability comes from the incorporation of ideals that addresses humanity, as they are timelessly relevant concerns. It can be said that Ridley Scott’s Bladerunner is an adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as it draws parallels to highlight the disrupting effect on human identity consequently destroying all that is natural. It is through the comparative study that the connections between the two texts warn against uncontrolled technological advancement.
Written in an age of romanticism, Shelley’s Frankenstein focuses on the nature and the emotions with a heightened aesthetic sensibility toward the environment. Adapting on these ideals, Scott’s Bladerunner, directed in the postmodern age, a time of technological innovation transforms the world into an unnatural post-apocalyptic ‘Megalopolis’. Together these two texts demonstrate the effect of technology on the natural world disrupting human identity through use of setting. Shelley constructs a world through the hyperbolic imagery of ‘’rendered sublime by the mighty alps whose shining white pyramids and domes towered above all’’ creating a sense of admiration through connotations of the words. This is juxtaposed to the Tyrell Corporation with its unnatural towering ziggurat structure. Through the panning shot of the company, its structure is revealed to be artificially uniform throughout, with its straight edges creating a false sense of aesthetic perfection. The parallel between the natural settings reflect the populace of Shelley’s world having more emotions and appreciate the world where as the people in Scott’s are more oblivious to the world. Moreover in Scott’s world, in
Texts act as indicators highlighting the central values and ideas of the composer’s text. Texts change over time in order to reflect the changing values and concerns to suit a new audience. Its inherent adaptability comes from the incorporation of ideals that addresses humanity, as they are timelessly relevant concerns. It can be said that Ridley Scott’s Bladerunner is an adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as it draws parallels to highlight the disrupting effect on human identity consequently destroying all that is natural. It is through the comparative study that the connections between the two texts warn against uncontrolled technological advancement.
Written in an age of romanticism, Shelley’s Frankenstein focuses on the nature and the emotions with a heightened aesthetic sensibility toward the environment. Adapting on these ideals, Scott’s Bladerunner, directed in the postmodern age, a time of technological innovation transforms the world into an unnatural post-apocalyptic ‘Megalopolis’. Together these two texts demonstrate the effect of technology on the natural world disrupting human identity through use of setting. Shelley constructs a world through the hyperbolic imagery of ‘’rendered sublime by the mighty alps whose shining white pyramids and domes towered above all’’ creating a sense of admiration through connotations of the words. This is juxtaposed to the Tyrell Corporation with its unnatural towering ziggurat structure. Through the panning shot of the company, its structure is revealed to be artificially uniform throughout, with its straight edges creating a false sense of aesthetic perfection. The parallel between the natural settings reflect the populace of Shelley’s world having more emotions and appreciate the world where as the people in Scott’s are more oblivious to the world. Moreover in Scott’s world, in