Abstract
In this final descriptive chapter, Gibson examines the most current iteration of the story, Blade Runner 2049, and teases out implications for the future of robotics. Humans identify themselves against a contrast of Replicant life in a very binary fashion. The creator is meaningless without the creation, for to know what it is to be human, there must be an inhuman correlate. For the latter part of this chapter, the author includes interviews with robotics developers and sci-fi authors about their own desires, and why they chose to make hominoid robots. What happens when the creator is replaced and the creation can give birth to life? Will our own robotics ever be able to self-replicate?
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Notes
- 1.
This is somewhat anatomically/medically incorrect, as the uterus sits more to the front and center in the body than the cut marks. Someone would have had to screw up in many ways in order to put scalpel marks in the iliac crest. However, as it drives the plot, it stands.
- 2.
Partially because they did a green-screen reconstruction—the actress is very good, but she is not Sean Young.
- 3.
In Blade Runner (Scott, 1982), the close-up on ‘Rachael’s’ eye for the Voight-Kampff test showed a green eye. During the rest of the movie, her eyes were more hazel/hazel-brown, and Sean Young’s eyes are brown.
- 4.
The fact that Sapper is able to hide out in plain sight for so very long is never addressed, apart from when he is rumbled in the featurette 2048: Nowhere to Run (Villeneuve, 2017b).
- 5.
User names removed to respect anonymity; numerical markers given an ‘s’ designation to differentiate between RealDoll and Sinthetics reviews.
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Gibson, R. (2020). Angel Replicants and Solid Holograms: Blade Runner 2049 and Its Impact on Robotics. In: Desire in the Age of Robots and AI. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24017-2_4
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