The influences behind Blade Runner

32 works across 28 centuries, back to Genesis and Iliad.

1982

Blade Runner

Film by Ridley Scott

1980s Hollywood. United States. In English.

Ridley Scott's 1982 adaptation of Philip K. Dick's novel follows Rick Deckard, an ex-cop hired to hunt down four escaped replicants in a rain-soaked Los Angeles of 2019. It joins the hardboiled detective film to the old story of the made creature who confronts its maker.
Where it came from
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1968

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Philip K. Dick

New Wave science fiction. United States. Written in English.

Bounty hunter Rick Deckard retires escaped androids in a radioactive, depopulated San Francisco while longing to own a real animal. The novel tests empathy as the line between human and machine.

What it handed down

To Blade Runner (1982)

Direct source, well documented.

Hampton Fancher and David Peoples adapted Dick's novel, keeping Rick Deckard, the Voigt-Kampff empathy test, Rachael and the Tyrell (Rosen) corporation. They dropped Mercerism and most of the electric-animal plot and renamed the androids 'replicants'. Dick saw a preview of the effects reel shortly before his death in 1982 and praised it.
Where it came from
- The World of Null-A, A. E. van Vogt 1945 follow this thread
- R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), Karel Čapek 1920 follow this thread
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1946

The Big Sleep

Film by Howard Hawks

Classical Hollywood film noir. United States. In English.

Humphrey Bogart plays Philip Marlowe, hired by a dying general to deal with a blackmailer and drawn into the affairs of his two daughters. Its shadowed sets and laconic hero helped define film noir.

What it handed down

To Blade Runner (1982)

Stylistic influence, probable.

Blade Runner wraps its science fiction in 1940s detective-film conventions: a weary investigator, a femme fatale in padded shoulders and rolled hair, and venetian-blind shadows in smoky rooms. Rachael's first scene in Tyrell's office plays like a client interview in a Marlowe picture. The theatrical cut's voiceover imitates the hardboiled detective's narration.
Where it came from
- The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler 1939 follow this thread
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The World of Null-AA. E. van Vogt

1945

The World of Null-A

A. E. van Vogt

Golden Age science fiction. United States. Written in English.

Gilbert Gosseyn finds his memories are false and his identity uncertain in a future society organized around non-Aristotelian logic. Serialized in Astounding in 1945.

What it handed down

To Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968)

Stylistic influence, probable.

Dick said he was drawn into science fiction partly by van Vogt's fiction, which he admired for its sense of unstable reality. Van Vogt's heroes, unsure whether their memories are real or implanted, prefigure Dick's androids with false memories. Deckard's doubt that he himself is human echoes the device.

Where it came from

The line stops here: van Vogt's stated debt here is to Alfred Korzybski's General Semantics, a non-literary system.

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1939

The Big Sleep

Raymond Chandler

Hardboiled crime fiction. United States. Written in English.

Chandler's first novel: Los Angeles private eye Philip Marlowe, hired by General Sternwood, works through blackmail, pornography and murder in the narrator's wisecracking first person.

What it handed down

To The Big Sleep (1946)

Direct source, well documented.

Hawks's film, scripted by William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett and Jules Furthman, adapts Chandler's novel scene by scene. It keeps Marlowe's interviews with General Sternwood in the hothouse and much of Chandler's dialogue.
Where it came from
- The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett 1930 follow this thread
- Le Morte d'Arthur, Thomas Malory 1485 (completed c. 1470) follow this thread
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1930

The Maltese Falcon

Dashiell Hammett

Hardboiled crime fiction. United States. Written in English.

San Francisco detective Sam Spade deals with killers chasing a jeweled statuette. A model for the hard, terse American detective novel.

What it handed down

To The Big Sleep (1939)

Stylistic influence, well documented.

Chandler learned his trade in Black Mask, the pulp magazine Hammett had made famous, and in 'The Simple Art of Murder' credited Hammett with giving 'murder back to the kind of people that commit it'. Marlowe's toughness and the clipped dialogue follow Hammett's Sam Spade.

Where it came from

The line stops here: hammett drew on his years as a Pinkerton operative and the pulp magazine Black Mask rather than on identifiable literary models.

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1927

Metropolis

Film by Fritz Lang

Weimar cinema. Germany. Silent.

In a vertical city of the future, a ruling class lives above while workers toil underground. An inventor builds a machine-woman in the likeness of the saintly Maria to incite the workers.

What it handed down

To Blade Runner (1982)

Stylistic influence, well documented.

Scott and his designers drew on Lang's vertical city of towers, aerial traffic and an underclass at street level. The Tyrell Corporation's pyramid rising over the city echoes the ruler's New Tower of Babel. The man-made woman who passes as human is a shared device.
Where it came from
- Metropolis, Thea von Harbou 1925 follow this thread
- Book of Revelation, John of Patmos c. 95 CE follow this thread
- Genesis, Anonymous c. 6th century BCE follow this thread
- When the Sleeper Wakes, H. G. Wells 1899 follow this thread
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1925

Metropolis

Thea von Harbou

Weimar Republic. Germany. Written in German.

Von Harbou's novel of the divided future city, written alongside her screenplay for her husband Fritz Lang's film. It contains the inventor Rotwang and his machine-woman.

What it handed down

To Metropolis (1927)

Direct source, well documented.

Von Harbou wrote the novel and co-wrote the screenplay with Lang, and the film follows her plot of Freder, Maria, Joh Fredersen and Rotwang. The novel was serialized as the film was in production.
Where it came from
- The Future Eve (L'Ève future), Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam 1886 follow this thread
- R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), Karel Čapek 1920 follow this thread
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1920

R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)

Karel Čapek

Interwar Czech modernism. Czechoslovakia. Written in Czech.

A play about a factory that manufactures artificial workers from organic matter, who rise up and destroy humanity. It introduced the word 'robot'.

What it handed down

To Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968)

Thematic kinship, conjectural.

Čapek's robots are organic, made in a factory to labor and indistinguishable from people in appearance, the kind of artificial human Dick's androids are. Both works turn on whether manufactured beings can feel and on their revolt. No documented reading by Dick is recorded, so the link is one of lineage.

To Metropolis (1925)

Disputed link, conjectural.

R.U.R. was staged in Berlin in 1923, and its revolt of mass-produced workers was widely discussed in Germany before von Harbou wrote her novel. Some critics see its influence in her machine-woman and her uprising of the workers. No direct statement of debt is known.
Where it came from
- Genesis, Anonymous c. 6th century BCE follow this thread
- Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, Mary Shelley 1818 follow this thread
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When the Sleeper WakesH. G. Wells

1899

When the Sleeper Wakes

H. G. Wells

Late Victorian. England. Written in English.

A man wakes after two centuries of sleep to find himself nominal owner of a vast, layered London where a laboring underclass lives beneath a pleasure-seeking elite.

What it handed down

To Metropolis (1927)

Thematic kinship, probable.

Wells's novel imagines a layered future city with a laboring underclass beneath an elite, aerial transport and a popular uprising. Reviewing Metropolis in the New York Times in 1927, Wells complained that it drew on his own early work.
Where it came from
- Looking Backward: 2000-1887, Edward Bellamy 1888 follow this thread
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1888

Looking Backward: 2000-1887

Edward Bellamy

Gilded Age. United States. Written in English.

A Bostonian sleeps from 1887 to 2000 and wakes in a peaceful socialist utopia. The novel was a best-seller and set off a wave of utopian and anti-utopian answers.

What it handed down

To When the Sleeper Wakes (1899)

Thematic kinship, well documented.

Wells borrowed Bellamy's device of a sleeper who wakes in the future, but turned Bellamy's orderly utopia into a dystopia of monopoly capital. The book is commonly read as a deliberate reply to Looking Backward.

Where it came from

The line stops here: minor branch; Bellamy's sources are chiefly political and economic writing.

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The Future EveAuguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam

1886

The Future Eve (L'Ève future)

Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam

French Decadence. France. Written in French.

A fictionalized Thomas Edison builds Hadaly, an electric android woman, as a perfect copy of a beautiful but shallow singer for a lovesick English lord. It popularized the word 'android'.

What it handed down

To Metropolis (1925)

Thematic kinship, probable.

Villiers's inventor builds an electric woman and gives her the exact appearance of a real one, as Rotwang gives his machine Maria's face. Both works treat the android double as a seductive substitute that confuses love and power.
Where it came from
- The Sandman (Der Sandmann), E. T. A. Hoffmann 1816 follow this thread
- Metamorphoses, Ovid 8 CE follow this thread
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1818

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus

Mary Shelley

Romantic. England. Written in English.

A young scientist builds a living man from dead matter and abandons him. The creature, educated and spurned, turns on his creator.

What it handed down

To Blade Runner (1982)

Thematic kinship, probable.

Batty's confrontation with Eldon Tyrell ('It's not an easy thing to meet your maker') restages the creature's reckoning with Victor Frankenstein. The creation demands a longer life, is refused, and kills its creator. Critics routinely read the replicants as heirs to Shelley's abandoned creature.

To R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) (1920)

Thematic kinship, probable.

Old Rossum's attempt to synthesize life in his laboratory follows the pattern Shelley set: a scientist seizing the power of creation, with fatal consequences. As in Frankenstein, the created beings turn against their makers. Critics have long placed R.U.R. in Frankenstein's line.
Where it came from
- Paradise Lost, John Milton 1667 follow this thread
- Metamorphoses, Ovid 8 CE follow this thread
- Prometheus Bound, Aeschylus (attributed) c. 460 BCE follow this thread
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1816

The Sandman (Der Sandmann)

E. T. A. Hoffmann

German Romanticism. Germany. Written in German.

A student falls in love with Olympia, who turns out to be a lifelike automaton, and is driven to madness. A founding tale of the uncanny artificial woman.

What it handed down

To The Future Eve (L'Ève future) (1886)

Thematic kinship, probable.

Hoffmann's Olympia, the automaton a young man mistakes for a living woman and falls in love with, is the chief precedent for Villiers's Hadaly. Villiers turned Hoffmann's uncanny tale into a long dialogue on whether an artificial woman could be preferable to a real one.

Where it came from

The line stops here: hoffmann's automaton draws on eighteenth-century mechanical exhibits rather than a traceable literary source.

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1793

America a Prophecy

William Blake

Romantic. England. Written in English.

An illuminated prophetic poem that recasts the American Revolution as cosmic revolt. Its hero is Orc, a fiery spirit rising against the tyrannical Angels of Albion.

What it handed down

To Blade Runner (1982)

Direct source, well documented.

On meeting Chew, Roy Batty says 'Fiery the angels fell. Deep thunder rolled around their shores, burning with the fires of Orc.' He is adapting Blake's lines 'Fiery the Angels rose, & as they rose deep thunder roll'd / Around their shores: indignant burning with the fires of Orc.' The change from 'rose' to 'fell' casts the replicants as rebel angels descending to earth.
Where it came from
- Paradise Lost, John Milton 1667 follow this thread
- Book of Revelation, John of Patmos c. 95 CE follow this thread
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1667

Paradise Lost

John Milton

Restoration. England. Written in English.

A blank-verse epic of Satan's rebellion and fall and the temptation and expulsion of Adam and Eve. Its rebel angels and its questioning creatures shaped Romantic writing.

What it handed down

To Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818)

Direct source, well documented.

The novel's epigraph is Adam's complaint from Book 10: 'Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay / To mould me Man?' The creature finds a copy of Paradise Lost, reads it as true history, and compares himself first to Adam and then to Satan.

To America a Prophecy (1793)

Thematic kinship, well documented.

Blake's prophetic books argue with Milton throughout. In America the rebel Orc plays the part of Milton's Satan, now a hero of liberty, while the Angels of Albion are the tyrannical heavenly host. The language of fiery angels and thunder comes from Milton's war in heaven.
Where it came from
- Genesis, Anonymous c. 6th century BCE follow this thread
- Aeneid, Virgil 19 BCE follow this thread
- Iliad, Homer c. 750 BCE follow this thread
- The Faerie Queene, Edmund Spenser 1590 follow this thread
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1590

The Faerie Queene

Edmund Spenser

Elizabethan. England. Written in English.

An allegorical romance epic in which knights embodying the virtues pursue quests in Faerieland, with Prince Arthur as a linking hero.

What it handed down

To Paradise Lost (1667)

Thematic kinship, well documented.

Dryden reported that Milton called Spenser his 'original', and Areopagitica praises Spenser as a better teacher than Aquinas. Spenser's Garden of Adonis and Bower of Bliss inform Milton's Eden, and his allegorical figure of Error stands behind Milton's Sin.
Where it came from
- Le Morte d'Arthur, Thomas Malory 1485 (completed c. 1470) follow this thread
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1485 (completed c. 1470)

Le Morte d'Arthur

Thomas Malory

Late medieval. England. Written in Middle English.

Malory's English prose compilation of the Arthurian legend from Arthur's birth to the fall of the Round Table, printed by Caxton.

What it handed down

To The Big Sleep (1939)

Thematic kinship, probable.

The novel opens with Marlowe studying a stained-glass panel of a knight rescuing a lady tied to a tree. He reflects that he may have to help the knight. The detective of Chandler's early stories was named Mallory, and critics read Marlowe as a knight-errant on mean streets.

To The Faerie Queene (1590)

Direct source, probable.

Spenser made Prince Arthur the poem's unifying hero and explained the choice in his letter to Raleigh. He took Arthurian names and episodes, including Tristram in Book 6, from the tradition Malory had gathered in English.
Where it came from
- Lancelot-Grail (Vulgate Cycle), Anonymous c. 1215-1235 follow this thread
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c. 1215-1235

Lancelot-Grail (Vulgate Cycle)

Anonymous

High Middle Ages. France. Written in Old French.

A vast prose cycle of Arthurian romance covering Lancelot's life, the Grail quest and the death of Arthur.

What it handed down

To Le Morte d'Arthur (1485 (completed c. 1470))

Direct source, well documented.

Malory repeatedly cites 'the French book' as his source, and much of his narrative condenses the Vulgate prose Lancelot, Queste del Saint Graal and Mort Artu. The love of Lancelot and Guinevere and the fall of the Round Table come from these romances.
Where it came from
- Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, Chrétien de Troyes c. 1180 follow this thread
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c. 1180

Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart

Chrétien de Troyes

High Middle Ages. Champagne, France. Written in Old French.

A verse romance in which Lancelot, devoted to Queen Guinevere, humiliates himself by riding in a criminal's cart to rescue her.

What it handed down

To Lancelot-Grail (Vulgate Cycle) (c. 1215-1235)

Direct source, well documented.

The prose Lancelot absorbs Chrétien's story of Lancelot's love for Guinevere, including the episode of the cart and the rescue from Meleagant's kingdom. It expands it into a full biography.
Where it came from
- Roman de Brut, Wace 1155 follow this thread
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Roman de BrutWace

1155

Roman de Brut

Wace

Anglo-Norman. Normandy and England. Written in Old French.

A verse adaptation of Geoffrey's history into French, which first mentions Arthur's Round Table.

What it handed down

To Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart (c. 1180)

Direct source, probable.

Wace's French verse chronicle gave Chrétien's audience Arthur's court in the vernacular, along with the Round Table Wace was first to mention. Chrétien set his romances in that court, moving the focus from the king to individual knights.
Where it came from
- History of the Kings of Britain (Historia Regum Britanniae), Geoffrey of Monmouth c. 1136 follow this thread
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c. 1136

History of the Kings of Britain (Historia Regum Britanniae)

Geoffrey of Monmouth

Anglo-Norman. England. Written in Latin.

A largely legendary chronicle of British kings from Brutus to Cadwallader, with the first full life of King Arthur and the prophecies of Merlin.

What it handed down

To Roman de Brut (1155)

Direct source, well documented.

The Roman de Brut is a free French verse adaptation of Geoffrey's Latin history. It follows his line of kings from Brutus through Arthur, with added courtly detail.
Where it came from
- History of the Britons (Historia Brittonum), Anonymous (attributed to Nennius) c. 829 follow this thread
- Aeneid, Virgil 19 BCE follow this thread
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c. 829

History of the Britons (Historia Brittonum)

Anonymous (attributed to Nennius)

Early medieval. Wales. Written in Latin.

A compilation of British history tracing the Britons to Brutus, a descendant of Aeneas, and listing Arthur's twelve battles.

What it handed down

To History of the Kings of Britain (Historia Regum Britanniae) (c. 1136)

Direct source, well documented.

Geoffrey took from the Historia Brittonum the descent of the Britons from Brutus, the story of Vortigern and the boy prophet whose tale he gave to Merlin, and Arthur as a war leader against the Saxons.
Where it came from
- On the Ruin of Britain (De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae), Gildas c. 540 follow this thread
- Aeneid, Virgil 19 BCE follow this thread
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c. 540

On the Ruin of Britain (De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae)

Gildas

Sub-Roman Britain. Britain. Written in Latin.

A sermon-history denouncing British kings and clergy, with an account of the Saxon invasions and the British resistance at Mount Badon.

What it handed down

To History of the Britons (Historia Brittonum) (c. 829)

Direct source, well documented.

The Historia's account of Vortigern's invitation to the Saxons and the British wars that followed draws on Gildas, whose narrative it expands with legend.
Where it came from
- Aeneid, Virgil 19 BCE follow this thread
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Book of RevelationJohn of Patmos

c. 95 CE

Book of Revelation

John of Patmos

Early Christian. Roman Asia Minor. Written in Koine Greek.

An apocalyptic vision of the war in heaven, the Whore of Babylon on the seven-headed beast, the fall of Babylon and a new Jerusalem.

What it handed down

To Metropolis (1927)

Direct source, well documented.

Freder reads of the Whore of Babylon in a book of Revelation, and the false Maria's dance in the Yoshiwara club is framed by that image, ending on the seven-headed beast. The film's cathedral sequences add statues of Death and the Deadly Sins.

To America a Prophecy (1793)

Stylistic influence, probable.

Blake titled the poem a prophecy and filled it with apocalyptic imagery of plagues, falling stars, burning angels and the end of an old order. He took the visionary mode and much of its imagery from Revelation.
Where it came from
- Genesis, Anonymous c. 6th century BCE follow this thread
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8 CE

Metamorphoses

Ovid

Augustan. Augustan Rome. Written in Latin.

Fifteen books of linked myths of transformation from the creation of the world to Ovid's own day. It includes Prometheus shaping humankind from clay and Pygmalion's statue brought to life.

What it handed down

To The Future Eve (L'Ève future) (1886)

Thematic kinship, probable.

Ovid's Pygmalion, the sculptor whose ivory woman comes to life, supplies the ancient pattern for a man who prefers a made woman to real ones. Lord Ewald's request to Edison is a modern Pygmalion story, with electricity in place of Venus.

To Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818)

Thematic kinship, probable.

Mary Shelley read Ovid in 1815, before writing her novel. Ovid's Prometheus shaping man from clay is the form of the myth her subtitle 'The Modern Prometheus' invokes.
Where it came from
- Theogony, Hesiod c. 700 BCE follow this thread
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19 BCE

Aeneid

Virgil

Augustan. Augustan Rome. Written in Latin.

An epic of the Trojan Aeneas, who flees burning Troy, wanders the Mediterranean and fights in Italy to found the Roman line.

What it handed down

To Paradise Lost (1667)

Structural model, well documented.

Milton modeled his epic on Virgil's, beginning in medias res, invoking the Muse and adopting a twelve-book structure in the 1674 edition. Satan's journey through Chaos and the founding of a new race echo Aeneas's voyage and mission.

To History of the Kings of Britain (Historia Regum Britanniae) (c. 1136)

Structural model, well documented.

Geoffrey modeled Brutus's exile, sea voyage and oracle-guided search for a promised land on Aeneas's journey. The goddess Diana's prophecy to Brutus parallels the oracles that direct Aeneas to Italy.

To History of the Britons (Historia Brittonum) (c. 829)

Direct source, well documented.

The Historia makes Brutus, the eponymous founder of Britain, a descendant of Aeneas, using the Trojan genealogy Virgil made famous. Britain is thus given a Roman-style Trojan origin.

To On the Ruin of Britain (De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae) (c. 540)

Stylistic influence, probable.

Gildas wrote an elaborate Latin shaped by the schoolroom canon, and his prose echoes Virgil's diction. Through him the Virgilian manner carried into British historical writing.
Where it came from
- Odyssey, Homer c. 725 BCE follow this thread
- Iliad, Homer c. 750 BCE follow this thread
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c. 460 BCE

Prometheus Bound

Aeschylus (attributed)

Classical Athens. Classical Greece. Written in Ancient Greek.

A tragedy in which the Titan Prometheus is chained to a rock for giving fire and the arts to humankind, defying Zeus. Its attribution to Aeschylus is debated.

What it handed down

To Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818)

Thematic kinship, probable.

The Shelley circle in Geneva in 1816 was absorbed in Aeschylus's Prometheus: Byron wrote his poem 'Prometheus' that summer, and Percy Shelley later wrote Prometheus Unbound as a sequel. Mary Shelley's subtitle frames Victor as a Titan who steals the fire of life and is punished.
Where it came from
- Theogony, Hesiod c. 700 BCE follow this thread
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c. 6th century BCE

Genesis

Anonymous

Ancient Israel. Ancient Israel and Babylonian exile. Written in Hebrew.

The first book of the Hebrew Bible: the creation, Adam and Eve in Eden, the Fall, the Flood and the Tower of Babel, and the patriarchs.

What it handed down

To Metropolis (1927)

Direct source, well documented.

In the catacombs Maria tells the workers the story of the Tower of Babel, which the film stages as a parable of planners who never meet the builders. Fredersen's headquarters is called the New Tower of Babel.

To R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) (1920)

Direct source, well documented.

In the final scene the last human, Alquist, reads the creation verses from Genesis over the robots Primus and Helena, who have learned to love. He names them Adam and Eve and sends them out as founders of a new humanity.

To Paradise Lost (1667)

Direct source, well documented.

Milton's epic expands the first chapters of Genesis, the creation, Eden, the serpent's temptation and the expulsion, into twelve books. He quotes and paraphrases the biblical text throughout.

To Book of Revelation (c. 95 CE)

Direct source, well documented.

Revelation closes the story Genesis began: the 'old serpent' is cast down (12:9) and the tree of life reappears in the new Jerusalem (22:2). Eden is restored at the end of history.

Where it came from

This is one of the oldest surviving works in its tradition; the line ends here.

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c. 700 BCE

Theogony

Hesiod

Archaic. Archaic Greece. Written in Ancient Greek.

A hexameter poem on the origin of the cosmos and the genealogy of the gods. It tells how Prometheus tricked Zeus and stole fire for mortals and was punished.

What it handed down

To Metamorphoses (8 CE)

Direct source, probable.

Ovid's first book opens with the creation of the world out of chaos and Prometheus molding humans from earth and water, building on the Hesiodic accounts of origins and of Prometheus. The genealogy of gods and the war of the Giants also descend from Hesiod.

To Prometheus Bound (c. 460 BCE)

Direct source, well documented.

The play takes up Hesiod's story of Prometheus's theft of fire and punishment by Zeus, turning the trickster into a defiant benefactor of humanity. Hesiod's genealogy of the Titans supplies the cast.

Where it came from

This is one of the oldest surviving works in its tradition; the line ends here.

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c. 725 BCE

Odyssey

Homer

Archaic. Archaic Greece. Written in Ancient Greek.

An epic of Odysseus's ten-year voyage home from Troy, including his descent to the land of the dead.

What it handed down

To Aeneid (19 BCE)

Structural model, well documented.

The first six books follow the Odyssey's pattern of sea wanderings, a hero telling his own story at a foreign court, and a descent to the underworld in Book 6. Aeneas even passes the land of the Cyclops Odysseus escaped.

Where it came from

This is one of the oldest surviving works in its tradition; the line ends here.

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c. 750 BCE

Iliad

Homer

Archaic. Archaic Greece. Written in Ancient Greek.

An epic of the wrath of Achilles during the tenth year of the Trojan War.

What it handed down

To Paradise Lost (1667)

Structural model, well documented.

The war in heaven in Books 5 and 6, with its single combats, catalogues of warriors and divine weapons, takes its form from Homeric battle. Milton announces in Book 9 that his subject surpasses 'the wrath of stern Achilles'.

To Aeneid (19 BCE)

Structural model, well documented.

The second half of the Aeneid restages the Iliad in Italy: catalogues of warriors, divine shields, the death of a young comrade (Pallas for Patroclus) and a final duel (Aeneas and Turnus for Achilles and Hector).

Where it came from

This is one of the oldest surviving works in its tradition; the line ends here.

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Where it came from

What it handed down

To Blade Runner (1982)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Blade Runner (1982)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To The Big Sleep (1946)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To The Big Sleep (1939)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Blade Runner (1982)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Metropolis (1927)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968)

To Metropolis (1925)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Metropolis (1927)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To When the Sleeper Wakes (1899)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Metropolis (1925)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Blade Runner (1982)

To R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) (1920)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To The Future Eve (L'Ève future) (1886)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Blade Runner (1982)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818)

To America a Prophecy (1793)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Paradise Lost (1667)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To The Big Sleep (1939)

To The Faerie Queene (1590)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Le Morte d'Arthur (1485 (completed c. 1470))

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Lancelot-Grail (Vulgate Cycle) (c. 1215-1235)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart (c. 1180)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Roman de Brut (1155)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To History of the Kings of Britain (Historia Regum Britanniae) (c. 1136)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To History of the Britons (Historia Brittonum) (c. 829)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Metropolis (1927)

To America a Prophecy (1793)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To The Future Eve (L'Ève future) (1886)