The influences behind Blade Runner

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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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
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

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
Iliad, Homer c. 750 BCE follow this thread
The Faerie Queene, Edmund Spenser 1590 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)

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)

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)

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
Iliad, Homer c. 750 BCE follow this thread

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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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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

To America a Prophecy (1793)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Paradise Lost (1667)

To History of the Kings of Britain (Historia Regum Britanniae)

To History of the Britons (Historia Brittonum)

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

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Aeneid (19 BCE)

Where it came from

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