The Influence Of Blade Runner

It has to be said that sci-fi wouldn't be the way it was without Blade Runner. But it's not just the sci-fi genre that was affected.

Blade Runner exists in our history to be in the hearts and minds of sci-fi fans. It's a love letter to sci-fi fans that love a world beyond our imaginations. How Blade Runner breathes in a two-hour running time feels like we know the world and feel that it exists. It's one of those rare movies that we don't feel is a movie.

For some preface to this article, I am not a sci-fan. I respect what it does... but it's not my go-to fiction fixer. With my eternal interest in movies, I learned how a certain movie was created, who wrote it, and why it was made. I applied that same logic to learning about the movies that I never cared for but it still did something for someone even if they didn't do it for me. Blade Runner was the one movie I kept running into in my deep dive into film history. It just isn't a sci-fi movie if it's among the greatest movies of all time.

But it's interesting to know that the culturally significant film didn't make the money back for what was put in.

It had an all-star cast, astounding set designs, and stellar writing. But Blade Runner isn't the one to have everything and not make it back. Sometimes you can have all the ingredients and do everything right and it doesn't turn out the way you thought it would in the future. That's the hard part for any creator is not knowing if the audience you want will be there. Blade Runner is one of many films that unfortunately don't get the proper recognition at the time of their release.

However, there is a strange parallel that the futuristic film found its praise in the future. In the later years of VHS rentals and DVD releases, it found a resurgence to be found by the ones who expressed regret that they didn't see it in theaters.

But even during the time that Blade Runner was flying under the radar in 1982, it was already making history while making history.

A trashcan of all things inspired Edward Neumeier who was in the art department for Blade Runner and noticed how the trashcan in the movie production was given a part of the world-building, this trash can could move and exist in the world...that trashcan inspired him to take a few weeks off from work and write RoboCop. So to think...while Blade Runner was in production, it was already inspiring the next evolution to come to the sci-fi genre.

The movie served as a partial inspiration for the 1988 Japanese cult-hit Akira which went on to inspire others as a "Pay-it-Forward" for other creators. And then in turn Akira would inspire the 2012 movie Chronicle. Think of this influence fact as a "Seven Degrees Of Kevin Bacon" but with Blade Runner.

Even me! I'm sitting here typing up an article while I'm also working on a new story that has partial inspiration from Blade Runner 2049.

So if you are a writer, author, or artist, reading this and hoping your work pays off one day. Blade Runner does serve as an example of what happens when the time comes for the recognition of something that deserves it. The years of the waiting game can be a tedious and draining experience to have to wait for the story to take off. All those questions of- Did I waste my time? Was it worth it? Are people going to find it? -is immediately diminished when the time comes when your story is inescapable to be mentioned in the room.

Even the sequel, Blade Runner 2049 which also faced a paralleled fate like its 1982 release is also doing the same influence after its 2017 release.

Blade Runner isn't my bread and butter when it comes to stories, but it does give me hope that what I create matters, and it'll be cherished and spark creativity for someone one day.

All roads lead back to Blade Runner.

What stories will lead back to yours?