PSA: Blade Runner no longer set in the future

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

It was only a matter of time. But here we are on November 1, 2019, and as strange as it may sound, Ridley Scott's BLADE RUNNER starring Harrison Ford and the late Rutger Hauer officially no longer takes place in the future. I'll give you a moment to let that settle in. 

Now that we all feel super f*cking old, let's move on to say that I think the film's vision of 2019 is a little bit off. Too say the least. But this is the way it goes. I remember being a kid and laughing when PREDATOR 2's near-future of 1997 became the present day. And chortled with joy when BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II's future became the past. But this hits a little harder. Not sure why. Maybe it's because Scott's vision of the future was THE vision of the future for so long that it's such a mindf*ck to see it has arrived. 

But, whatever. I'm not high enough you think all this through right now.

For the one guy out there that don't know, the film takes place in a (once) cyberpunk vision of the future where

man has developed the technology to create replicants, human clones used to serve in the colonies outside Earth but with fixed lifespans. In Los Angeles, 2019, Deckard is a Blade Runner, a cop who specializes in terminating replicants. Originally in retirement, he is forced to re-enter the force when four replicants escape from an off-world colony to Earth.

Ridley Scott directed the film from a screenplay written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. Michael Deeley produced and the film starred Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Edward James Olmos. Warner Bros. unleashed it into theaters back on June 25, 1982. If you don't already own Scott's masterpiece on Blu-ray, you can snag a copy HERE.