An Instagram Account Proves We're Living Inside "Blade Runner"
Ridley Scott's 1982 sci-fi masterpiece took place in 2019, which is just around the corner. Some of the film's technology still seems far-fetched. (Flying cars? Synthetic humans with implanted memories?) Then again, some of the other tech already feels dated, like the photo enhancer Deckard uses that looks like a cross between a VCR and a microfilm reader. But when we say "It looks like Blade Runner out there today," we're not talking about any of that stuff. We're talking about the production design of the film — the neon drizzle, the smoky streets, the romance of being alone in a shabby megalopolis.
Ryan Allen and Siddharth Chander have that feeling all the time, which is why they started the popular Instagram account Blade Runner Reality. Allen said he was inspired by an exhibit at the Museum of the Moving Image that included a scale model of the Tyrell Corporation. They see a lot of Blade Runner in Asian cities like Tokyo, Seoul, and Shanghai — but they still find plenty of inspiration in New York and Washington, D.C.
Are you in the mood to hear Vangelis yet? They also include quotes from the film on the Instagram account.
To compare, check out these clips from the movie — also, see Harrison Ford as Deckard totally check his phone in boredom at 1:53. Syd Mead was behind the brilliant production design of Blade Runner, and he called science fiction "reality ahead of schedule." We talked with Mead for this story about how the Large Hadron Collider looks like a sci-fi movie.
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