September 3, 2017- by Steven E. Greer, MD
I watched again the 1982 classic Blade Runner. Directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford, this film was more accurate at predicting the future than most science fiction genre films.
Set in 2019, which was 37-years in the future from when the film was made, Blade Runner depicts the usual dystopian future, where humans have ruined the plant and humanoid creatures are taking over. But instead of robots, the Replicants are actual flesh and blood humans that have been genetically engineered and implanted with false memories of childhood.
Well, we have that technology now. We can clone mammals and we can genetically engineer them with CRISPR (This is the biggest threat to the human race, by the way. The technology will be grotesquely abused.).
In Blade Runner, it is constantly raining in Los Angeles for unknown reasons, and people are evacuating the plant. Well, today we see the normally dry city of Houston under water from an epic hurricane that spiraled for days, dumping 50-inches of rain. We have Elon Musk and NASA planning trips to Mars with the goal of colonizing it.
In Blade Runner, cars fly, the skyscrapers are huge, and Chinese lettering is seen all over the city. We have that now. Soon, thanks to drone technology, we will finally have flying cars that use propellers. Buildings in New York are now reaching 1,000 feet, creating dark shadowing canyons below, and the anticipated rise of China as a global power has developed.
In the film, they still use computer screens, but they have interactive features, such as voice recognition. That was impossible in 1982, but they got it right. We have that now.
It is timely that I stumbled up this classic, because in October, the sequel is coming out.