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Posted on 06/11/2026 4:35:03 AM PDT by MtnClimber
In 1982, Blade Runners' vision of human degradation felt like an impossible fiction. Today, it reads like a conservative prophecy.
hen Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner hit movie screens in the summer of 1982, critics viewed it as a vivid but far-fetched exercise in cinematic nihilism. For a young student arriving in the United States at the time, the film’s oppressive atmosphere was enough to prompt one to walk out of the theater. The overwhelming sensory assault of a decaying, rain-slicked future Los Angeles felt too nightmarish to endure. In 1982, the film’s vision of human degradation felt like an impossible fiction. Today, it reads like a conservative prophecy.
To understand how drastically our current reality has deteriorated, one must look at what Los Angeles was actually like when the film debuted. Real-life 1982 Los Angeles, by most accounts, was defined by civic optimism. The city was in the midst of frantic preparations to host the 1984 Summer Olympics, branding itself with vibrant "New Wave" pastels. It was an era of sunny confidence, economic vitality, and suburban expansion. Ridley Scott’s vision of a permanently dark, rain-soaked, culturally hollow LA was the stark antithesis of the sun-drenched, hopeful metropolis Angelenos actually inhabited.
The film's demographic predictions were equally jarring to audiences at the time. In 1982, Los Angeles was still anchored by a vast, thriving middle class. Yet, Scott populated his fictional ground-level streets with a dense, chaotic, polyglot underclass speaking a hybrid street slang called "Cityspeak," completely dominated by corporate conglomerates and destitute masses. In 1982, this demographic collapse of the American middle class felt like a bad dream. Today, we look at the political and structural decay of Los Angeles and realize the movie did not go far enough.
The current political landscape of Los Angeles is a living mirror
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
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Marxism is what killed Los Angeles. Starting with economic “class marxism’ and evolving into race marxism.
Los Angeles is headed for a mix of Blade Runner, Mad Max, and The Matrix, pretending that an “election” counting ballots instead of votes is somehow “legal” and not fraudulent.
The time for a confrontation is quickly passing.
In 1982 LA and California (except San Franciso) was still somewhat conservative. When the dims took over it fulfilled the film’s prophecy.
Of course, Scott did a great job as director, but Phillip K. Dick wrote a pretty mean story, as I recall.
We live in a dystopia. Sure, some people are living their best lives — but it’s a small percentage. The greater part of the population is miserable and feels stuck and powerless. Things are out of control and getting worse every day.
Every dilapidated, filthy, crime-ridden, drug-infested, bankrupt & corrupt city in the US has been controlled by democrats for 50+ years….
Who's this weenie, anyways? Sounds French. d;^)
Loves me some Brade Runner. 😍
BTW, It was a beautifully written piece.
Los(t) Angeles, please learn from Northern Ireland. They have balls. Things will not change until your Democrats fear answering the door. Really. Same for Seattle and Portland.
This person is seeing 1982 through rose colored glasses. Both the aids and crack epidemics were well underway in ‘82. They probably weren’t where he hung out, but it was undeniably there. And crime in LA in 1982 was still pretty bad. The Reagan revamp of the justice department had yet to pick up steam. Are things worse now? Undeniably they are in every way. But I think he’s overstating how rosy LA was back then.
CC
I need to watch that again. Not the remake. I only remember that it was dark.
Exactly. I loved it from the first time I saw it.
-SB
You guys had crack that early? I’m from NYC and it wasn’t a problem for a few more years (85-86) beyond 1982.
Most histories place the start in 81.
CC
Blade Runner can actually be viewed as an anti abortion tale. If someone has 23 PR of chromosomes and bleeds, just because the government says that they aren’t human, is it moral to kill them? Also see Supreme Court Dred Scott decision re slaves are actually property, not people.
“ Loves me some Brade Runner. 😍”
Blade Runner has become the standard for scifi reality.
I have watched so many scifi movies and I regularly find myself telling the wife, “hey, thats copying Blade Runner”
The downtown images with moving image billboards, the rain and fog. That scene has been copied by so many new movies.
Great flick!
.
Now go read the book “The Blade Runner” by Alan E. Nourse. It talks about the abuses suffered by the population when gov’t controls health care. The description from Wiki below pretty much has the plot right.
Given that we just had to suffer through what the gov’t did during a plague Nourse had it right too.
Plot
The novel’s protagonist is Billy Gimp, a man with a club foot who runs “blades” for Doc (Doctor John Long) as part of an illegal black market for medical services. The setting is a society where free, comprehensive medical treatment is available for anyone so long as they qualify for treatment under the Eugenics Laws. Preconditions for medical care include sterilization, and no legitimate medical care is available for anyone who does not qualify or does not wish to undergo the sterilization procedure (including children over the age of five). These conditions have created illegal medical services in which bladerunners supply black market medical supplies for underground practitioners, who generally go out at night to see patients and perform surgery. As an epidemic breaks out among the underclass, Billy must save his city from the plague.
Having grown up in Denver, dark and rainy with a densely packed utilization of space is my idea of paradise. I especially liked the gritty, 30's film noir detective narration.
All that aside, thanks for posting this idiot's blather.
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