The opening scene of Blade Runner: The Final Cut is designed to introduce the audience to the dark and bleak world of Los Angeles in the year 2019. The first glimpse that the audience has of this futuristic society is a bird’s eye view of the smokey cityscape with bursts of fire being shot up into the night sky. The blasts give the setting a war zone like feel, suggesting that this area is one of intense conflict, which we later learn is between the humans and the illegal Nexus-6 replicants. Furthermore, the scene’s hazy overtones give off the impression that some important lines are being blurred. Those lines in this case happen to be the so-called humanity or empathy that is being used to separate the humans from the replicants. So, right off the bat, the audience is made aware of role dehumanization is going to play in this film. The scene concludes with the image of an eye that is reflecting the scene at hand. The eye suggests that this city is being kept under close surveillance by some unknown entity. This fact becomes important later when the audience witnesses the great lengths the police force goes to discern which people are humans and which ones are replicants.
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An additional aspect I found interesting about the opening scenes was Deckard’s initial interactions with the food vendor. The presence of the food vendor’s stand provides the first familiar scene to the viewer; even in the future, humanity can grab a meal at a food vendor’s stand. However, the owner of the stand presents a subtle contrast; when debating with Deckard about the quantity of food, he appears to not speak English; yet when translating for Gaff he speaks English perfectly. In also factoring the vendor’s appearance, the vendor seeks to create a racial appearance or platform that seems distinctly at odds with the noir, techno-punk atmosphere of Blade Runner. The caricature-like Asian appearance of the vendor invokes an interesting contrast between the highly westernized atmosphere and cast of Blade Runner, as opposed to the more traditional android vs. human contrast.
I enjoyed your analysis of the element of surveillance in the opening scene. Surveillance plays an important role in the opening scene as well as the movie as a whole seems to revolve around a panoptic control structure in which largely a unidentified (as you called it, an “unknown entity”) group is constantly patrolling the havoc-filled post-apocolyptic city. It is unclear who is the surveyor and who is the surveyed, which adds to the film’s suspense and helps to create an element of paranoia. Dramatic flashes of light frequently interrupt dimly lit scenes, which constantly reminds both the inhabitants and the audience of the fact that they are constantly being watched. In fact, aside from dramatic neon lighting that punctuates the city scenes, the only light that fills most of the scenes is the frantic searchlight that pokes in and out of buildings. In keeping with this idea of surveillance, residents are paranoid about the possibility of an invasion and are aware of the hierarchical control system at play in the society. I didn’t pick up on the symbolic eye you referenced, so I enjoyed reading this and furthering my belief in the emphasis of surveillance and a hierarchy of power at play in the film.
I really like how you dissected and analyzed what each view of Los Angeles might be hinting to the audience about the film, as every special effect was obviously incorporated into the movie with a deliberate intention. The war-zone-like feel you talk about is especially important in that the hazy atmosphere is not one of peace, but rather one of chaos. This film relied heavily on its use of special effects, and I think that this inclusion of the bursts of fire amidst an otherwise gloomy cityscape was a necessary component to provide the audience with a preview of the conflict that is to come between the humans and the replicants. I liked your next point that the blurred overtones in the scene may represent not only pollution, but also a blurring of lines between what makes someone a human versus what makes someone a replicant. We see later in the film that Rachel’s and Roy’s decision to save Deckard perhaps suggests that replicants can have empathy, making us question what truly is the difference between humans and replicants if it’s not empathy.