Blade Runner and the Martian: 2 Sides of the Same Future

Yesterday (well October the 10th 2015 to be technical) I finally got to see Ridley Scott's the Martian and it definitely did not disappoint as not only is it one of my very favorite films of the year but also I feel deserves to be on the same shelf as Ridley's dystopian Sci-Fi classic from 1982 Blade Runner with Harrison Ford.

But thinking about both of these films and why I feel that way has also made me think of this point: That these are 2 sides of the very same future we face here on Earth.

I know I know this sounds like a very silly comparison to make given how different the two films are in many ways but given that Sir Ridley directed both films they do have a similarity to them which I allude to above in terms of the 2 sides of the futuristic coin.

And this is why I would love to see them in a double bill one day (and its definitely one I intend to do when the Blu-Ray of the Martian comes out in 2016) as they represent Darkness and Light, Fantasy and Fact and Fear and Hope.

Please allow me to expand on each of those points:

- In Blade Runner we see a dark dystopian vision of the future, a vision that was quite common in the 1980s Sci-Fi film (see also Escape From New York, Mad Max 1 and 2 and the film version of 1984 amongst others) as we as a populace of humans once again sat on the brink of nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union (this was also when Ronald Reagan was President.)

And Blade Runner played on this somewhat with its endless rain and grungy streets that were overpopulated with millions of people whilst others (most likely the well off in society) had a new life on the Off World Colonies free of the rain and filth of Earth, looking at the film now you could say this is the result of our industrial prowess scarring our natural environment and the endless rain being a result of this.

The Martian meanwhile presents a very optimistic vision of the future which paints a stark contrast to Blade Runner, the best and brightest are here on Earth and all pulling their resources together to get one of their own Home again both on Earth and in Outer Space and there seems to be the sense that if we can do THIS then imagine what we could do in terms of our environment, our need to produce and manufacture things and our sense of adventure, to boldly go where no man has gone before.

- Onto the second point now and Blade Runner is also very fantastical in terms of it has flying cars and replicant people as tangible objects inside its world that are very common to its inhabitants (Captain Bryant refers to them as just "skinjobs" in an early scene of the film) and you even see some of the people that helped form these replicants in terms of Mr Shaw and JF Sebastian.

The Martian meanwhile is not based in Science Fiction in a traditional sense but Science Fact, the scientists in the film use their various skills be it engineering or botany or calculations to solve the problem and to feed back into the positive elements of the future it presents in the film there's no bad person or sinister motives or race to get there first with any of it, everyone goes through the data debates it and comes to a common ground from which to work.

- And lastly Blade Runner in terms of the visual look Ridley created for the film (and here is where I will delve more into the technical filmmaking aesthetics of both pictures) is very dark and cold and blue, a lot of cool colors you could say make up a lot of the palette of the film look wise and it really works rarely do you see a bright or bold color in that world and if you do it feels very muted in terms of its impact.

The Martian meanwhile has a lot of Red's and White's and Magenta's and mainly drier looking colors for its palette, there are some cooler color's there (blue's and purple's) but like the drier color's in Blade Runner they're used to match the overall aesthetic of the film.

Look I know this is probably a silly column to do but it was something that I couldn't get out of my head so I wanted to do this, I hope people enjoyed it but one can never tell with these things I'm afraid.