More Human Than Human: The Exile in Blade Runner

What if a group of slaves murdered their overlords and returned home to find themselves targeted by a bounty hunter? What if the slaves were really bioengineered beings seeking not only emancipation but also extensions on their predetermined life spans? What if simulacrum might no longer be distinguished from human? Such are the basic questions that fuel the plot of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982), but this only scratches the surface. While the film has been poked, prodded, and scanned for going on four decades, there is still much value to be gleaned from it. This article places Blade Runner in dialogue with the notion of exile to enliven our understanding of the film as well as the aesthetic power of science fiction as a genre. Multiple questions animate this discussion: How does the theme of exile operate in Blade Runner? In what ways does the exile in Blade...