1. Dehumanising Technology A feature of the dystopian genre, shown in ‘Blade Runner’ and ‘Children of Men’

2. Introduction Dehumanising technology is a feature of dystopian media. It encompasses technology of any kind that either deprives humans of human qualities or does the job of a human. For example, assembly lines occupied completely by machines. As humans can and have done this job before.

3. Voight-Kampf Machine The Voight-Kampf machine is a small device shown at the beginning of the film, and when Deckard tests to see if Rachael is a replicant. The Voight-Kampf machine scans the retina of the subject, and measures physiological responses to emotion-based questions. A human’s retina would dilate and retract unconsciously, and the machine would register this. Replicants have no emotions (as they are created) and therefore would have no physiological response.

4. Replicants Replicants themselves are examples of dehumanisation. They are artificially-grown humans for certain jobs, traits or genes. Some replicants are created to be soldiers or leaders, others assassins or strippers. Replicants are an example of dehumanisation and dehumanising technology. This is a feature of dystopian films, as it is a common fear of the middle class that their jobs will be taken over by non-humans or robots.

5. Dystopian ties in Blade runner A typical setting in dystopia would be a dark and dank world. The setting in Blade runner is much the same. The massive blimp floating around giving advertisements about ‘off world’. This shows how the government is convincing people to give them there money for a ‘better life.’ this shows that there is a controlling figure in this world, and that it is more robotic than human, with its monotone voice.

6. Dystopian Ties in Bladerunner Cont. Another factor of the dystopian genre is the absence of human life as we know it in the present. This shows that there has been a cataclysmic event in which the government has had to seize control by means of striking fear into the general public. This is shown in Bladerunner at the beginning of the film in which the only cars or means of transport are police cruisers, over a black Los Angeles landscape punctuated by plumes of flame from factories.

7. References to our world The setting of a dark world in Bladerunner