Blade Runner November 2019

Blade Runner (1982) was set in November 2019.

Yes, progress has been a bit slow.

Blade Runner got one thing very right -- the two most important technologies of this century are AI and Genetic Engineering.

Where is the AI in Blade Runner, you ask? Not evident until Blade Runner 2049? Alien and Blade Runner take place in the same universe. A universe which contains the AI David as well as the engineered Replicants:

... a special feature on the Prometheus Blu-ray release makes the film even more interesting by tying it into the Blade Runner universe. Included as an entry in the journal of Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce), who in the film was obsessed with creating artificial life, is the following gem:

A mentor and long-departed competitor once told me that it was time to put away childish things and abandon my “toys.” He encouraged me to come work for him and together we would take over the world and become the new Gods. That’s how he ran his corporation, like a God on top of a pyramid overlooking a city of angels. Of course, he chose to replicate the power of creation in an unoriginal way, by simply copying God. And look how that turned out for the poor bastard. Literally blew up in the old man’s face. I always suggested he stick with simple robotics instead of those genetic abominations he enslaved and sold off-world, although his idea to implant them with false memories was, well… “amusing,” is how I would put it politely.

The mentor is Eldon Tyrell (Blade Runner), of course. See also here and the Tyrell-Weyland Connection.