Bladerunner and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Ryan Mundell

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a tormented exploration of the nature of what it means to be human. The Protagonist is a bounty hunter chasing human simulations known as “androids” and he struggles with his feelings about the task of killing androids throughout the book. He begins to identify with the human replicants as the novel progresses which causes him to question what it means to be human and shakes his certainty that what he is doing is morally justifiable. The attempt to adapt this novel and these concepts to film known as Blade Runner fell horribly short of translating Philip K. Dick’s message from Literature into film. The Protagonist of Bladerunner does not grapple with the same dilemmas of identity that are dealt with in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, and the ultimate message is lost in the action film because of several inconsistencies and one glaring mistake made in the definition of what an android is in the film.

The movie Blade Runner takes a few liberties with Dick’s storyline and the most notable is the way they identify and define an android. The androids in Blade Runner are capable of becoming indistinguishable from human beings because they develop emotions based on collected experiences....