Stop Making Sense of Blade Runner

by Charles Mudede
The British Film Institute's little book about the Blade Runner, which was first published in 1997 and written by the cultural theorist Scott Bukatman, makes the point that an important part of the film's magic (or stimmung) is that so much in it (even with the much-panned VO) is left unexplained. What exactly is a blade runner? Why is a person who kills replicants called that? And what are "Off-Worlds"? How far are they from earth? Are they near the moon? Or the limits of the