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Religion in a World of Androids and Aliens: Life and Death in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner and Prometheus

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Science Fiction, Ethics and the Human Condition

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Abstract

What on Earth does religion have to do with science fiction? As a genre, science fiction appears vehemently secular. Historically, science fiction only manifests as part of modernity in societies with a strong adherence to a natural scientific world view; it is often filled with techno-scientific novelties that drive the stories toward fruition; and, tellingly enough, the most prominent theoretical thinker on science fiction (Darko Suvin) is an academic Marxist with an educational background in the former socialist state of Yugoslavia.

Peter Nicolai Halvorsen holds a master in theology and is ordained in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark, where he works as a university chaplain at Faculty of Health, University of Copenhagen.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Quoted from the “New American Standard Bible” internet version from http://biblehub.com/nasb/.

  2. 2.

    Aristotle: Poetics section 1. Part 1. http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.1.1.html. I take this in a very general way. There are probably differences between the way Aristotle uses the concept of Mythos and how plot is used in modern narrative theory. See Elizabeth S. Belfiore (2000), pp. 37–70.

  3. 3.

    See Gerblinger 2002: 28. It could be added that the spinning propels on the roof, which is seen from below with the figure of Roy in front, makes allusion to the helicopters of Vietnam. Similarly the shadows and broken flashing light from different angels simulates the view of the jungle.

  4. 4.

    The notion of Satan as the first son of God and Christ is not very clear in the Bible as in later legends and literature. See Frye 1982: 181, Milton’s fifth book of Paradise Lost and Nielsen 1998.

  5. 5.

    This monologue was not part of the original script but invented on the spot by Rutger Hauer. It does, however, mark the humanity of the replicants, especially Roy Batty, through the connection the film makes between memories and humanity (Sammon 1996: 194).

  6. 6.

    That the dove can represent the soul or connote other non-Christian symbolic representations is mentioned by Rutger Hauer himself in Sammon 1996: 192–193. However, it is very hard to neglect the Christian symbolism in the white dove, regardless of the intentions of the filmmaker.

  7. 7.

    Deckard’s apartment is partly filmed in the “Ennis House” a residential dwelling in outer L.A., designed by Frank Lloyd Wright 1924. See Sammon 1996: 136f; 138–139.

  8. 8.

    The ‘Ancient Astronaut Hypothesis’ which I refer to here, can be traced back to early science fiction (e.g. H.P. Lovecraft 1926) but has later been proposed as a genuine scientific hypothesis. As such, it is strongly contested.

  9. 9.

    This sequel is currently in preproduction and is due for release in 2017.

  10. 10.

    The Biblical concept of creation actually embraces both these versions of creation: the image of God creating Adam out of clay (preternaturally) and the concept of creation by word, which is a digital code like DNA (craftsmanship).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Health, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Peter Nicolai Halvorsen

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  1. Peter Nicolai Halvorsen
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Correspondence to Peter Nicolai Halvorsen .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry and Biology, Aalborg University Copenhagen, Center for Bioscience and Techno-Anthropology, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Christian Baron

  2. University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Peter Nicolai Halvorsen

  3. School of Art, Media and American Studies, University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom

    Christine Cornea

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Halvorsen, P.N. (2017). Religion in a World of Androids and Aliens: Life and Death in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner and Prometheus . In: Baron, C., Halvorsen, P., Cornea, C. (eds) Science Fiction, Ethics and the Human Condition. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56577-4_8

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