Design
'Blade Runner' and the Dystopic Los Angeles
The film’s impact comes from its skillful blend of two other distinct images of Los Angeles—as noir jungle and harbinger of the future.
Blade Runner 2049 opens in American theaters this week, 35 years after the original version first came out. The first Blade Runner eventually became a cult classic and, according to author and urban theorist Mike Davis, L.A.’s “dystopic alter ego.” It helped fuel two decades of critical and dystopian depictions of Los Angeles by Davis, Octavia Butler, James Cameron, and many others.