Compare/Contrast, Volume One > Trouble & Her Friends versus Bladerunner

>Environment:

            The environments in both fictitious settings imply eternal dark and grody-ness. There seems to be no warmth available, ever, and in return to this temperature the characters seem to reflect this in their attitudes. In Bladerunner it was always night and it never stopped raining. Any light sources were forced from outside, from billboards, headlights and street vendors. Even when the plot moved indoors, the characters seemed entirely incapable of flipping on a light. (When I personally envision the future, it is very bright and very clean.) By keeping the audience forever in darkness, the creepy mood was heightened and so was the level of “the unknown,” the audience never knows what could be hiding in the darkness.

            In Trouble and Her Friends, a similar setting can be visualized in the dark and ever-scary city. Melissa Scott implies that there is a clean, professional world outside of the city but in the provided excerpt, it is something we do not encounter.

>Time:

            Since Trouble and Her Friends and Bladerunner were composed many years before my existence, it is interesting to see how society then viewed the future. The future they are referring to is incidentally, a time very close to now. While Trouble doesn’t specify the futuristic date, Bladerunner announces the year 2019 at the introduction of the film. In the projected span of 30 years from the release of the movie, the cinematic geniuses sure predicted greatness from their kin and peers. Some might call this a grave overestimation, perhaps a disappointment for those who hoped for this future world.

            It is funny to catch things that date the works, too, such as shoulder-pads and lack of cell phones. While cellular devices were available in the 80’s, it was clearly hard to predict the impenetrable bond that people today have with their personal media connectors.

>Characters:

            The main dude in Bladerunner, otherwise known as Harrison Ford, is a retired police officer and although he has been brought back to the job, he is not happy about it. Isn’t it obvious that if a person doesn’t want to be there, the job won’t get done in the most proficient/best way possible? Anyway, he seems to abandon any other priorities he may have been involved in and jumps aboard. He is very moody, not exactly friendly and not talkative in the least, but he does get the job done. The script writers must have spent way more time on the special effects rather than incorporating conversation into the script…

            In Trouble, the protagonist’s name is Cerise. She is projected as the a-typical futuristic bad ass. I visualize her wearing combat boots, a leather jacket and heavy eyeliner, but that is me being stereotypical… She seems to be completely involved in the cyberpunk lifestyle, so why wouldn’t she dress appropriately? In the excerpt, she has just lost her partner who fled thanks to a new law passed by the government. Cerise seems to be hardheaded, very intelligent and completely determined to finish what she started, no matter the cost.

            The people who occupy the visual plane, besides the main characters, all seem rude, dirty, poor, and unhappy. I’m not sure if the wealthier, luckier, healthier people were promoted to living somewhere else, or if they don’t exist any more, but they are nowhere to be found in either fictitious accounts.

>Thematic Concerns:

            One concern that appeared in both accounts is the very high danger level. We read only one chapter of Trouble and the protagonist was harassed twice, once on the street and once on the net. In the movie as well, there was well, a lot of violence, but no one ever seemed to feel safe. It seems that part of imagining/creating the future involves characters outsmarting the governmental strongholds and creating an environment of complete disarray.

            That’s all folks…