In this video I am going to make a replica of a hexagonal lampshade from the film blade runner.

The prop, which contained transparent photographs on its six luminescent panels, only appears momentary on the supervisors’ desk when Deckard is forced into his office, and essentially blackmailed out of retirement to do some more retiring.

To really appreciate the movie Blade Runner, you have to accept at some level, Batman is a shit, and then watch the 5th series of the television programme Angel.   Reginald D Hunter summarised quite fittingly in his observation, “Batman is a conservative’s wet dream, fuck Batman.”

I’ll try and explain.

Bruce Wayne, an early archetype to the modern American hero, transcends the implicit racism of the cowboy becoming a metaphor for the aspirational classes.  Bruce Wayne is after all an industrialist and billionaire, who had he not adorned the costume of a bat could be yet another cocaine sniffing sadist in a suit.

He has at his disposal assets and recourses to fund the most flamboyant vigilantism ever imagined, and despite this tremendous influence, the caped crusader, a medieval epithet, spends his time beating up the man on the street corner.  He cannot see beyond individual responsibility, and into the murky conditions which influence actions.

To reiterate “Batman is a conservative’s wet dream, fuck Batman.”

The movie Blade Runner is the antithesis of Batman – and everything he represents.

Harrison Fords, Deckard character, a tortured bounty hunter, is essentially trying to achieve Batman ultimate goals of ridding the world of imaginative characters, however doesn’t have the comforts of a mansion, a butler and the millionaires resources at his disposal.

He fumbles through Ridley scots dystopian future as a surrogate hero, until the real protagonist is revealed in Rutger Hauer’s notorious soliloquy.

He’s seen things you people wouldn’t believe, but you people believe things you’ve never seen.

Without advanced computer generated effects, the future landscape of blade runner was created by borrowing from a yesterdays present, a present that today feel precariously on the edge of a new dystopian nightmare.

It is not surprising to know that Harrison Ford was considered for the role of batman, or that Donald Trump supporters imagine him as a real life Bruce Wayne. The lie is pervasive, but if white America told the truth for just one day its world would fall apart. And Harrison Ford could only play working class roles.

Rutger Hauers gives an appraisal of struggle. Forced to fight for justice, which so easily becomes revenge, the audience is invited to sympathise if ever so slightly with the universal terrorist.

Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion could be helicopters in yet another conflict. He watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate – like flairs from a sinking ship. And all those moments… like bought lies, will be lost in time, like tears in rain.

When the film went over budget – which is the opposite of austerity, Ridly Scot was effectively fired as director and the studio had the final say on key artistic decisions within the movie.  The planned ending was axed and replaced with a montage from a Spielberg movie, finishing on a positive note.

Guy gets girl and drives into the sunset, but real life is more complicated than the Hollywood studio ending.