Science fictionScience fiction (sometimes shortened to SF or sci-fi) is a genre of speculative fiction, which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel universes, and extraterrestrial life. Science fiction can trace its roots to ancient mythology. It is related to fantasy, horror, and superhero fiction and contains many subgenres. Its exact definition has long been disputed among authors, critics, scholars, and readers.
Ridley ScottSir Ridley Scott (born 30 November 1937) is a British filmmaker. He is best known for directing films in the science fiction, crime, and historical drama genres, and his work is known for its atmospheric and highly concentrated visual style. Scott has received many accolades throughout his career, including the BAFTA Fellowship for lifetime achievement from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 2018, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Golden Globe Award. In 2003, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
ReplicantA replicant is a fictional bioengineered humanoid featured in the 1982 film Blade Runner and the 2017 sequel Blade Runner 2049 which is physically indistinguishable from an adult human and often possesses superhuman strength and intelligence. A replicant can be detected by means of the fictional Voight-Kampff test in which emotional responses are provoked; a replicant's nonverbal responses differ from those of a human. Failing the test leads to execution, which is euphemistically referred to as "retiring.
Blade Runner 2049Blade Runner 2049 is a 2017 American epic neo-noir science fiction film directed by Denis Villeneuve and written by Hampton Fancher and Michael Green. A sequel to the 1982 film Blade Runner, the film stars Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford, with Ana de Armas, Sylvia Hoeks, Robin Wright, Mackenzie Davis, Dave Bautista, and Jared Leto in supporting roles. Ford and Edward James Olmos reprise their roles from the original film. Gosling plays K, a Nexus-9 replicant "blade runner" who uncovers a secret that threatens to destabilize society and the course of civilization.
DystopiaA dystopia (), also called a cacotopia or anti-utopia, is a speculated community or society that is undesirable or frightening. It is often treated as an antonym of utopia, a term that was coined by Sir Thomas More and figures as the title of his best known work, published in 1516, which created a blueprint for an ideal society with minimal crime, violence, and poverty. The relationship between utopia and dystopia is in actuality, not one simple opposition, as many utopian elements and components are found in dystopias as well, and vice versa.
Philip K. DickPhilip Kindred Dick (December 16, 1928 March 2, 1982), often referred to by his initials PKD, was an American science fiction writer. He wrote 44 novels and about 121 short stories, most of which appeared in science fiction magazines during his lifetime. His fiction explored varied philosophical and social questions such as the nature of reality, perception, human nature, and identity, and commonly featured characters struggling against elements such as alternate realities, illusory environments, monopolistic corporations, drug abuse, authoritarian governments, and altered states of consciousness.
Blade RunnerBlade Runner is a 1982 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott, and written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples. Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Edward James Olmos, it is an adaptation of Philip K. Dick's 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The film is set in a dystopian future Los Angeles of 2019, in which synthetic humans known as replicants are bio-engineered by the powerful Tyrell Corporation to work on space colonies.
Android (robot)An android is a humanoid robot or other artificial being often made from a flesh-like material. Historically, androids were completely within the domain of science fiction and frequently seen in film and television, but advances in robot technology now allow the design of functional and realistic humanoid robots. The Oxford English Dictionary traces the earliest use (as "Androides") to Ephraim Chambers' 1728 Cyclopaedia, in reference to an automaton that St. Albertus Magnus allegedly created.
Science fiction filmScience fiction (or sci-fi) is a film genre that uses speculative, fictional science-based depictions of phenomena that are not fully accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial lifeforms, spacecraft, robots, cyborgs, dinosaurs, mutants, interstellar travel, time travel, or other technologies. Science fiction films have often been used to focus on political or social issues, and to explore philosophical issues like the human condition.
CyberpunkCyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a dystopian futuristic setting that tends to focus on a "combination of lowlife and high tech", featuring futuristic technological and scientific achievements, such as artificial intelligence and cyberware, juxtaposed with societal collapse, dystopia or decay. Much of cyberpunk is rooted in the New Wave science fiction movement of the 1960s and 1970s, when writers like Philip K. Dick, Michael Moorcock, Roger Zelazny, John Brunner, J. G.