Alien, Blade Runner, and Prometheus all display an interest in AI.
One of the most poignant final lines of any sci-fi character?
That replicant Roy Batty evokes such sympathy inBlade Runners dying moments.
Theyre duplicitous, inhumanly strong, and sometimes capable of grotesque acts of violence.
But Scott and his writers are careful to make them intelligent and sometimes noble too.
Heres a look at each of them in turn.
But look again at her performance and almost everyone elses at the start ofAlien.
Theres something oddly detached and distant about Ripley and her fellow crewmembers aboard the Nostromo.
Below-decks engineers Parker and Brett grumble about their low pay.
Captain Dallas is stern and terse.
Now, takingAlienon its own, this would probably seem like a flimsy argument.
At the start of the film, Batty and his gangs violent behaviour seems reprehensible.
But gradually, we learn the motivation behind it: theyre running out of time and becoming desperate.
Its little wonder that their behaviour is often so disarmingly, sometimes chillingly childlike.
As with Ash inAlien, its the replicants inBlade Runnerwho emerge as the more compelling characters.
The reasons for this could be to do withBlade Runners troubled shoot.
He doesnt make any sense.
Hes introduced as the detective hero, but he is not the hero, he is the bad guy.
Observe how he seems to enjoy telling archaeologist Elizabeth Shaw that shes carrying an alien abomination in her stomach.
ThePrometheus crew head off on their journey with hope and expectation.
What they find instead is existential horror and disillusionment (It must feel like your God abandoned you).
Duplicitous though he is, David still emerges as a sympathetic character.
Maybe, then, Davids experiments with alien goo arent a simple act of revenge.
This could be the fire he hopes to one day steal from the gods.
Like Frankensteins monster, the artificial people ofAlien,Blade Runner,andPrometheusare both alluring and disquieting.
Would it be cruel to give an artificial human the same emotions as us?
Thats why theFrankensteinstory has been so endlessly retold, both in official adaptations and in movies influenced by it.
And arent there shades of the monster inPrometheus David, too?
They may not be human, but their failings and their fears closely mirror our own.
This article originally appeared onDen of Geek UK.
