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Blade Runner: The Bleak Future of the Earth

This was the first time that I have seen a science fiction movie from the 1980s, and it was actually very good. Although the movie was not supposed to be THAT optimistic, the way that they thought the “future” would look was very…dark. Everything is very gloomy and depressing, whereas in today’s films about the future, you see things as light and airy. Then again, in the movie, it was a time where people could move to other planets, so maybe Earth was becoming the “bad” and neglected neighborhood of the solar system. It kind of shows us that the Earth has a bleak future, and that with human advancement comes neglect to the areas that get left behind.
They showed that the bleak, crowded city of LA was modern, with its flying cars, but at the same time it so resembles all of the dangerous neighborhoods that we see everyday. They have the symbols of corporations with the big ads and buildings, but the poor areas that people are living in, showing that in the future, we will progress, but it will come at a cost (doesn’t it always?)
Overall, I liked the plot of the movie and the questions that it raised, like what are the basic characteristics of humanity.
Dalya Abdel-Atti

The Future Portrayed in Blade Runner

In the film Blade Runner, the main plot revolves around removing any remaining robots known as Replicants. Since the year 2019 is not so far off, the idea of highly advanced robots serving the world or creating problems does not seem completely feasible. Throughout the film, technology appears to be one of the most important factors when thinking about the future; some cars are able to fly, advanced robot engineering is a major industry, huge holograms for advertisements are seen through the city, and at-home appliances are advanced. However, there is also a mix of advanced futuristic buildings or technology and items from the past. For example, I noticed when Deckard is brought in to the police station that it looked like an ordinary, stuffy office. I think there were also fans, which showed that this office did not have air conditioning or had any major advanced technologies. This may reveal that money is still a significant factor to be able to own the technology even at that time in the future. The police cars were able to fly, though, making locations more accessible to the police. The pyramid-like building for the Tyrell Corp. is very unique and the architecture makes it look powerful and dominating. Its appearance would indicate that whatever it holds has a powerful position in the area. This would describe the Tyrell Corporation since it provides an innovative technology.
It is also mentioned that most of the population had gone to the other world but there are still a lot of people living on this planet.

Some people are left behind

The streets always appear to be very crowded and the atmosphere always seems very gloomy. Many of the buildings are skyscrapers to fit as much as possible into a minimal amount of space or land. Deckard’s apartment was on the 97th floor and he did not have a very cramped living space. The city is clearly still very urban and the streets and a few buildings seem to be run down, dirty, and unkempt. The city resonates with some of the aspects of today’s world. There still appears to be poverty and the environment around us can be deteriorating to have such effects as the one in the film. There were signs of pollution and the city appeared to be mainly industrial. The film hints at the consequences of environmental and technological problems that are usually man-made. But technology has made great positive contributions…
-Shaziya Ali

A Waterfall of Potential

New York City is an interesting place in that much of it is surrounded by water, but the water itself is considered untouchable. City of Water is a documentary that addresses the enigmatic relationship people have with the New York City waterfront and their questions about why they can’t interact with it. People find the waterfronts of NY to be beautiful but not much more than that. Many New Yorkers grow up with the misconception that their water is too polluted to have any real interaction with. This message is compounded by the fact that the city gets all of its water from upstate New York. you mean drinking water?

City of Water has two main themes: why a working waterfront is important, and its current progression into a useful entity for New Yorkers. There is a rush on behalf of the government to “reform the waterfront.” The importance of a working waterfront lies in its practicality. The elimination of a working New York City port meant a loss of jobs for a lower-income community. The waterfront is also important because one barge can carry the load of one thousand trucks. This not only lessens the traffic of NY streets, but it also greatly reduces the amount of fuel that would have been burned to run thousands of automobiles. Interviewees in the film claim that New York “could have had the greatest port in the world.” However, Robert Moses aided in the destruction of the waterfront by building vast highways all along the edges of the island, and much of the waterfront’s potential was disregarded in lieu of cars. do you buy this argument? rail is the most efficient in moving freight and we have the infrastructure…

Communities have stressed the need to diversify the waterfront and not just slap a series of luxury buildings along the edges. It takes the effort of a community to beautify the waterfront and create access to it. Recent triumphs by communities near bodies of New York City water have helped to take some of the stigma away from the waterfront. New parks and walking/bike paths have been constructed in order to both beautify the waterfront and try to get some use out of areas that were once considered scary and unapproachable. The main problem with this community approach, however, is that much of the emphasis is put on waterfront access and not access to the water itself. “There’s no interconnection between land and water,” as a man in the film put it.

Plans for the waterfront include more accommodations for water transport such as ferries. The Staten Island ferry is the only ferry used for real transportation. but its free. Also, communities have also begun urging people to get into the water itself, whether to take a quick dip, or for a serious swim. If more people swim in the water, the fed is responsible for maintaining the health of the water. After all, it is within the right of the people to utilize the water as they see fit. Much of the movie’s emphasis is that if more people are in the water itself, they will feel more of a connection to it and therefore feel prompted to help get it rightly cleaned and used. seems like wishful thinking - what’s the evidence they cited? Ming Fearon

City of Waterfront

The film was brief but its thirty minutes were packed with information. Facts were gathered and opinions were developed to provide awareness and then formulate a decision about what must be done with New York City’s waterfront space. For me, the view from inside the B train while it crosses the bridge is pretty much all the industrial waterfront that I am familiar with on a regular basis. The Hudson and East River waterfronts make swell promenade spaces on days of fair weather. I must admit that I was never disturbed by the lack of contact with water in this super dense urban setting before I watched this film. There is a reason for this disinterest and it is the result of not ever having to walk for more than ten minutes to get to a beach. Since I live by Coney Island, it is easy to be consistent in my routine of visiting the beach, boardwalk, or ocean at least twice a week or more. I cannot imagine living without it and City of Water snapped me face to face with the reality that everybody deserves this kind of option in their daily life. Nevertheless, people who live in this area of Brooklyn sacrifice space, travel time, and other perks of Manhattan living while still being subjected to urban crowdedness and pollution. Still it cannot benefit the city, especially the communities that happen to be closest to the water, to never actually get to enjoy its view or swim in it. It will require massive amounts of time and capital to undo the damage and rebuild, so that New Yorkers could understand and enjoy what it means to live surrounded by a body of water. Valentina

City of Water: Repairing New York’s Resources.

Along with factual details about the unrealized capabilities of New York City’s water and waterfront land, the film City of Water also highlights the discrepancies surrounding efforts to revitalize New York’s coastline. Almost all of the individuals interviewed in the film expressed a feeling of disconnect between themselves, as new Yorkers, and the water encircling the city in which they live. Multiple people in the video stated that growing up in New York, they were vaguely aware of the existence of water around the city, but never personally got to see or utilize it. Attempting to repair this mentality of disengagement, various suggestions are put forward throughout the film for the revitalization of the water. The film notes that many purposes for which the waterfront may be utilized, such as for the construction of apartment buildings, would still bar the public from the water itself. Although people would be allowed increased visual access to the water, the shore would not be within reach, and the actual water would continue to be unfit to enjoy. Efforts to clean up the water in order to create a future in which New Yorkers are able to benefit from the city’s surrounding rivers is explored, as the film shows a man who discusses his hobby of fishing in the river and eating his catches. City of Water also displays a group of people swimming in the river, again connoting the opportunities that will become available if the endeavors to revitalize the water continue.
Like many of the people in the film, I have always been only hazily aware of the rivers surrounding New York. I shared in the sentiment described in the film, of knowing that water exists around New York, but being guided by the assumption that the water is polluted beyond salvation. However, the film makes clear an obtainable alternative to this passive ignorance of a valuable resource. Attempts to repair the water and permit New Yorkers to walk along side it, and perhaps even swim recreationally in the water continue improve to the water quality. Numerous organizations are acting to make the rivers communally accessible. Some approaches require little more than funding and natural provisions, such as the organization Solar One’s work to plant oysters, which consume sewage and in effect filter the water, in the East River. Such efforts reflect developments back toward a time in which the rivers surrounding New York were actual usable ecosystems rather than near sewage grounds, and both humans and animals could utilize the water healthily. The implications of both City of Water and of current happenings concur on the notion that human action can cease to destroy New York’s water, and in fact, transform it into a versatile advantage. Anna J Fitting.

Blade Runner: City Life in 2019

The movie “Blade Runner” follows blade runner, Rick Deckard’s, search for four “replicants” in Los Angeles in the year 2019.  There were two aspects of this movie that I found extremely interesting. The first was how the film’s makers constructed the L.A. city of 2019. The city was completely consumed by buildings reaching enormous heights.  Cars could barely make their way through the crowds any more, so most of the cars could fly. The cities night skyline was not only broken by the headlights of aviator cars, but also by the blaring lights of several stories high video screens and blinking messages attached to hovering blimps.

The second aspect of the film that I found really interesting, was the constant theme of what makes a human human. During the movie we find out that this one woman, Rachel, is a replicant, but she doesn’t know it until the middle of the film when she finds out what she really is, but has trouble excepting it because she feels herself to be human so deeply. Even Deckard cannot kill her, as his job description dictates, because even though she is a replicant in life span, four years, she is so completely a human in every other aspect. The character of Rachel forces one to consider what a human really is.  “Blade Runner” proved to be a very interesting portrayal of both city form and human identity in 2019 Katie Horner Have you seen Vanilla Sky?

Getting Around in The Future

Overall, I thought the city created for Blade Runner seemed pretty realistic: the opening scene in the noodle shop reminded me of the narrow, crowded streets in Chinatown, the aerial shots of the enormous animated billboards looked like they were taken in Times Square, and even that big ugly pyramid could have been the cousin of one of those humongous structures they’re building in Dubai these days (or were building, before all the workers maxed out their credit cards and bought one-way tickets home). But one thing that bothered me about the city, and also Frank Lloyd Wright’s and Le Corbusier’s cities, was the reliance on flying cars. I’m not an engineer or anything, but I’m pretty sure that dense aerial traffic of the kind depicted in Blade Runner would result in lots of spectacular mid-air collisions, and would be ludicrously expensive in terms of fuel besides. I can forgive it in a movie because it looks so cool and because movies are just entertainment, etc., but I have a problem with professional urban planners blithely assuming that flying cars will solve otherwise intractable problems of traffic congestion. I realize that they came up with their plans a long time ago and that flying cars must have seemed just around the corner or something, but it seems like a bad idea to expect people to take you seriously when your vision for the future relies on technology that’s still entirely in the planning stages. Read David Brooks “I dream of Denver” oped in the New York Times last week. It seems planners are perpetually dreaming. Tom Held

Blade Runner - A Future Failing the Past

When one imagines a futuristic city, one usually imagines it to be sleek, shiny, and metallic with amazing and practical technological advancements. Though the city of Los Angeles in Blade Runner is technologically advanced with flying cars, voice activated elevators, and Replicant human beings, the city itself actually looks very old. The architecture is intricate and mostly made of stone, reminiscent of the past. There are large stone round pillars, tiles detailed with interesting geometric designs, and even statues resembling those of Ancient Greek and Rome. However, everything is run down. The pillars and tiles are dirty and cracked, and the statues are broken and forgotten in a deserted apartment building, showing just how far civilization has fallen despite and because of its greed for technology – when really it should have been focusing on taking care of what it already had. Kristan Melo

Blade Runner: Imagined Futuristic Cities V.S. The Real Future

It’s always interesting to watch sci-fi futuristic movies twenty years after the films were made, and see where people thought the world was headed and the actual direction the world is going in. One of the largest examples of this is flying cars. For a while now, the public and sci have been expecting flying cars, which would completely change the dynamic of a city’s space. As of now, while we have high-rises and sky scrapers, they either tower over us or we are within them. Flying cars, as evident in the movie, would completely change the way civilians interact with the space. However, it does not seem like we are developing in that direction. First of all, the recent focus on the environment and the need to curb our carbon emissions. Flying cars would take up a lot more energy, and, since air could be used as a road, the addition of space would lead to the addition of more cars. Altogether, it does not seem that flying cars agree with the environment. I also think that flying cars would make keeping a city under control MUCH more difficult. If there were 4 “layers” of air roads, the would be 4 times as made streets to patrol. It also means many more accidents, ect. (One thing that is not completely clear in the movie is whether the general public has acces to flying cars, or just officials and the very wealthy, which would make a little more sense.)

Another interesting point in the movie was the architecture itself. One particularly interesting building was the Tyrell Corporation headquarters. On the outside, the building was grounded and overbearing, with a large, potent base and upper levels that scaled inward, giving the building a shape very reminiscent of the Forbidden City and/or Egyptian Pyramids. The inside of the building was supported by large columns that reaffirmed the notion of power and stability. I found it interesting that the interior of the building was not very modern at all. Most corporate buildings are modern dwelings for the rich are designed with a lot of glass and the style that we now consider “modern”. In fact, aside from the large advertisements, most of the architecture and interiors in the movie do not display the characterisitics of “modern” design. The colors used for most of the movie are dark, and dreary instead of the prisitine whites and glass now associated with the modern world. I realize that the movie is trying to make the point that a L.A. will not be torn down and re-built with perfect, modern buildings, and that vestiges of the past will remain. However, when I look at how quickly New York City changes, (just yesterday, I went to lincon center, which I hadn’t been to for just a few weeks, and there was an entire new glass building that I had never seen before), I feel that the future may have its “ghettos” but it will also have its fair share of modern condos.

Something I found very interesting was the fact that while the makers made large leaps in predicting tthere would be flying cars and “replicants” they did not forsee other advances in technology. All the buttons on the electronic devices were old fashioned. While there were computers in the car and office, there were no all-in-one personal computers such as the laptops and printers/scanners which, for example, Rick Deckard would have used to amplify the photograph instead of a very outdated, old T.V.-looking “photo ampliphier”. Also, another interesting point is that because Japan was seen as the emerging power at the time, the movie emphasizes a Japanese influence in the future (the ads were of Japanese women, the take-out was a sushi place, and the cop who Rick Deckard works for is Japanese and makes origami). Had the movie been made now, a similar emphasis would have been placed of China instead. Perhaps one of the most important lessons in the movie now is that the future is unfathomable and victim to unpridictable changes and advances. While we can predict and forsee and fear, the many problems of the future and for now, unknown.

Natalia Malone

Blade Runner

The underlying theme within the film Blade Runner appears to be that mans obsession with using technology to create a replica of himself and to essentially possess the power of God has resulted in mutiny and created chaos within Los Angeles. Man managed to create a weapon that is capable of destroying human kind. The Los Angeles of the future appears to represent the consequences of technology it is overcrowded and overly industrial. Every square inch of the city is covered with skyscrapers and enormous unattractive billboards; the sun does not reach the city. The city air looks thick and it is constantly raining. Life within the city is one of misery, overcrowding and corruption; crime is rampant. The sense of community does not appear to exist within the city walls. The film serves as a warning that people need to be aware of the consequences that abusing technology and industrialization have on the natural environment. Alexandra Koenig

Blade Runner Response

Blade Runner presents the future in a deceptive light for despite large advances in technological capabilities, societies fail to provide its citizens with primordial living conditions. While large corporations display their mountains of wealth in the form of buildings, ordinary citizens are forced to live in slum-like conditions, being a portrayal of vast economic inequality. Mankind’s advances only benefit a selected, privileged few, taking a negative toll on all life, including the environment.

Director Ridley Scott presents these issues as a reminder of the price of human progress. Much like Mary Shelley’s portrayal of technology as a dangerous force in Frankenstein, Scott reminds viewers of the importance of caution in the human path of progress. In other words, mankind’s basic needs should be prioritized over individual interests. Man must acknowledge his limitations to pursue correct decisions, risking a quasi-apocalyptic future as depicted in Blade Runner. It is remarkable how many of the ideas depicted in the film are closely tied to current 21st century issues such as genetic engineering (cloning), climate change, and overpopulation. Clearly, the film’s notion of the future, though exaggerated, has close ties to reality. good observations! Leondaro Freire

Movie Comment: Buildings and the Layout

Blade Runner is a sci-fi film starring Harrison Ford in the role of blade runner, a futuristic hunter of robots gone loose and who represent a menace to society. While the plot and acting are superb, the depiction of the futuristic society is rather grim. The city is a metropolis in terms of its infrastructure and the type of buildings. Even the smallest buildings are what we today would consider skyscrappers. There are huge holographic advertisements on the walls of the buildings. However, the most impressive aspect of the city is the alien-like ziggurat which is located in the center of the city. It makes for an impressive city plan with the main building in the center. The building is a robot construction facility which indicates the importance of robots and their taming in the futuristic society of Harrison Ford. I think that such a layout with “townhall” a massive building in the center is a very good way to design a city. Such a layout is organized and efficient. However, in the movie, the ziggurat seemed to be much larger than any other surrounding structure, which I believe was simply made to enhance the effect on the viewer and in actuality should not be that much larger than the surrounding constructions. Boris Fligelman

Blade Runner

My friend told me that he considered Blade Runner one of the greatest, classic sci-fi movies ever. I wasn’t really impressed; perhaps because it’s not really my kind of movie. By the middle, I had already lost interest. The setting of the movie seems very typical of futuristic movies; although I have never watched it before, it seems oddly familiar.I suppose imitation is the best form of flattery - this movie has been copied by later sci-fi movies, think Matrix, Fifth Element, Minority Report..

I noticed in the movie that the weather is always snowy or rainy in Los Angeles. In my opinion, it is rather claustrophobic, kind of like the towering buildings and lights in Times Square. Although they are far advanced with flying vehicles and such, I do not consider 2019 in the movie to be of any real development.

Mostly, it reminded me of the way my friends who went on a missions trip described what they saw. They went to a little, rather secluded village in Nicaragua and said that the people there had their priorities mixed up; in their little tin shacks they had massive sound systems and big screen TVs bought with money saved up by reselling little trinkets and things they found rummaging through the city dump and other far less than prestigious ways of making money. We should talk about this some more - I don’t see the connections you are trying to make. In the movie, technology may have exceeded the way it is today but their quality of life had not improved. Kayt Chang

Response to Blade Runner

Blade Runner begins with a helicopter view of a futuristic city. Despite the artificial lighting, the place seems dark. However, the buildings are all tall, managing the population well, and the flying cars increase space, leaving less traffic on the roads. Despite the well-managed density, however, there is no sense of community and the place is impersonal. Giant electronic advertisement boards make it seem like an exaggerated version of our own time square and so it does seem like a possible future to me. I think the depressing atmosphere is caused by the lack of nature. There are no trees and the only animals present are artificial. The roads look unorganized and sanitation is lacking. This movie shows the importance of aesthetics and how plants can drastically change a city. The rainy weather in the movie seems to be a result of climate change, probably due to all of the pollution. This may be our future if we don’t take charge of our environmental soon. Interesting Saira Hafeez

Alexandra Koenig 2-11-09

Ridley Scott directed the film Blade Runner in 1982. The Science fiction thriller is set in the not so distant future during the year 2019 and takes place and in Los Angeles. The film revolves around Rick Deckard a policeman from the L.A.P.D’s Blade Runner unit who is searching for six artificially created humans known as “replicants”. The replicants have predetermined short life spans and have returned to earth to find their creator. It is illegal for “replicants” to be on earth as the result of a bloody battle on what is known as an “Off-World” colony during which replicants killed a number of humans. The underlying theme within the film appears to be that mans obsession with using technology to create a replica of himself and to essentially possess the power of God has resulted in mutiny and created chaos within the city of Los Angeles. Man managed to create a weapon that is capable of destroying human kind.
Los Angeles for many today represents Hollywood, it is a city of hope and dreams this is not the Los Angeles presented in Blade Runner. The Los Angeles in the film is a society riddled with corruption and chaos. The Los Angeles of the future appears to represent the consequences of technology it is overcrowded and overly industrial. Every square inch of the city is covered with skyscrapers and enormous unattractive billboards; the sun does not reach the city. The city air looks thick and it is constantly raining. Life within the city is one of misery, overcrowding and corruption; crime is rampant. The sense of community does not appear to exist within the city walls. Mankind has destroyed the natural environment there no longer seems to be natural wildlife but only synthetic genetically engineered animals.
I disagree with Ridley Scotts view of the future I do not believe that in the next ten years the world will fall into complete chaos. I do believe the film contains some valid warnings in regards to the abuses of technology and the environment. Although technology has many benefits in regards to conveniences and things like health care, technology can also be extremely dangerous. Technology can be used to destroy and alter society for the worse when abused. The film also serves as a warning that people need to be aware of the damage that industrialization has on the environment and on nature as a whole. The pollution, which results from large cities, poses a real threat to our future. Environmental issues such as global warming need to be addressed soon in order to avoid a future such as the one seen in Blade Runner.

Blade Runner Response

Blade Runner is a science fiction film set in Los Angeles in 2019. The world is overpopulated, climatically different, and incredibly advanced. The majority of buildings are geometrically shaped as triangles or rectangles. Much of the movie is set at nighttime, when almost every part of L.A. seems light up with excess lighting from the buildings. The population density seems so large that monstrous buildings and flying cars are required to reduce the otherwise congested population and traffic respectively.

Advancement outside of architecture and vehicles is so far down the line that replicants or androids become a topic of concern for this future Earth. This was especially interesting because it was impossible to distinguish between man and machine because both exhibited near identical characteristics, although the androids were physically superior in every way except for their accelerated aging. Morality becomes an issue here because it’s at a far different level than the controversial cloning from stem cells of today. Life is being created by splicing together and altering the best genes man has to offer. This brings up the question of whether or not man should be allowed play the role of God, but at a higher level than today!

Although the film introduces some curious topics, it is flawed in one, irritating way. Yes, every building is futuristic on the outside, but what about the inside? There is nothing advanced in terms of design or technology about the interiors of these futuristic edifices except for the zoom in and voice recognition feature of Deckard’s computer and maybe the blow drier Zhora uses. But even this technology is relatively old at our current world. In terms of being creative and seeing into future technologies, the producers of the film utterly failed and belittled man’s ingenuity. Raj Matthew

Boris Fligelman agrees.

When Horses are Just as Good as Electric Unicorns - Ancient Problems in Future Societies

Blade Runner, a sci-fi film set in a dystopian Los Angeles in 2019, presents a city and its people surrounded by cutting edge technologies, but embedded in an ancient culture.

Power and human achievement are prevalent themes throughout the film. Director Ridley Scott immediately introduces us to his symbol for human achievement - the pyramid. The first tracking shot scans the facade of a futuristic pyramid equipped with what appears to be aircraft landing docks and other platforms. Its design parallels that of Egyptian pyramids in color, shape, and magnitude. I would imagine that a monstrous skyscraper or a massive hovering craft would have been more appropriate with what constitutes future super-structures. Yet, we are expected to believe that despite over two millenia of architectural knowledge, mankind would still build structures like that of the ancient Egyptians.

Slavery is another major theme represented by the race of superhuman replicants - the Nexus 6. The Nexus 6 replicants are a gifted race of slaves endowed with super human strength and intelligence. These slaves, whose only forgivable act of defiance is a desire to live, parallel the lives of Egyptian slaves. Only the strongest slaves could survive and withstand the lash of the whip while constructing the pyramids of ancient Egypt. Now the Nexus 6 are subordinate to the human race, stationed in distant Off-World colonies, bound to build and create pyramids of the future. Like the ancient Egyptian slaves the four fugitive replicants make their exodus, in search of answers from their maker - in this case Tyrell - and the hope for a full life.

Finally, the city of Los Angeles is in a state of urban decay in 2019. Overpopulation and pollution are a major problem in this futuristic city. The effect of these two factors trickle down into the communities. Overcrowded shopping centers, food plazas, and residential areas are wrought with litter and covered in grime. The sense of decay is further accentuated by the glow of neon lights and sloppy make shift banners. As Deckard prowls the streets looking for the replicants, he is constantly drenched in rain which provides a dreary atmosphere to the already gritty-looking community.

Ridley Scott’s vision of Los Angeles in the year 2019 clashes with general notions of what kinds of structures and environments constitute the ideal future city. Scott’s presentation of ancient structures, slavery, and urban decay suggest that techonology cannot remedy all of our issues. Despite our greatest achievements there are aspects of urban life and society that will prove eternal. Jim Brian Estil

Blade Runner Response

Blade Runner is a film taking place in the first quarter of the 21st century based on the fears of 20th century individuals. Released in the 1980s, Blade Runner deals with issues of genetic engineering, globalization, overpopulation, climate change, and urbanization through a dystopian lens.

The film shows Los Angeles in the year 2019. The city is overrun by massive structures, casting a dark shadow over the already muggy streets. This sentiment towards how the future cities will look questions whether this idea is generated from fear or out of future necessity.

So far the film’s projection has not come into actuality, but it may well do so. Overpopulation and urbanization may lead to severe overcrowding. The solution to overcrowding with limited land is to build up towards the sky. Environmental degradation may so dramatically alter the earth that we will be forced to stay indoors. In turn, we will have heavily fortressed mega-skyscrapers in concentration to accommodate and protect our sizeable population. We will create technology to bring what we use to enjoy outside, inside. We will have artificial lives. Christian Ramsay

City of Water

The overarching theme of the film involves a full restoration of the harbor so that it can once again become the popular waterfront it once was. Several who spoke out in the documentary felt that maintaining an active approach would be most appropriate. “Just jump in and swim.”

I believe that each of these ideas is a step in the right direction since there is certainly power in numbers. However, I do believe that the documentary could have discussed less of the problem and more of an actual solution. In addition to gathering a group of advocates, the film should have included a next step. This next step would involve raising money to have the waterfront cleansed of all pollutants. Once it has been cleansed, action should be taken to avoid further pollution of the river. For instance, during rainfall, water that is flushed into sewage treatment centers from homes is later released into the river. A third step would involve prevention of this process. Sapna Kishnani

related to the themes raised in City of Water. H2O (From Highlands to Ocean) by Tony Hiss.