Willing Suspension of Disbelief

An odd title for those who haven't heard the term before, isn't it? Well let me explain what it means for those who don't know and how I got a first hand taste of it while watching Blade Runner.

The term "willing suspension of disbelief" was coined by the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1817. It basically refers to the fact that the audience, while watching/reading/listening to apiece of fiction, will ignore certain inconsistencies for the sake of the plot, because they are enjoying themselves. For example, when watching Rambo, you don't ask yourself how doesn't he run out of ammo, because you are entertained watching him kill stuff.

But I couldn't do that with Blade Runner. At the beginning I was quite intrigued with what is presented in the interview. But the moment they introduced Rick Decker, my curiosity started to fade away. I guess that I started to lose my interest because of how little Decker talked. I didn't know who he was or why I should care abaout what happened to him, so I didn't have any emotional attachment to him or anyone in particular, really.

And right there, I stopped suspending my disbelief. And the movie became a parade of unanswered questions and inconsistencies. For example:

• If the replicants are so dangerous, how come there's only one cop assigned to the case?
• If they are not, why put anyone after them? They're going to die anyway.
• Are they actually stronger that people? If so, how can Ford endure getting beat up so much? Why don't they just burst into the pyramid?
• How intelligent are they? They range from quiete clever (the one in the interview), to stupid (the girl) to genius (the blond one)
• If he's so intelligent, why does he need his creator?

What's the matter with the space colonies?:

• Is everyone there?
• If replicants are so dangerous, why aren't them banned in space?
• Why are they banned only on Earth if there is no one there?
• Why do you need combat replicants?

  I know that most of these questions have very reasonable answers, but the fact that I asked them during the movie meant that I couldn't pay attention to what was going on. So I don't have any deep reflection on what it means to be human or whether we should build robots that live only for 4 years. But so far this has been the only movie in the course that has had this kind of impression, so hopefully I'll get the chance to make a deeper analysis in the future.