Are you studying it with reference ti "In the Wild?" Anyway basically I am reading from an old Excel Advanced English HSC guide.
The elective looks at how humanity is linked to the natural world. BNW and BR are futuristic fantasies, that deal with how humanity is separated from its natural origins and "subjected to the power of technology." Scott and Huxley both create images of futuristic science/technology wildernesses.
Studying the two texts together one difference between them is that BR does not describe a retreat from the evil and there is no equivalent of the savage reservation in BNW in the Scott's film.
Excel says a knoweldge of both texts in their own right is essential and then to consider how they interact paying particular attention to how "the ideas in Huxley's novel are refelcted in Scott's film and how in similar and different ways the novelist adn director costruct ideas of the wild in their works.
BNW is a fictional novel dealing with the portryal of an ideal society. Such ficitonal works are described as "utopian" Utopia being the name for any ideal society.
Huxley was aware that utopian societies could at any point become coercive. In the twentieth century the two best known dystopias are those described by Huxley in BNW ( title comes form Shakespeare's play The Tempest
Miranda:Oh brave new world that has such poeple in it..) the other great dystopic book was George Orwell's 1984 ( the movie version gives you a agood idea of the novel) Orwell was criticising the Soviet Communism.
Going back to Huxley and BNW - we see the novel has been uncannily accurate at prediciting things that have occurred. In BNW people are subdued by technology foreshadowing our own dependence on computers. Individuality must be suppressed ( novel) sex is separated from feelings, babies are born in test tubes and abortions are available on demand. Synthetic music ( compare with our musak in Woollies and lifts airports etc) is encountered everywhere and subliminal messages are piped by the Controller into babies' ears. Spirituality is mocked and, Christiantiy is ridiculed and instead "society worships the car and its creator- 'Our Ford' replaces 'Our Lord', who is also replaced by "our Freud' . ( a reference to Sigmund Freud the psychologist). History is rewritten to promote SPort and consusmerism. People are constantly distracted by trivia to prevent them from thinking about issues that are realy important.
Huxley is criticisisng totalitarianism - a form of dictatoria rule which allows no oppostion. He wrote his novel when Europe was being overtaken b conflcitig totalitarian regimes of Facisim ( Nazi Germany) and Communism ( Russia and the cold war)
Huxley's idea's about future technological socieites as oprressive tothe human spirit have taken up in Scott's BR.
BR is a film loosely based on Philip Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and the titile is taken from William S. Burroughs' novel about blackmarked surgeons. In the film's negaitive projection of a future technological society, Huxley's BNW may be included as a source as well although BR does not reproduce precise details of its plot.
to quote excel " the opening soundtrack has an eerie, haunting quality, punctuated with explosion-like sonds. This creates the audience's anticipation of a mysterious and disturbing experience. The opening text explains the origins of NEXUS replicants and refers to the genetic engineers who created them. Replicants replicate human being but are without emotion. They only live for four years. The role of the Tyrell Corproation in perfecting this technology is identified. Replicants are used to colonise other planets. SOme of them mutineid and were banned from returning to earth. Special Blade Runner squads have been established to kill any tresspassing replicants. ( I reckon that the text is relevant for how we have reacted currently to the threat of terrorism with rendidtions and security paraonia).
The hero Deckard is part of this nightmae world and the suspicion remains that he might be a replicant himself.
Both works present extremely negative views of future human socieities and both works critique the incerasing repression and enial of human emotions and the natural life of the senses.
The urban wilderness of BR the artificiality of such environments as the Tyrell headquartes and the decay of JF Sebastions' partment block indicate that humaity needs to begin again as is suggested in the off world colonies.
It's all pretty bleak stuff really but when you look at Mugabe you can see what happens when fear and money and brutality take ove a socieity.
Hope this helps
Gmez
