Recent Episode of Dreams of Future Past Podcast Explores the World of Blade Runner

What if the future wasn’t sleek and utopian, but messy, corporate-controlled, and neon-lit?  Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner flipped the script on science fiction when it hit theaters in 1982. Blade Runner was a ground-breaking film that explored what it meant to be human—and what the future meant for humanity.  On a recent episode of “Dreams of Future Past,” hosts McKay Featherstone, Greg Enslen, and Ian Spencer discussed the impact the movie had on science fiction and popular culture. 

Blade Runner: The Neon Blueprint for Our Future

Throughout history, people have imagined what the future might look like, sometimes in bold visions, and sometimes in outlandish predictions. Dreams of a Future Past is a podcast that explores how humanity has dreamed of the future through movies, technology, philosophy, and design. The show explores the future, both our version and past versions of what futurists, writers, and other creatives thought it would be like.

But what if the future wasn’t sleek and utopian, but messy, corporate-controlled, and neon-lit?  Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner flipped the script on science fiction when it hit theaters in 1982. Based on Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the film envisioned a decaying Los Angeles in 2019 that felt hauntingly real. Its influence can be seen in everything from The Matrix and Cyberpunk 2077 to our own urban skylines.

What It Got Right

The Cyberpunk Aesthetic: Syd Mead’s concept art of rain-soaked, neon-drenched cityscapes became the look of the future, Tokyo by way of noir.

AI & Humanity: The Voight-Kampff empathy test predicted today’s debates about consciousness and artificial emotion.

Urban Dystopia: Overcrowding, climate decay, and social division was once fiction, and now part of our global familiar headlines.

What It Missed and the Film’s Lasting Impact

Tech Timeline: Flying cars, replicants, and off-world colonies didn’t arrive on schedule.

From The Matrix to The Fifth Element, Blade Runner’s DNA runs through modern sci-fi. It's a world of glowing skies and corporate towers, reshaped how we imagine progress, and is less a warning and more a mirror.

Join Greg, Ian, and McKay as they explore this hugely influential movie and discuss how it has shaped the future we’ve already begun to live in.

Stay Tuned for upcoming episodes of Dreams of Future Past

New episodes of Dreams of Future Past drop every other Wednesday. Hosted by McKay Featherstone, Greg Enslen, and Ian Spencer, the show explores the ideas of retrofuturism in literature and pop culture. Throughout history, people have imagined the future through bold visions, uncanny predictions, and spectacular misfires. The Dreams of Future Past podcast explores those imagined futures from film, literature, and design to ask what they got right, what they missed, and what they still reveal about us today. 

The show is a production of Clock Tower Media – visit their website at www.clock-tower-media.com to learn more about Dreams of Future Past and the other podcasts they produce. Tune in to one of them—you might find a new favorite! Or find out more about starting your own – Clock Tower offers podcast production and hosting services.