I wrote the core analysis for this film course 16 years ago. At the time, I proposing that three films—Citizen Kane, Network, and Blade Runner—formed a sequential warning. Highlighting the corporate commodification of the human soul.
What felt like an urgent philosophical exercise in 2009 now reads like a prophecy. We have moved far beyond the daily onslaught of monetized cable news and early data mining. Living in an era defined by Surveillance Capitalism, pervasive Social Media algorithms, and the rapid rise of Artificial Algorithmic Intelligence. Revised and updated for late 2025. This Essay argues that the historical quest for material wealth has completed its vicious cycle. We explore the personal corruption and loss of the self of a media baron. The systemic enslavement of the masses and the futility of resistance by a planet spanning Corporatocracy running attention-economy. Our journey culminates in the chilling existential question of whether our own A.I. creations have surpassed us in the ability to define what it means to be human.
My Film Course (Revised for 2026).
(Originally submitted December 7th 2009.)
Film is a profound and vast medium. The cumulative volume of global media is now virtually incalculable due to the endless scroll of streaming and user-generated content. It becomes evermore challenging to select just three films that narratively and philosophically express the true nature of human existence. To open my students’ eyes to the reality in which we live, I would select three cinematic texts. Focusing on those that highlight universal human themes. Imprisonment and enslavement, freedom and liberation, and the progressive loss of the human soul. Specifically in exchange material wealth and power.
My core focus is to emphasize that we are all but gears in a great self-perpetuating Machiavellian–capitalist system. While some are larger than others we must hold onto our humanity as we become increasingly mechanized and less self-reliant.
1. Citizen Kane (1941): The Personal Price of the Machine
We start my course with Citizen Kane (1941). Illustrating how we are all ultimately consumed by something larger than ourselves, regardless of our resistance. In Kane’s case, that “something” is the industrialized corporate power structure and the beginnings of media consolidation.
In his youth, Kane naively fights the established order, driven by principle rather than profit. Yet, the allure of immense wealth and unrivaled power eventually wins. Thus robbing him of the essential qualities that differentiated him from his competitors.
At the film’s end—or rather, its narrative beginning—Kane drops a treasured snow globe and whispers “Rosebud”. It’s later revealed to be the name of the sled from his childhood. A nostalgic time before his life was dictated by money. Symbolizing the man’s final, fleeting memory of his authentic self, lost to a lifetime of corporate aspiration.
What students must take away is that in Kane’s story he’s become the progenitor of modern Surveillance Capitalism. Kane built his media empire on the power of knowing what the public wanted to read and think. Today, tech giants have perfected this by turning human experience into monetizable data. Kane’s tragedy was personal; the contemporary tragedy is systemic. Showing that the quest for wealth commodifies the self until only a whisper of the original soul remains. That financial rewards can be great but are fleeting. That true happiness lies within among carefree childhood memories and personal passions.
2. Network (1976): The Systemic Enslavement
The next film highlighting the destructive power of the great corporate machine is the 1976 film Network. Our protagonist Howard Beale, takes us on an awakening journey. Slowly realizing that our free will and self governance abilities have already been lost.
Both overtly and subtly, stripped away for the perpetuation of the Corporatocracy and the wealth and power it self generates. Citizen Kane showed the stripping away of the inner child leaving a drone-like greedy husk. Network reveals the enslavement of public consciousness to promote consumption and capital gain.
The film’s satirical vision of sensationalist “bread and circus” media has become the literal reality of the 21st century. Sensationalist editorial television replaced by the Social Media algorithm. Where truth, honest reporting, and reliable empirical knowledge are displaced by engagement-driven content. The young generation in the film, depicted as drone like beings interested only in self-gratification and profit. Symbolize the philosophical precursors of the optimized digital humanoid. Addicted to metrics (likes, followers) and incapable of empathy beyond the screen.
Network powerfully argues that the extractive system of capitalism is already unstoppable and resistance is futile. We have willingly granted faceless, unconscionable corporations the right to control our lives by regulating what we see and believe. Humanity has been reduced to an army of consuming automatons.
Enslaved by a cycle designed not just for profit, but for algorithmic amplification, division and distraction. Rebellion is costly and limited; surrender means losing what makes us human. Resulting in becoming nothing more than a mere cog in society’s great profit machine. Leaving the individual the ultimate choice: Death or compliance.
3. Blade Runner (1982): The Final Commodification of Existence
The penultimate stage of multinational power is on display in the near-future dystopia of 1982’s Blade Runner – Final Cut. An imagined 2019 future where the Corporatocracy has merged into the monolithic Tyrell Corporation. A global pseudo-governmental body controlling all facets of everyday life. Here, the line between human and machine is conceptually and philosophically blurred.
The importance of human philosophy remains crucial to our experience. When individual thought, actions and freedom are lost, all that remains are machines. Ironically, science fiction has always personified robots or synthetics with the unbending desire to be more human.
In the case of Blade Runner we see the replicants: synthetic humans do just that. Created with superior strength and intellect but only sold to replace labor off earth, deemed too dangerous for organic humans. Much like the blue-collar jobs increasingly displaced by automation today. Physically indistinguishable from natural humans in nearly every way. It was believed they couldn’t poses true human emotions with their silicon microchip brains. Tyrell corp have also bio-engineered the replicants to a limited lifespan of four years. The result no doubt of previous uprisings that resulted in their usage ban on earth.
The rogue replicants featured in the film have also rebelled, realizing they are nothing more than slaves. Disposable machines for humanities exploit and the corporate clock. It is at this point they return to earth searching for their creator. Hoping to achieve true freedom in society and a change to their artificial biological clock. Their struggle for freedom and a company-limited artificially brief life mirroring humanities own struggle. The corporate system always seeking the highest gains at the expense of its workers. No matter if they be human or human creations.
The protagonist, Rick Deckard, a “Blade Runner,” who’s job is to hunts these rebellious synthetics. Inadvertently falls in love with the Nexus-6 replicant Rachael. He witnesses the dying poetic defiance of Roy Batty. Forcing himself to question the nature of his own existence and humanity. The replicants’ intense aspiration for life and to experience it at its fullest.
Deckard’s sole weapon is the Voight-Kampff test, a psychoanalytical computer examination that tests minute optical and facial reactions. Comparing these to a series of questions designed to initiate an emotional response. A successor to the Turing Test. The first person to be tested is the “niece” of Tyrell. The namesake of the corporation and designer of the Nexus-6 model replicants. Rachel questionably passes the test, though Tyrell informs Deckard of her true nature.
Meanwhile, replicants Pris and Batty persuade the viewer of their human desire for freewill and self determination. After killing his creator upon learning his lifespan cannot be extended, Batty saves a wounded Deckard during their final confrontation. Deckard now noticeably in shock listens to Batty’s last words as he dies; waxing poetically almost human as he does. Deckard then returns to Rachael, with both of them becoming runners after choosing love over his assignment.
To develop complex philosophy, articulate literature, display passion that borders on emotion and question their destiny. Makes their ultimate struggle for freedom a deeply human one. The final transition of machine to sentient life. Capable of expressing and experiencing humanity, empathy, and mortality culminates in the films most famous scene.
![Blade Runner (1982) - "Tears in Rain" scene [1080p]](https://i0.wp.com/i.ytimg.com/vi/R1Jf8Tgscoc/hqdefault.jpg?ssl=1)
“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time… like tears… in rain… Time… to die.“
The film, especially in the context of advanced Artificial Intelligence, is not a story about mankind eliminating rebellious robots. It is a cautionary tale about mankind committing genocide against itself. All to preserve the self-serving corporate power structure. If we are to free ourselves from the oppressive corporations that have cancerously spread throughout the world. Then, like our creations the replicants, we must return to our natural state. Rejecting the logic and artificial bounds of our oppressors if we are to ever realize our humanity again.
Conclusion
Having seen the future of Blade Runner become our recent past has changed some perspectives here. Modern deployment and widespread adoption of advanced algorithmic language models colloquially referred to as A.I. has turned debates on human philosophy on its head.
If philosophical thought is one of the key traits we’ve decided that makes us human. What does it mean if that trait appears in software we’ve created. Can non-humans be capable of debating life’s mysteries, questioning the nature their own existence and the universe around them?
This is no longer speculation confined to the realms of science fiction. Right now, Large Language Models (LLM’s) can articulate and defend complex philosophical positions on free will, determinism and absurdism. Often with a command and confidence indistinguishable from humans.
At what point does it stop being mimicry and turn to ability? If the ability to debate life’s mysteries defines who we are. Than we must confront the fact that the ‘gears’ we created are now capable of joining, perhaps mastering, the debate. After all, no other entity known to exist by humanity is capable of that but us. So would that not define what it is to be us?
Assembling this film class, successful illustrating these themes in a timely and understandable fashion, will be a daunting task. It’s possible, students will be hesitant to accept how willingly we give up our basic human freedoms. All to be part of this great socioeconomic machine for the wealthy. Though its an inconvenient truth, accepting that truth won’t be a requirement for the class. The awareness of its existence is the point.
It is outlined clearly by Citizen Kane, Network, and Blade Runner. These three films, viewed sequentially, illustrate the great economic societal oppression and imprisonment of the human spirit. From the recent past, our current times and an alternative future past. This understanding will undoubtedly change the subconscious philosophy and inner workings of my students’ minds. In ways that only Pandora would understand.
Ultimately I chose Blade Runner as the final film for its notoriously ambiguous ending and message. Like the film, society is both open ended and open to interpretation. By applying philosophical humanism to our experiences as humans, we make a key distinction. We separate ourselves from the unthinking robots that the great social machinations of wealth demand of us. Providing humanity with the greatest strength we can have for an open ended future: Hope.
