Cliche is exactly what gave blade runner depth. The juxtaposition of cliches that don't normally sit side by side was novel, the noir detective in a future L.A.

Cliche is exactly what gave blade runner depth. The juxtaposition of cliches that don't normally sit side by side was novel, the noir detective in a future L.A. was new, but it was deep because we already know the tragedy of the bitter drunken antihero gumshoe and the femme fatale, we already know about doomed rebellions, about evil corporations, about environmental destruction and desperate colonists fleeing a dying earth. If you can show us these things side by side, you don't need to explain, we recognize. though we've never seen a replicant bounty hunter getting korean noodles in the rain, we know all the pieces, we remember so much, that we only need a glimpse and we build the depth, the depth is in our shared memories, not on the screen.