Blade Runner - Opening Scene Analysis

Blade Runner opens with a long shot of a dystopian inferno; a skyline thick with smog and almost completely dark, the foreign environment raises questions with the audience, what happened? Was their some sort of disaster? The image created is one similar to hell, in the biblical sense, there is no nature. The palette of colours used, dark greens, blacks and browns; clue us in that this is not a pleasant place to live. The directors was of tracking the camera forward in a slow, steady way; gives the audience the effect of being pulled in. This is used to invest you further into the movie. 

In between the shots of a murky Los Angeles, we get extreme close ups of a unknown eye. This again builds a sense of mystery within the audience, its a well know fact that you can almost tell what another person is thinking just by looking them in the eye; whether that is pupil dilation or just showing emotion. The eye itself is reflecting the dire city we saw in the opening shot, this leaves the audience to wonder, are they in awe of the carnage or are they in shock.