The original book makes it crystal clear that the replicants came back to Earth from interstellar systems, the movie tries to make that point clearly but has obviously failed.
This is not a matter of interpretation, that is the whole deal.
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Yes, it’s interesting, but quite common. The distance to most stars further than a few tens of parsecs away is poorly known, as it can’t be measured directly for most types of stars. Most astronomical distances are estimates.
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Betelguese is fairly likely to go supernova within the next few thousand years. When it does it will outshine the full moon. It’s even possible this has already happened, but the light hasn’t yet reached us.
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The “shoulder of Orion” is only the “shoulder” when looked from the direction of Earth closer toward Earth than not. When “there” the stars are far apart and look nothing like anything. Dick probably was aware of this when he wrote the line. The line is mostly pretty sounding, not expository.
Tyrell tells Roy - ‘And you have seen so very much, haven’t you?’ in their dialogue before Roy kills him.
Another vote for Roy’s memories in his death speech are real.
You will never in a thousand lifetimes convince me that Deckard is anything but human. He may question whether he is or not, and he questions the morality of ‘killing’ replicants, but there’s the end of it.
It is only in the background but there is a blimp flying by advertising Off World colonies. They want people to move off an overcrowded Earth. Yes the movie is set in 2019 so it was silly to believe we would have that by then (even from the perspective of the 80s) but there it is.
Incidentally the ad the blimp is playing also talks about how you get to have replicants of your very own to do with whatever you want which works in the whole “slavery” sub text of the film.
You mean like “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”
Yes, but DADoES is significantly different in other ways from Blade Runner (where’s the second police department operating in parallel with the first without either department knowing, for instance?)
The important takeaway, IMHO, is that Deckard, being human, realizes that his memories and such are just like Batty’s. Gone like tears in rain. There is no fundamental difference in Roy Batty dying as there is in Deckard dying. His memories will be lost as well. The issue isn’t whether Deckard is a replicant. The issue is that it doesn’t matter whether he is. Both groups, natural and manufactured humans, are identical in their mortality and response to it.
Blade Runner was firmly in the camp of a movie that used a novel, as opposed to a novel that got filmed. “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” has never been filmed any more than “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” has been filmed.
On the other hand, you could reasonably say that “A Scanner, Darkly” got filmed.
I mentioned that earlier in the thread.
“Off world” does not mean interstellar. Interstellar travel is a good ways beyond space stations or minor planet colonization in our own system. The story doesn’t require it or benefit by it, and in fact it doesn’t say it.
(apologies for contributing to the done-to-death Deckard argument)
Deckard being a replicant doesn’t undermine the plot. It’s a shift in the dystopic nature of the whole kit. Deckard and Rachel are of a kind – Replicants so sophisticated they can barely be detected, presumably impregnated with false memories. In Deckard’s case, it’s possible he’s even a Replicant replacement for a “real” Deckard, undermining the reality of his own existance. Deckard doesn’t even have true knowledge of how long he’s existed.
Quoth Alka Seltzer:
I agree. For this question, the asking is more important than the answering. To answer the question would be to miss the point entirely.
I’m also on the side of Roy’s memories being real. I also agree with Leon’s pictures being the only memories he carries with him – since he has no memories of childhood or his youth, he desperately clings to the few memories he has gained in his few years of existence.
The notion that Deckard might be a replicant, but that we need not ever have an answer to that question is an interesting one, and I like it. I think I might have to re-watch the movie again tonight or tomorrow to explore it again…
Heh, just chewing the shit here - but what if in fact everyone is a replicant, all of humanity has been replaced - but simply isn’t aware of it? Only the older models actually know they are replicants … 
Tell me, then. What is the point in making a replicant-killing replicant that is significantly slower and weaker than the ones he was created to kill? Why not make him to be at least equal to his given task? Every other replicant is.
Not at all. Pain is our natural warning system that keeps us from danger. People born with congenital analgesia, who can’t feel pain, for instance, tend to harm themselves constantly. An equivalent to pain for robots is n absolute given.
But is he that weak? He manages to kill several by himself, and withstand Batty’s punishment like an equal in terms of strength.
It does make sense not to make him too obviously superhuman because you would want an android-chaser to believe himself part of mankind, not a replicant. Replicants have got complex psychologies, just like humans, and would be able to turn allegiances.
This argument has never made any sense. If you are worried about weakness, why would you use humans to hunt replicants when they are demonstrably slower, weaker, less resilient and (compared to Roy, at least) dumber?
I know that this gets into a second debate over whether Deckard is a replicant or just another action movie hero, but he does demonstrate more than human resilience and pain tolerance. IMO, he is_like Rachel_another of Tyrell’s attempts at playing God. Like Rachel, he may even be a straight up copy of a “real” person.
What’s wrong with “Because that’s all you have?” That makes a lot more sense than postulating the creation of one that is unequal to the task. If it makes no sense to send an outclassed human to do the job, how in the heck can it make sense to deliberately create an outclassed replicant to do the same thing?
And as soon as he needed medical attention, he’d be revealed as an illegal replicant. Not a great idea.
Why would you build a super human replicant, that can pass for human, with a history of being so troublesome that you have special hunters for them but not build into it a remote controlled off switch?
In the film, he is human. Rather he regains his humanity by the end of the film by chucking the life he hates for ‘love’ even if she won’t last. (original ending)