Didn’t Scott originally say that Deckard wasn’t a replicant, then change his story later?
I agree the story makes more sense and is better thematically if Deckard is not a human. It shows that the replicants can be more human than humans, and that they can teach a human to be more human. If Deckard is a replicant too, what’s the point?
i disagree on most of those clues – they don’t prove a thing. Emotionlessness? There are plenty of emotionless characters. No family? Where’s Rick’s family in Casablanca. I dealt with the issue about the Voit test in my post above. I’ll have to check that eyes thing – if it’s thetre, I certainly didn;t catch it.
Interesting thing about those family photos on Deckard’s piano at the beginning – Pepper Mill says that when the film first came out, she saw it on a date with her boyfriend at the time (long before i met her). As tyhe camera pans across the pictures, he jumps up and says “That’s my grandmother” (or words to that effect). It seems that the props people must have picked up batches of old photos at estate sales or yard sales or the like, because they’d snagged one of his family photos. It’s even more interesting, I have to admit, if Deckard IS a replicant, because I sorta know where they got one of his False Memories from.
Deckard’s a replicant because he lacks passion, the evidence being that all the replicants shown have more passion than him? :dubious:
What about Gaff? He didn’t show any passion. Sebastian? Tyrell? The police captain? All the people in the street when Zhora got shot? No passion at all.
The point about the emotionless and affectless Deckard living alone in a crappy apartment with meaningless photographs is that he might as well be an emotionless replicant, not that he neccesarily IS an emotionless replicant.
And as we have seen the replicants AREN’T emotionless, have have emotions…fear, hate, love. In fact the replicants show more emotion than the humans. And that’s the point…the replicants are more human than the humans and the humans are more robotic than the replicants. What does it mean to be real human, what does it mean to be “fake” human?
If Deckard is a replicant then it undermines the movie, because then he’s not an emotionless human dispassionately exterminating robots who desperately want to live. Instead he’s an emotionless robot exterminating other robots, and so what?
Yeah, we’re supposed to compare Deckard to the replicants and wonder what makes Deckard human and them replicants, and then answer “nothing”. But if Deckard is a replicant, then there’s no point. What does his attraction to Rachel mean, if he’s just a replicant like her? Of course the question about whether Deckard is a replicant is valid, but if we answer “He’s definately a replicant” then it undermines the movie terribly.
Hmmm, Gaff does say something like, “you’ve done a man’s work”, which I took as “good job”, but maybe it’s meant very literally.
From the Wired article linked above:
There’s too much vague crap going on in this little scene for it to be so important. Especially since Ford has said he played it as not a replicant.
So the director says he is, the actor says he isn’t, therefore we get mixed messages…and this thread.
WhyNot is deadnuts right on a whole bunch of points I’m too stoopud to have mentioned.
Me being me, I thought it was a giraffe :o and I took it to mean that either;
a) Gaff wasn’t going to hunt down Rachael the AWOL replicant and that Deckard could have whatever man-machine love he wanted with her.
b) Gaff was going to hunt down Rachael and that Deckard was going to have to run himself.
It never seemed to make sense for Gaff to tell Deckard that he was a replicant, what could be worse than knowing you’re an artificial construct that will die in a short time after living decades as a human?
I thought the whole point of the film was as mentioned above, what point is there distinguishing between replicant and human when they’re all emotionless types in day to day life. It makes testing replicants for emotions even more ironic I suppose.
Was that part of the original cut or a later-added effect? Anyway, such a simple physical indicator undercuts the movie’s premise; that “Blade Runners” were needed to engage in the risky business of ferreting out hidden replicants and “retiring” them without taking out a human in the process. What’s the point of the VK if a simple eye test will suffice?
Yeah, or he’s a burned-out possibly-alcoholic ex-cop with no friends. He walked away from a job he was very good at but, surprise surprise, this didn’t have the magic effect of making him happy. Plus he lives in a decaying perpetually-rained-on city. Maybe he’s not a replicant - he’s just very very very depressed.
He could also be an orphan. Or just, as above, very very very depressed.
Consider the context in which the question is asked - Rachel (who Deckard knows is a replicant and has referred to as “it”) gets angry and demands he prove that he’s human. He refuses to answer the question possibly not because he once failed the VK, but because he feels no compulsion to justify himself to her/it.
Plus, he’s depressed.
While being chased by a remorseless killing machine? I think you severely underestimate what a sufficient amount of fear-adrenaline can do for a human. Besides, it wasn’t really one-handed. His broken fingers, as I recall, were the pinky and ring. He still had use of his index, middle and thumb, which is where most gripping strength is located, anyway.
Well, it’s not like Deckard was being subtle. Taking out Zhora was very public and there was enough gunfire in J.F.'s house for neighbours to notice. Actually, I have to wonder why, when J.F. Sebastian’s body was identified, Deckard checks out his place alone instead of bringing along some kind of SWAT team.
Did Deckard dream about swans or chickens or men, the other figures folded by Gaff? The main problem with Gaff knowing Deckard is a replicant is that their boss, Bryant, would also know, and he’s clearly no fan of “skin jobs”. Heck, he described Deckard as a “one-man” killing machine or squad or whatever it was after Deckard retired Zhora. Heck, I assume Tyrell, proud as he is of his latest creation (Rachel - the replicant with memories) would also know Deckard is one. And if Rachel is the latest thing, how old a prototype is Deckard, anyway?
Ultimately, though, the biggest problem with Deckard being a replicant is asking what’s the point of him being a replicant? How is the story improved in any way by it? I’ve never gotten a satisfactory answer for this; only stuff along the lines of “it would be cool if he was a replicant, so there!”
My own take is fairly straightforward and entirely supportable by the film’s actual content: Los Angeles in 2019 is a rain-soaked polluted hellhole, anybody with any gumption has long since lit out for the territories, leaving empty decaying buildings filled with a hodgepodge of slapped togeher cultures and salvaged technologies. The population is partly genetic rejects unsuitable for offworld colonies and partly burnt-out urbanites numbed by the constant barrage of advertising, even to the point where gunplay in the streets gets barely a reaction. Deckard had a job he was good at but hated and managed to get out of before turning into a cold sadistic beaurocrat like Holden. With no other prospects, he’s sliding into a bleak empty existence, made too torpid by depression to do anything more than scrape by. He gets pressured back into the job by Bryant and meets Rachel, and is surprised by how advanced Replicant tech has become and the boldness of Tyrell in seeking “more human than human” and meaning it literally. When she asks “did you even take that test yourself?” it’s not asking if he’s a replicant. Rather, it’s asking if he’d pass for human, which is not the same thing. I always took it to mean that she was indirectly calling him an inhuman bastard.
He’s attracted to her, despite himself, and even more so after she saves him from Leon. He clumsily and angrily forces himself onto her and I admit the whole thing is borderline creepy, but not much more so than has been portrayed in movies for decades. The dust eventually settles and they leave the city. Gaff had a chance to retire her but chose not too, evidently aware that Deckard was attracted to her. “It’s too bad she won’t live, but then again, who does?” Deckard seizes at this chance at happiness, the one sliver of hope he has to regain his humanity and they leave the city, out of the rain for the first time. Rachel doesn’t have a four-year lifespan, because the whole point of the four-year lifespan was to make the replicants self-destruct before they began forming unpredictable emotional responses. The point of the implanted memories is to give a replicant predictable emotional responses, based on the psyche of a stable human (in Rachel’s case, Tyrell’s niece), to extend the working lifetime of these very expensive machines. There’s no inherent reason Rachel needs a four-year limitation, so I’m not overly dismayed by the “happy ending” revelation that somewhere along the way, Tyrell told Deckard she didn’t have one. The final prediction isn’t that Rachel and Deckard lived happily ever after, but only that they lived, but for how long and how happily, they don’t know. Who does?
So what’s the interpretation of the pro-replicant camp? Lay it on me.
Because it would be cool. Duh! 
Justin_Bailey, proud member of the anti-replicant and anti-director’s cut camp since he saw both.
Shamalamadingdong!
Thematically, I think the Deckard as a Replicant vision speaks to man’s addiction to technology. Even technology that it claims it doesn’t want any part of. The whole movie is full of both wizz-bang futuristic technology and bored depressed people (and Replicants), yet they don’t get rid of the oppressive, overstimulating lights and sounds all around them.
And, of course, the aforementioned Replicants ≥ Humans thesis.
I see the point of the Deckard is human POV, but I’m afraid to me, it just makes it a preachy moralistic allegory for racism: “Look Mommy, Replicants are people too, just like you and me!”
I dunno about that, or at least I didn’t pick up any such vibe myself. Rather, I see it as a statement that if you give up something, someone else may claim it. The replicants want to live; they want it so badly they can almost taste it and they’re willing to kill anyone who gets in their way. Meanwhile, Deckard, human by an accident of birth, as well as the bleak burnt-out city around him, is letting life slip away. If Deckard takes the test, as Rachel challenges, the result might not show that he’s a replicant, but it might show he’s let his membership in the human race lapse. Hooking up with Rachel is his redemption. If he’s a replicant, the whole thing is pointless. Actually, robots hooking up romantically was better done back in Karel Capek’s 1921 play R.U.R., which was also kinda about humans being ushered offstage, albeit violently.
Well, I’m not necessarily agreeing it’s an allegory for racism, but then it’s 25 years old, so as an allegory for racism it doesn’t come across as preachy as it would today. Then again, have you watched the show Cavemen? OMG. :rolleyes:
Ford playing it not as a replicant doesn’t mean that Deckard was not a replicant… because Deckard didn’t know he was a replicant, so it would make sense for an actor to play it how the character believes it to be. This proves nothing.
OTOH, Scott’s statements prove nothing also. He can’t tell you how to view the movie, or give the “right” answer to whether or not Deckard was a replicant.
Chronos was right-- the ambiguity is the point of the movie. There is no meaningful difference between replicants and humans anymore. It’s not clear which Deckard is, and there’s evidence for either argument (obviously, this thread is ample evidence of that). I think the greatest thing about this movie is that the truth is really unknowable.
I wish more people could embrace ambiguity in endings. I had this same argument at the end of the Sopranos. You don’t have to know the answer, and not having the answer is in itself a legitimate answer.
Well I think that we can all agree that in this futuristic society, much like the one in Aliens, it semms that someone would take the time to turn on some damn lights. Seriously, I had to turn up my monitor brightness just to figure out what was going on in this steaming pile of pretentious film-making drek.
Not that I am biased against this movie stealing two hours of my life or anything :rolleyes:
I gather, then, you’ll spare us your further comments. Or at least you’ll make the effort to be funny, rather than just embittered.
So I take it you think Deckard was a replicant?
Spoilers? For a 25-year-old movie? That is based on a 39-year-old story?
Fine
If R Scott wants his Deckard to be a replicant, then the movie Deckard can be a replicant. Whatever, but sometimes unicorns are just unicorns, even the origami kind. A simpler interpretation of Gaff’s Origami Unicorn is that it was more a token of his presence and message of goodwill to Deckard. Gaff was constantly making little origami animals, and there needn’t be anything special about it. As for Deckard’s reaction to the GOU, it’s more likely a measure of realization, relief and gratitude that
Gaff was there, but spared Rachel. These people all had some rather serious animal fetishes going, so it wouldn’t odd for people to work that out behaviourally. Even so, Scott downplayed this, only alluding to the problem in terms of the synthetic snake and owl. The book was very explicit about the animal thing, and it was central to the book.
Then again, the PK Dick Deckard was married, and a major theme of the book was emotional de-sensitisation, all the time - only the book used technology instead. My point is that the R Scott Movie Deckard was way the Hell of the PK Dick specification, so even if R Scott’s Deckard is a replicant, that says nothing at all about the PK Dick Deckard. As for the PK Dick Deckard, no, not a replicant.
One of the common themes of both movie and story was that the real humans were so thoroughly de-humanised and drug addled and beaten down that they themselves were hardly human.
As for people who complained that the R Scott movies was dark, it was fucking My Little Synthetic Ponies 'Cos I Can’t Afford Real Ponies by comparison to the book.
And in the book, it was a goat, not a horse, and Rachel killed it, and in the end, Deckard finds a toad in the Oregon Nuclear Desert, and is likely rendered Stupid by the radiation. Good times.
Yep! Don’t think of this as yet another crappy Dick story but an instance where someone turned a crappy Dick story into a far-deeper movie. News to All! Philip K. Dick was shitty author! If you keep this in mind it will simplify analyses for literature classes you take in the future.