# Minor quibble in the movie Bladerunner. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 12, 2008, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-quibble-in-the-movie-bladerunner/476953 "2008-12-12T23:42:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2008, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-quibble-in-the-movie-bladerunner/476953/41 "2008-12-14T15:58:48Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#): > > I’ll put your mind at rest, **Baldwin**. It _was_ an attempt at humour; sorry it didn’t meet your exacting standards. I’ll try and up my game if I know you will be appearing in a thread, in the future. > > Actually, I too was a little vague on how exactly the replicants were made, but when Rachel turns up at Deckhard’s( correct spelling this time. sorry, Bladerunner purists!) flat, the audience already knows Rachel is a replicant. Were the audience meant to think, “Awww…poor robot. It’s upset!”, followed by, “Hmmm…is this more than a machine?”? If that was the aim, I’ve got no right to complain and I’ll retract my quibble and exit this thread shamefaced. > > Hopefully, that’ll get you off my back, Mr **Baldwin**. _Deckard._ We both misspelled it. Sorry, I still can’t make sense of what you’re asking. A reasonable audience member, by the point of the scene in question, would feel compassion for Rachel’s feelings of alienation. Feelings we all experience; in her case, because she’s finding out that her memories are artificially implanted. Are her feelings “real”, or programmed responses (another question for all of us). What’s her identity, really? What does it mean to be human? Those themes, and the groundbreaking visuals, are why the movie still works in spite of not making much sense scientifically or logically. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2008, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-quibble-in-the-movie-bladerunner/476953/42 "2008-12-14T16:30:55Z")
The name is spelled “Deckard” in the movie. I think it’s impossible to take the ideas in _Blade Runner_ too seriously. Dick didn’t work out the details in the book and nobody concerned with the movie worked them out either. It appears that replicants are identical to humans except they are harder to kill or injure and are stronger. They have minds that work as well as humans and yet most people treat them as if they had no “souls.” Most people in the novel and movie seem to think that it’s O.K. to kill them and confine them to what are essentially hard-labor planets. It’s hard to understand how we could ever (let alone by 2019) reach such a level of technology that something that looks and otherwise reacts like a human could be much toucher to physical attacks. That’s not really the point of the book or the movie though. The real problem is how something with the mind of a human could be “soulless.” Let’s start with the fact that much of Philip K. Dick’s work is about the question “What is a human?”. He’s asking here how close to being a human could a thing created by humans be before we would have to treat it as human. He doesn’t actually try to propose any scientific way that such a creature could exist, but then Dick isn’t really concerned with science. (In a way, he’s asking questions that were first asked in the novel _Frankenstein_.) None of his stories or novels really turns on questions of hard science. He’s concerned with philosophical questions. He plays with scientifically shaky ideas because he’s asking a philosophical question about what makes something human for moral purposes. A lot of this gets into the movie, but it adds a few more things. The movie makes a big deal of whether the mostly emotionless Deckard is much of a human himself. The movie also makes Deckard into a standard action hero, and no protagonist of a Dick novel or story is ever a standard action hero. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2008, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-quibble-in-the-movie-bladerunner/476953/43 "2008-12-14T18:03:02Z")
> [@Nanoda](#): > > That’s a good idea; we’ll call it the DrDeth test. Except that’s a bit negative… maybe not. It might make people might think pouring boiling water on them is bad or something. 😃 Well, that’s fine, I like the name.😛 But in reality, such skin-like substance could be tested by several other less painfull methods. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2008, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-quibble-in-the-movie-bladerunner/476953/44 "2008-12-14T22:48:09Z")
I wrote: \> . . . could be much toucher to physical attacks . . . I meant: \> . . . could be much tougher in resisting physical attacks . . . ---
**Author:** ![Hazle\_Weatherfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Hazle\_Weatherfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hazle_Weatherfield)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2008, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-quibble-in-the-movie-bladerunner/476953/45 "2008-12-15T06:28:58Z")
Ok, I must be an idiot. I thought that Rachel didn’t know that she was a replicant, so, of course, her tears would be real; otherwise, she would know that she was a replicant. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2008, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-quibble-in-the-movie-bladerunner/476953/46 "2008-12-15T14:54:21Z")
> [@Rubystreak](#): > > … How can you be human without tears? That’s the most emo thing I’ve heard all month. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2008, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-quibble-in-the-movie-bladerunner/476953/47 "2008-12-15T15:01:37Z")
A couple things I’ve always wondered about: Who were the combat models designed to fight? What wars did Roy take part in? Who were the pleasure models designed to service? Humans? Other Replicants? Ditto assassination models? There didn’t seem to be any alien race to be at war with, and Earth was in sorry enough condition economically/ecologically that there didn’t seem to be the desire left for war. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2008, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-quibble-in-the-movie-bladerunner/476953/48 "2008-12-15T15:17:18Z")
> [@capybara](#): > > Hmm, well then (I’d never thought hard about the nature of replicants before) it makes the humans in the movie much more ethically iffy in my mind-- to create these, essentially, humans, but who serve as, basically, slaves, with an expiration date. It makes Roy’s soliloquy at the end even more tearjerking. Well, yeah. Stories like that one are the reason why, when Dolly The Sheep caught thousands of politicians with their pants down and bent over, I told Mom that “us ‘freaks’ who read SciFi have been discussing the moral problems of cloning for decades, but of course, politicos don’t speak with ‘freaks’ :p” ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2008, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-quibble-in-the-movie-bladerunner/476953/49 "2008-12-15T18:22:28Z")
> [@Hazle\_Weatherfield](#): > > Ok, I must be an idiot. I thought that Rachel didn’t know that she was a replicant, so, of course, her tears would be real; otherwise, she would know that she was a replicant. She didn’t: she was a prototype upgrade of the Nexus-6 design, which was revolutionary in that it could, in time, build up enough personal memories to start forming individual emotional responses, which I figure is a bit akin to a young child starting to form an understanding of and relations with the world. After four years, the conventional Nexus-6 models tend to become unpredictable and violent, hence the need for them to self-destruct, which represents the loss of a quite-expensive asset. The Rachel project had the idea of implanting a Nexus-6 with existing memories, copied (presumably) from someone who was known to be stable, i.e. Tyrell’s niece. With predictable emotional development (or as predictable as such things can ever be), there is no need for Rachel to have the four-year lifespan. Maybe when the process was improved Tyrell could produce replicants that were stable _and_ self-aware, but with Tyrell himself needing a new eye-designer, not much hope of that. Or so I figure it. ---
**Author:** ![Death\_of\_Rats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a6a055/32.png) [@Death\_of\_Rats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Death_of_Rats)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2008, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-quibble-in-the-movie-bladerunner/476953/50 "2008-12-15T19:47:35Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > The only one that makes sense is Pris the pleasure bot, and frankly, if you’re willing to bump uglies with a robot, you’re either desperate or adventurous enough to do it with a weirdly designed one. With tentacles. :eek: Being willing to bump uglies with Daryl Hannah, real or robot, is /= to tentacles. If it is in your world, you are not allowed to date my daughter. ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Nader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Darth\_Nader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Nader)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2008, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-quibble-in-the-movie-bladerunner/476953/51 "2008-12-15T23:21:03Z")
> [@KneadToKnow](#): > > ( > if emot.sadness.q\>=0, > ((sub.call ‘cry’ Dude, it was the 80’s… 10 print “time to die…” 20 for a=1 to 200 30 next a 40 die ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2008, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-quibble-in-the-movie-bladerunner/476953/52 "2008-12-15T23:24:41Z")
> [@Darth\_Nader](#): > > Dude, it was the 80’s… Nonsense. It was 2019. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Nader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Darth\_Nader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Nader)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2008, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-quibble-in-the-movie-bladerunner/476953/53 "2008-12-15T23:31:57Z")
😛 ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2008, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-quibble-in-the-movie-bladerunner/476953/54 "2008-12-15T23:41:53Z")
> [@ricksummon](#): > > Well, apparently, replicants can pick up cryogenically frozen eyeballs and pluck eggs out of boiling water without harm. Why do you need to ask them about tortoises when you could just test their heat tolerance? If she sinks to the bottom and drowns then she’s not a witch. ---
**Author:** ![ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9bcb4/32.png) [@ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2008, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-quibble-in-the-movie-bladerunner/476953/55 "2008-12-15T23:59:27Z")
The snake scale that leads Deckard to one of the Replicants was stamped with a number that eventually led Deckart to the man who manufactured and sold the snake. What that implies (imho) about how artificial snakes are produced (with each “piece” stamped with a number) is more like a manufactured android and less like a genetically engineered clone. Or a hugely implausible coincidence that the one scale that happened to be marked happened to be the one that fell off in the bathtub where it was found. What the process for producing an artificial snake tells us about the process to produce an artificial human…who knows, but my perceptions of the Replicants in the film were definitely swayed toward the Android end of the spectrum based on that snake scale. ---
**Author:** ![Telperion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telperion/32/509_2.png) [@Telperion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telperion)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2008, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-quibble-in-the-movie-bladerunner/476953/56 "2008-12-16T01:35:29Z")
> [@ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](#): > > The snake scale that leads Deckard to one of the Replicants was stamped with a number that eventually led Deckart to the man who manufactured and sold the snake. > > What that implies (imho) about how artificial snakes are produced (with each “piece” stamped with a number) is more like a manufactured android and less like a genetically engineered clone. Or a hugely implausible coincidence that the one scale that happened to be marked happened to be the one that fell off in the bathtub where it was found. > > What the process for producing an artificial snake tells us about the process to produce an artificial human…who knows, but my perceptions of the Replicants in the film were definitely swayed toward the Android end of the spectrum based on that snake scale. As far as I recall from the book, the synthetic animals were purely mechanical and not supposed to function as actual pets. Their purpose was to make your neighbours believe you were taking care of a living animal and thus an empathetic human being. The implication being of course that with illegal androids around, visibly non-empathetic human-like persons would be treated with a great deal of suspicion. ---
**Author:** ![ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9bcb4/32.png) [@ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2008, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-quibble-in-the-movie-bladerunner/476953/57 "2008-12-16T02:19:22Z")
That would’ve been a nice clarification for the film to make, imho. It definitely changes some subtleties of the plot to think of them as basically an evolution of the dummies people buy to put in their cars, whether it is to get in the carpool lane or ward off would-be carjackers. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2008, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-quibble-in-the-movie-bladerunner/476953/58 "2008-12-16T03:34:57Z")
> [@Telperion](#): > > As far as I recall from the book, the synthetic animals were purely mechanical and not supposed to function as actual pets. Their purpose was to make your neighbours believe you were taking care of a living animal and thus an empathetic human being. The implication being of course that with illegal androids around, visibly non-empathetic human-like persons would be treated with a great deal of suspicion. I remember it as being a little more complicated than that. Deckard’s “electric sheep” is meant to impress the neighbors, but it’s meant to give the impression both of empathy and _wealth_. IIRC some people did have real feelings for their synthetic pets, Deckard was just too cynical for that. Caring for a living creature was considered an important experience with almost religious value, so people who couldn’t afford real animals might try to come as close as they could to that experience by getting a fake animal. Animals and the treatment of animals by humans is a much bigger theme in the book than in the movie. It’s alluded to in the movie, but in the book it’s made clear that most animal species have become totally extinct and that even the survivors are rare (and expensive). This is considered a big loss by humanity and everyone has become very big on the idea of protecting and caring for animals. Many of the questions on the VK test are meant to find out whether the subject has proper empathy towards animals. Rachel gives the correct “human” response when she says she’d report someone for giving her a leather wallet as a gift, but misses the point of the “nude girl on a bearskin rug” question. As mentioned by others, the book doesn’t explain how the replicants are made, but they are at least partially organic and have blood, nerves, organs, etc. They aren’t the same thing as the fake animals, which are apparently just robots. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-quibble-in-the-movie-bladerunner/476953.md?page=2)