I asked a familiar question (perhaps it is the familiar question) about Blade Runner in another thread: is Rick Deckard a Replicant? It seems to me that it’s been a while since a thread has covered this topic or even the film in general. So, I figure, why not beat the dead horse a few more times…
If you haven’t seen Blade Runner, spoilers will most certainly be ahead. More importantly, if you haven't seen Blade Runner, it's definitely worth seeing at least once.
It’s always made sense to me that Deckard is a Replicant, so I’ll be making that argument, but I’m certainly curious to find out how other posters here answer the question (if they indeed answer it) even if you think Deckard being a Replicant is a crock.
There are two pieces of direct evidence supporting this conclusion in the film, at least in the Final Cut. Speaking of which, for the purposes of simplicity, let’s assume there are only two different versions of the film (the 1982 Theatrical Release and the 2007 Final Cut), since the other versions out there have their major difference on technical grounds, not creative differences.
(1) The Unicorn Dream: During the film, Deckard has a private moment at his piano where he daydreams about a unicorn. At the end of the film, Deckard finds an origami unicorn left by Gaff at his apartment, suggesting Gaff was privy to Deckard’s most private thoughts. Note that the unicorn dream was deleted from the Theatrical Release at the insistence of the producers (among many other changes less relevant to the topic at hand), though it was filmed in 1982 for Blade Runner, not filmed later for Legend or exclusively for the director’s preferred version.
(2) The Replicant’s glowing eyes: Throughout the film, Replicants are shown to have glowing eyes. This can be seen with Rachel when she takes the VK Test, with Batty when he approaches his maker (“I want more life, fucker”), and of course with Tyrell’s artificial owl seen in both of these scenes. During one scene which Deckard and Rachel share in his apartment, the eyes of both Deckard and Rachel glow. According to the book Future Noir: the Making of Blade Runner, this was no happy accident, but intentional, with Deckard place slightly out of focus and in the background in order to make the point as subtle as possible. Here’s an image of the shot in question.
In addition, there’s several pieces of circumstantial evidence which support the theory that Deckard is a Replicant.
(1) Deckard, like the Replicants (both Leon and Rachel), has a wide array of personal photographs reminding him of his history.
(2) At the end of the film, Gaff says to Deckard, “you’ve done a man’s job, sir.” Though not included in any release of the film, a deleted portion of dialogue (which was filmed and can be seen on the DVD) continued, “But are you sure you are man? It's hard to be sure who's who around here.” Even ignoring that, the double meaning of the retained dialogue (found in all versions of the film) is obvious.
(3) When asked by Rachel if he’s taken the VK-Test himself, Deckard has no answer.
In that other thread I mentioned before, stj proposed that Deckard being a Replicant not only undercuts the film's themes, but renders it without a discernable meaning. I don't think that's true, but I'll tackle those questions later, if there's any interest in this thread. I've already written far too much to be worth slogging through, I'm sure.
If you haven’t seen Blade Runner, spoilers will most certainly be ahead. More importantly, if you haven't seen Blade Runner, it's definitely worth seeing at least once.
It’s always made sense to me that Deckard is a Replicant, so I’ll be making that argument, but I’m certainly curious to find out how other posters here answer the question (if they indeed answer it) even if you think Deckard being a Replicant is a crock.
There are two pieces of direct evidence supporting this conclusion in the film, at least in the Final Cut. Speaking of which, for the purposes of simplicity, let’s assume there are only two different versions of the film (the 1982 Theatrical Release and the 2007 Final Cut), since the other versions out there have their major difference on technical grounds, not creative differences.
(1) The Unicorn Dream: During the film, Deckard has a private moment at his piano where he daydreams about a unicorn. At the end of the film, Deckard finds an origami unicorn left by Gaff at his apartment, suggesting Gaff was privy to Deckard’s most private thoughts. Note that the unicorn dream was deleted from the Theatrical Release at the insistence of the producers (among many other changes less relevant to the topic at hand), though it was filmed in 1982 for Blade Runner, not filmed later for Legend or exclusively for the director’s preferred version.
(2) The Replicant’s glowing eyes: Throughout the film, Replicants are shown to have glowing eyes. This can be seen with Rachel when she takes the VK Test, with Batty when he approaches his maker (“I want more life, fucker”), and of course with Tyrell’s artificial owl seen in both of these scenes. During one scene which Deckard and Rachel share in his apartment, the eyes of both Deckard and Rachel glow. According to the book Future Noir: the Making of Blade Runner, this was no happy accident, but intentional, with Deckard place slightly out of focus and in the background in order to make the point as subtle as possible. Here’s an image of the shot in question.
In addition, there’s several pieces of circumstantial evidence which support the theory that Deckard is a Replicant.
(1) Deckard, like the Replicants (both Leon and Rachel), has a wide array of personal photographs reminding him of his history.
(2) At the end of the film, Gaff says to Deckard, “you’ve done a man’s job, sir.” Though not included in any release of the film, a deleted portion of dialogue (which was filmed and can be seen on the DVD) continued, “But are you sure you are man? It's hard to be sure who's who around here.” Even ignoring that, the double meaning of the retained dialogue (found in all versions of the film) is obvious.
(3) When asked by Rachel if he’s taken the VK-Test himself, Deckard has no answer.
In that other thread I mentioned before, stj proposed that Deckard being a Replicant not only undercuts the film's themes, but renders it without a discernable meaning. I don't think that's true, but I'll tackle those questions later, if there's any interest in this thread. I've already written far too much to be worth slogging through, I'm sure.
