Bladerunner: Was Deckard a replicant?

[Stuart Suffel]

The uncertainty is the point of the book, and movie.

 

[Stuart Suffel]

What he said. B-)

I recently wrote an essay on the book. The main theme of the book (and all of Dick's works), is that there *cannot* be one base reality experienced by everyone. Every person's reality is equally valid as they experience it.

Running throughout the book is Deckard's questioning of his own humanity and a strange duality; Chaos and order/life and death/human or synthetic/ real or unreal - also please look into the 'phantom twin' motif explored in many of his works; he was born with a twin sister who dies shortly after birth; this loss haunted his works

In one chapter Deckard is arrested by a cop who claims he has no record of Deckard on file as a registered blade runner. He takes him to a parallel police HQ, which turns out to be run entirely by androids, with a human blade runner working (the only blade runner and human in the department). Therefore with these themes of duality/mirror realities it is strongly suggested that it is entirely possible that Deckard is in fact a replicant himself, albeit one with implanted memories to make him think he is human. - He may well be the only <i>replicant</i> working in a department full of humans! It all depends on whose viewpoint you choose to take.

-- see also 'Impostor' and 'A Scanner Darkly' for more extreme examples of this same running theme in Dick's work.

Androids are indeed illegal on earth, however; Rachael is living legally on earth as she is technically the property of the Rosen Association. As a programmed android working for the police department (or maybe also for the Rosen association to clear up the mess and bad publicity caused by some of their creations running amok), Deckard would also then technically be allowed on earth.

The book strongly implies that Rick may or may not be synthetic, but is strongly ambiguous. This is to emphasize the point that reality is totally subjective. The film isn't nearly as confrontational in this respect, although the final cut does do more justice to the book in this respect.

Anyway I am producing a series of illustrations for the book (4 plus cover) based around the themes stated earlier; Chaos and order/life and death/human or synthetic/ real or unreal, and would really appreciate anybodies feedback and especially suggestions on where I could take this or suggested passages from the book.

- Look forward to some input guys

 

[Stuart Suffel]

Ah! I was just coming to reference the scene:

- Deckard's eyes glow (yellow-orange) when he is washing the blood out of his mouth in his bathroom, and when he tells Rachael that he wouldn't go after her, "but someone would". Deckard is standing behind Rachael, and he's out of focus.

This older thread has more evidence both for and against (and it really depends on the version of the film.)

I still think the jury is out on this - which makes it an enduring and cult film. Making a sequel with a Deckard still living after the obligatory six years will pretty much put the argument to bed. It will therefore destroy the intrigue and spoil the original.

Actually, perhaps the 'unicorn' motif suggests that Deckard is a rare form of Replicant...

 

[Stuart Suffel]

It won't. Villeneuve stated very early on that the sequel would ignore the issue entirely.

If true, that would pretty much sink the movie, making it just another shoot em up SFX extravaganza.

 

[The Crawling Chaos]

If true, that would pretty much sink the movie, making it just another shoot em up SFX extravaganza.

A rather strange affirmation.

The movie could be about many other things that deal with the nature of consciousness, reality, synthetic life vs organic life without providing an answer to the 'Was Deckard a replicant?" question.

Not only that, but there is nothing to suggest that a sequel that would have placed this debate at the centre of its plot would not have ended up being a 'shoot em up SFX extravaganza' anyway. These are not mutually exclusive elements (the first is substance, the second is form).

At this stage, we know nothing other than this: The movie is in the most capable hands currently working in Hollywood, an intelligent man with an excellent track record of building atmosphere and handling adult and/or cerebral themes, who also happens to be a great admirer of the original film. If he can't pull it off, I don't know who else could.

 

[Brian G Turner]

^ The comments I made above were counters to arguments about Deckard being a replicant. It had been suggested that Deckard was on the crashed ship, and that red eyes was a lue.

Interesting observation on Gaff's comment, though.

 

[Stuart Suffel]

A rather strange affirmation.

The movie could be about many other things that deal with the nature of consciousness, reality, synthetic life vs organic life without providing an answer to the 'Was Deckard a replicant?" question.

Not only that, but there is nothing to suggest that a sequel that would have placed this debate at the centre of its plot would not have ended up being a 'shoot em up SFX extravaganza' anyway. These are not mutually exclusive elements (the first is substance, the second is form).

At this stage, we know nothing other than this: The movie is in the most capable hands currently working in Hollywood, an intelligent man with an excellent track record of building atmosphere and handling adult and/or cerebral themes, who also happens to be a great admirer of the original film. If he can't pull it off, I don't know who else could.

em...fair nuff. Let's hope it'sfab.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Deckard wasn't a replicant. If he had been, he would have been 'retired'; Earth does not suffer replicants to live, no matter their usefulness.

 

[Swank]

Deckard wasn't a replicant. If he had been, he would have been 'retired'; Earth does not suffer replicants to live, no matter their usefulness.

Who says they didn't want to retire him when he stopped being useful?

 

[paranoid marvin]

Who says they didn't want to retire him when he stopped being useful?

Well he'd been a 'blade runner' and retired; which was quite ironic. I don't think that they would have let him continue existing on the off chance that he may again be useful in the future. Rachael was Tyrell's property, and thus protected from the normal rules; a one off.

Batty, who would surely have recognised a fellow replicant a mile off, calls Deckard 'you people'; this alone convinces me that he was not one of them.

 

[Swank]

The film starts with an explicit threat to Deckard's life by his boss. He clearly has very recently quit, not living in retirement.

 

[THX1138]

I thought humans aged and replicants didn't. Deckard clearly aged in the last movie.

 

[Swank]

I thought humans aged and replicants didn't. Deckard clearly aged in the last movie.

Nowhere is it said that replicants don't age. A lot is said about how their three year lifespans come from a process akin to Sebastian's Methuselah Syndrome. Batty dies of "natural causes" experiencing muscle cramps and trouble maintaining consciousness. But they are biological creatures with mostly human genes - even without the three year limit, what would make them immortal when the same science can't cure people?

 

[THX1138]

True, but it would have been nice to see an aged Replicant in the last movie.
Now come to think of it, Rachael did give birth to her and Deckard's child, and clearly, she aged.
There goes my theory!

 

[paranoid marvin]

The film starts with an explicit threat to Deckard's life by his boss. He clearly has very recently quit, not living in retirement.

He's told thar he's 'little people', which to me suggests they were going to frame him for something. Or make his life awkward by trailling around after him, or pulling him in for questioning etc. I didn't get a sense they would murder him.

If he were a replicant working for them, he wouldn't have been allowed to quit or would have been 'retired' when he did. They tried to work without him, hence putting another blade runner on the job; but when that didn't work, and because the chief was under pressure, they forced him back into the job for one last assignment. In the classic movie tradition..

It's interesting to speculate about Deckard's backstory, but there's no compelling evidence that he is anything other than a hard boiled cop. One who has become not only tired of his job, but is starting to question the morality of it; hence why he tells Rachael that he wouldn't hunt her down if she trued to run away.

 

[The Crawling Chaos]

While I like the Deck's a rep theory if for no other reason that Ridley Scott stated Deckard was definitely a replicant and designed the movie around that, I agree that most of the evidence for it is flimsy and making sense of it in the broader context of the movie's plot and universe requires some mental gymnastics.

The most convincing piece of evidence to me would be the unicorn origami. How can it be anything else than a "I know what you see in your dreams, you're a replicant." moment?

If he were a replicant working for them, he wouldn't have been allowed to quit or would have been 'retired' when he did.

Did he ever quit though? Or was that simply what everyone else told him he did? In a world of implanted memories Deckard could very well be one day old and remember a full life as a hard boiled cop. Indeed how could he ever consider that he was himself a replicant... if he remembered being allowed to quit the force? And if he was a guy whose job it is to hunt down replicants?

While the sequel BR 2049 does not bring any foolproof evidence that Deckard is or isn't a replicant to the table, the movie tells us Tyrell had created replicants capable of breeding. If Rachel was indeed the female prototype of that new generation it only makes sense that Tyrell would also create a male prototype to test his accomplishment...

And let's put our conspiracy theorist cap on... Isn't it entirely possible that the Tyrell Corp and the city made a deal? Allow Tyrell to conduct his little experiment and create that new generation of more obedient, more efficient, more human replicants, in exchange for a prototype that would be leased to the LAPD to hunt down a few Nexus-6 as a test before mass production?

In fact it's entirely possible the whole plot was just an elaborate set up to get Deckard and Rachel to meet and fall in love with one another, and provide the LAPD with a test prototype of what would become K and his colleagues in the sequel.

I'm not suggesting there's any proof of that. Simply that the filmmakers willingly left room for the Deck's a rep theory in the sequel - because Villeneuve was reluctant to go one way or the other and wanted to keep both options on the table.

 

[Astro Pen]

I haven't read all the posts but Deckard is a replicant because, at least in the original directors cut, we see Gaff's origami unicorn. It is the pivot of the movie. Deckard sees it and realises his memory is an implant. therefore...

 

[paranoid marvin]

I haven't read all the posts but Deckard is a replicant because, at least in the original directors cut, we see Gaff's origami unicorn. It is the pivot of the movie. Deckard sees it and realises his memory is an implant. therefore...

I thought the 'unicorn' scene was quite clumsily done, which is (presumably) why it was omitted from the cinematic release.

It also makes somewhat a mockery of many of the themes of the movie: an android chasing round after other androids is an entirely different film to one where a human starts to question the morality of killing manufactured people who have their own hopes, dreams and aspirations of a life; they just want to be left alone, not forced into slavery and then done away with.

You could edit many films and switch around some of the attributes of the characters - as we saw with Greedo firing first. How about if Cameron had re-editted Sarah Connor to have a glowing red eye at the end of Terminator, suggesting she was also a machine?

There was very little - if anything at all - in the theatrical version of Blade Runner to suggest that Deckard wasn't human. And him being human made the most sense as to how the movie panned out.

If 'they' were to create the 'ultimate' replicant hunter, it wouldn't be one that was far weaker than his quarry, that wasca hard drinker and could fall in love. If Blade Runners are replicants, why leave his predecessor (the one shot at the beginning of the movie) hooked up to life support? Why not simply employ their best 'unit' first?

But most compelling for me are the attitudes of those he is hunting. They are 'elite' models, and have seen him up close, and have spoken to him. Would they not spotted he wasvonevof them? Some telltale signs? Would they not have appealed to him to join them? And would Batty really have referred to him as 'you people'?

For me, Deckard will always be a hardboiled private dick like Philip Marlow; getting the sh***y end of the stick from all sides, and falling for the femme fatale.

 

[Dave]

Further to my earlier comments

The uncertainty is the point of the book, and movie.

I think it was definitely meant that way in the film, just to create 40 years of arguments. Damn Ridley Scott!

I thought humans aged and replicants didn't. Deckard clearly aged in the last movie.

Yes, that's the problem with unplanned sequels. Damn Ridley Scott!

 

[Vladd67]

In the original story wasn't there a whole precinct of androids pretending to be the police?