What is so special about Blade Runner?

[Venusian Broon]

Leaving aside its inherent unlikeliness (if Deckard is a replicant, why is he so physically weak compared to the actual replicants?)

I disagree with your logic, but only on the assumption that Decker is a more 'advanced' replicant and such a replicant is 'more human' than the Nexus-six's.

Therefore it makes sense to me that he should be more closely aligned to having just average human strength, for example. If he were designed to blend in with ordinary humans, having super powers would be a dead giveaway. (As well as potentially alerting the replicant that he is not 'human'?)

Of the group of four Nexus sixes we see, three clearly benefited in having greater strength given their designed function. (However, giving a 'pleasure' replicant superhuman strength seems a bad idea for many reasons.)

 

[Rodders]

Was the Replicant question there in the original cinimatic release, or i it something that was injected into the directors cut?

 

[Toby Frost]

It's alluded to, I think. If I remember rightly, Rachel makes a couple of comments along the lines of "How do you know that you're not an android, too?" but it's never taken up as a serious plot point, the way it is in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.

 

[dwsowash]

Okay, so most of us either love/loathe or just don't understand this classic/cult SF film. It's very much one of those Marmite scenarios: you with love it or don't care for it.

But in a lot of people's eyes it is the very epitome of what science fiction is all about, and what could soon become a reality (hopefully not in 2019!)

So what makes this film so special?

Is is just for the depressing/spectacular visuals of a Dystopian city-scape?
The storyline perhaps? The story itself is hardly challenging on the mind, and yet somehow is engrossing all the same.
The continued question of whether Deckard really is a Replicant?
Or is it a classic only because of the sumptuous technical production values, capped with some wonderfully moody music by Vangelis?

Or does the film live off its own hype, and in actual fact there's nothing special about it after all?


For myself, I would have to say I revere it purely for the visuals, the music, and the fact that even Replicants are self-aware of their own mortality - underlined perfectly by Roy's "Tannhauser Gate" monologue at the end. Which for me, was the highlight of the entire film.

I know that when I first watched this in the cinema just after its release in 1982/3, I was bored senseless with it. Probably because I was expecting something not too dissimilar to "Star Wars", which was doing the rounds at roughly the same time.

I think only when the Director's Cut was released some 10 years or so later did I really begin to appreciate the production values, and the fact that not all SF films show a Utopian future.

I still don't care much for Harrison Ford; and am more sympathetic towards the Replicants (nothing more than slaves with 4 year life spans).

But the visuals and mood always wins me over and makes up for a fairly mundane exposition of "kill all robots"

"So what makes this film so special?"
Too me it is the exploration of the question 'If we create sentient beings, what is our moral obligation to them? Are we their Gods? And if so, just what kind of God will we be? Mercyful? Vengeful?'.

 

[Marks]

It's alluded to, I think. If I remember rightly, Rachel makes a couple of comments along the lines of "How do you know that you're not an android, too?" but it's never taken up as a serious plot point, the way it is in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.

Early in the movie:


DECKARD: Replicants are like any other machine. They can be a benefit or a hazard. If it's a benefit, it's not my problem.


RACHAEL: May I ask a personal question?


DECKARD: Go ahead.


RACHAEL: Have you ever retired a human by mistake ?


DECKARD: No.


RACHAEL: But in your position that is a risk.


Later in the movie:


RACHAEL: That test of yours, the Voight Kampff test. Did you ever take it yourself?



But the point of those scenes is not toe ask, “Could Deckard be a Replicant?” which is ridiculous. The point of the entire movie is: What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to lose our humanity? What separates humanity from the machine?

 

[psikeyhackr]

Early in the movie:
DECKARD: Replicants are like any other machine. They can be a benefit or a hazard. If it's a benefit, it's not my problem.

But the point of those scenes is not toe ask, “Could Deckard be a Replicant?” which is ridiculous. The point of the entire movie is: What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to lose our humanity? What separates humanity from the machine?

I disagree.

Replicants are not machines, they are genetically engineered humans.

In PKD's original story Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep he wrote about androids which were machines.

I think the ultimate issue is bigger: What do we do with genetic engineering? When we apply it to humans the question may have additional issues but it is still the same question.

Are terminator seeds immoral?

The Pros and Cons of Genetically Modified Seeds

 

[Marks]

I disagree.

Replicants are not machines, they are genetically engineered humans.

In PKD's original story Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep he wrote about androids which were machines.

I think the ultimate issue is bigger: What do we do with genetic engineering? When we apply it to humans the question may have additional issues but it is still the same question.

Are terminator seeds immoral?

The Pros and Cons of Genetically Modified Seeds

I didn’t mean machines in the literal sense.


P.K. Dick told a story about what inspired Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? He was reading the diaries of a Nazi officer at one of the death camps, who was complaining that he could not sleep at night because of the crying children. Here was a guy murdering people, and he was annoyed that the screams of the dying children were keeping him up at night. Dick rightly thought: This person is no longer human. He has become something less than human.


That is the inspiration behind DADoES and BLADE RUNNER: How our technology, society, and our own appetites rob us of our humanity. We have become “ghosts in the machine” as Koestler put it. We are lost in the machinery of our own making.


So Deckard, Gaff, Bryant, Tyrell … they are all less than human. Deckard kills because it’s his job, because society dictates it. Society refuses to acknowledge the replicants as living beings because it could no longer enslave them.


Tyrell says he aims to make replicants “more human than human,” but the humans in the story have become less. They are simply machines, following their programming.


The replicants, by contrast, really have become more human than human. The love. They fight. They rage. They appreciate art and poetry and even toys. They are alive in ways the actual humans are not.


THAT is the theme of BLADE RUNNER.


And it is also why Scott’s continued attempt to make Deckard a replicant are a cheap gimmick that robs the story of a lot of its pathos.

 

[Brian G Turner]

And it is also why Scott’s continued attempt to make Deckard a replicant are a cheap gimmick that robs the story of a lot of its pathos.

Indeed, Gaff didn't leave the origami unicorn outside of Rachel's apartment because he knew Deckard was a replicant - it showed he let her live thinking that she was about to die, just like Roy. That's what the script and dialogue showed.

If Gaff had known Deckard was a replicant but allowed him to run off with Rachel, then that would make no sense according to the plot, or the dialogue at the end. It would also completely undermine the film's theme.

The only truly nonsensical bit is the sequence of the unicorn running through the forest, and that has never looked like a natural part of the film.

 

[Toby Frost]

If I remember rightly, it was cut into Blade Runner from another Scott film, Legend. My interpretation of the origami unicorn was just that it was a gesture of friendship and pity on Gaff's part. And perhaps because Gaff doesn't feel that it's necessary to hunt her down.

 

[Judderman]

Does the Unicorn reflect Rachel’s uniqueness?

 

[Marks]

If I remember rightly, it was cut into Blade Runner from another Scott film, Legend.

Yup. Scott admitted after the first screening that he loved the movie but had no idea what it all meant. Scott is the best visual director of his generation, but he sometimes doesn't have much story sense. He's a great director, but he isn't a writer.

So Scott started monkeying with the movie, and one of his lamer ideas was to introduce the gimmick of Deckard being a replicant. The unicorn "dream sequence" was footage from LEGEND.

 

[psikeyhackr]

P.K. Dick told a story about what inspired Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? He was reading the diaries of a Nazi officer at one of the death camps, who was complaining that he could not sleep at night because of the crying children. Here was a guy murdering people, and he was annoyed that the screams of the dying children were keeping him up at night. Dick rightly thought: This person is no longer human. He has become something less than human.

What animals practice torture besides humans? If only humans do it then how can it not be human?

Not everything about being human has to be positive. Making choices is part of our problem. Being a BETTER human!

 

[Toby Frost]

Scott is the best visual director of his generation, but he sometimes doesn't have much story sense. He's a great director, but he isn't a writer.

I think the last two Alien films prove your point very well!

 

[Judderman]

What animals practice torture besides humans? If only humans do it then how can it not be human?

I think animals such as Great apes and Orcs play with their victims for entertainment. Which seems to be torture. It is something relatively intelligent beings do. Surely a replicant can do the same as it replicates the same type of emotions.

 

[Overread]

Many predators will toy and play with prey. Cats are well renowned for it, but they are not exclusive in the behaviour. Killer whales have been seen throwing seals with their tails and I suspect that there are other behaviours that don't quite make it into the BBC natural history channel.

Of course play and torture within this context is a very grey area and the one performing the act might do so in play rather than from a desire to torture; whilst the one receiving would likely view things the other way around. There's also the aspect of these relationships being between species, whilst humans torturing humans is within a species - but then again there are things we don't do that many animals do (eg males of many species will kill offspring from other unions).


In the end I suspect that you could say its a potential mammalian trait and line of thinking and action which can arise, but which might require the right situation to promote the idea into something which becomes repeated behaviour.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Yup. Scott admitted after the first screening that he loved the movie but had no idea what it all meant. Scott is the best visual director of his generation, but he sometimes doesn't have much story sense. He's a great director, but he isn't a writer.

I think the last two Alien films prove your point very well!

Yep, I totally concur. Put a well-written script in front of him, so that he can concentrate on what he does best, then we're fine. Let him near the big ideas...then he usually just doesn't get it.

It was really interesting listening to his commentary on Alien. Thankfully he had a brilliant script so he didn't need to stray too far from it, so he could concentrate on filming a world where he could work on the details and really breathe life into a truly believable universe. But there were moments where you sense he was out of his depth and just not quite understanding it. This came to fruition, as you said @Toby Frost, with his recent follow-ups in the franchise where he clearly had more control on the whole project.

With Bladerunner I think what makes it special is (I am sure this is true, but it might be a myth ) the moment when PKD told Scott that the rushes he was seeing of the film were exactly what he imagined of his future worlds when he wrote the books. Yeah, I'm not sure PKD would have agreed with the story and how it has developed since then but it sort of connects me with one of my favourite authors when I see it.

 

[Marks]

What animals practice torture besides humans? If only humans do it then how can it not be human?

Not everything about being human has to be positive. Making choices is part of our problem. Being a BETTER human!

Sure. But in the context of BLADE RUNNER, the contrast isn't so much Human vs. Animal as it is Human vs. Machine.

 

[psikeyhackr]

Sure. But in the context of BLADE RUNNER, the contrast isn't so much Human vs. Animal as it is Human vs. Machine.

But Replicants are not machines. They are genetically engineered HUMANS. In PKDs book, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, they were machines.

My comment about torture was in response to the NAZI diary regarding concentration camps. I never heard that story before in relation to PKD. I would like a link, I did not find it in a casual search.

 

[Marks]

But Replicants are not machines. They are genetically engineered HUMANS. In PKDs book, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, they were machines.

I don't mean literal machines. See above. Think figuratively.

But Replicants are not machines. They are genetically engineered HUMANS. In PKDs book, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, they were machines.

My comment about torture was in response to the NAZI diary regarding concentration camps. I never heard that story before in relation to PKD. I would like a link, I did not find it in a casual search.

My comment about torture was in response to the NAZI diary regarding concentration camps. I never heard that story before in relation to PKD. I would like a link, I did not find it in a casual search.

Start watching around the 5:02 mark:

 

[psikeyhackr]

I don't mean literal machines. See above. Think figuratively.

I went to college for electrical engineering. I decided on engineering largely because of reading SF since 4th grade.

I find C. P. Snows 'Two Cultures' quite interesting in that the literary perspective often makes no sense to me. Calling biological organisms machines merely renders the word 'machine' of little value.