What is so special about Blade Runner?

[paranoid marvin]

My interpretation is that most replicants just want to be left alone to get a job and live out their lives in peace, but are forced into criminal acts because of the Blade Runners chasing them down.

Like Frankenstein's creature, Batty is an exception. He wants to meet his creator and get some answers. And just like Marry Shelley's creation, when he sees that he cannot get the answers he seeks, and when he sees the nature of his 'creator' he determines to destroy him. The other Nexus models seem to be simply following his lead.

The 'blade runner's' job is an interesting one. It doesn't seem to be to protect the public or private individuals. There seems to be little (if any) attempt to warn or protect Tyrell and his employees (in fact they seem entirely ambivalent in regards to security or self preservation).

It appears that the blade runner's job is purely one of pursuing and destroying replicants, regardless as to whether they merit it. Which is why I suggest that simply allowing replicants to live out their last remaining days would be a better alternative.

 

[The Crawling Chaos]

The first movie's intro mentions that replicants were made illegal on Earth after a "bloody mutiny off-world."

The idea to me is that since replicants were originally designed for slave labor the first generations were not much more than vaguely anthropomorphic robots, maybe something like the T-800 in Terminator. But for some reason or reasons (for the benefit of human coworkers who might have been uneasy working alongside emotionless robots, for the technological challenge it posed, or simply because of replicants sex workers needing to look and feel more human to their human users and this trait being passed on to all kinds of replicants for convenience's sake), companies manufacturing reps started a competitive race between themselves to see who could design the most human-looking replicants of all, and Tyrell came out on top with its "more human then human" biological machines.

Unfortunately making replicants copies of human beings introduced many problems, including replicants now having the ability to develop emotional responses and needs, and starting to ask questions such as "Why am I spending my short life mining asteroids if I'm equal or superior of the people ordering me to do it?" and after several incidents that turned bloody, replicants and humans were segregated. Essentially the humans thought that as long as replicants didn't see too many humans, they would just perform their tasks and not have the opportunity to develop jealousy or yearning toward them. Which meant that replicants could not possibly be allowed to set foot on Earth (and possibly some off-world colonies) as they would inevitably become 'tainted' by the experience and would never perform well again - hence the radical solution to 'retire' them on sight.

Later generations of replicants, seen in the sequel, are only allowed because they are emotionless. Which is why K has to perform those regular tests and is instantly threatened by his superior when he is found to be way off his baseline. Replicants are not a threat, their ability to emote is.

 

[CupofJoe]

Right or wrong, Replicants are classified as machines [or close to it].
If a newer better model comes out, you would just recycle the old one.
Why would you put your old toaster in "The sunset home for retired toasters", where it could warm bagels until the fuse blows?
No it would be recycled or binned.
A happy contented Replicant will probably work their 4 years and "die" content.
But what if they don't?
They have all the angst of not knowing what will be next and no way for dealing with it because they haven't lived very long.
And in some cases an incredible skill set where lethal force is a first option.
That is why there are Blade Runners.
Replicants seem to be capable of throwing an epic hissy-fit if the get frustrated.
Someone has to stop them.
This is why I view Replicants as highly trained and well skilled toddlers.
There needs to be a Super-Nanny.
There is obviously some preconditioning before a Replicant is "born" but they don't have a lifetime of memories and decisions to fall back on.
That is why Tyrell is trying to implant memories, to give the Replicants a background to make judgement from.
It's not to give them a better quality of life. It is to make them more controllable.

 

[The Crawling Chaos]

This is why I view Replicants as highly trained and well skilled toddlers.
There needs to be a Super-Nanny.

Gold.

 

[Toby Frost]

Actually, I wrote an entire book along those lines! It's called The Imposters and I highly recommend it to everyone with a bank account.

I think there's an amount of style over logic in stories like Blade Runner. In a robot story, you might see piles of unwanted robots dumped somewhere. This is probably to make the viewer think of real-world massacres and to realise that something is wrong. However, in a functioning democracy, it's likely that most normal citizens seeing this would also think that something was wrong, because they'd seen it in science fiction. I suppose it's a bit like the way that people in zombie films generally haven't seen any zombie films.

A critic (Abigail Nussbaum, maybe?) said that once you accept that the replicants are slaves and slavery is wrong, the Blade Runner world is pretty much "done", and it's made its point. You could tell the story of other people realising this - as Deckard and maybe Gaff do - or that of a robot uprising, but the main issue has been discussed.

I do suspect that a lot of the world-building in Blade Runner is either for style (in the film) or to make it easier for PKD to discuss his philosophical points (in the book).

 

[AE35Unit]

I didn't used to like it that much, but I've come to love it. Its an amazing view of our possible future. Plus its a rare example of a film being better than the book

 

[Swank]

My interpretation is that most replicants just want to be left alone to get a job and live out their lives in peace, but are forced into criminal acts because of the Blade Runners chasing them down.

Like Frankenstein's creature, Batty is an exception. He wants to meet his creator and get some answers. And just like Marry Shelley's creation, when he sees that he cannot get the answers he seeks, and when he sees the nature of his 'creator' he determines to destroy him. The other Nexus models seem to be simply following his lead.

The 'blade runner's' job is an interesting one. It doesn't seem to be to protect the public or private individuals. There seems to be little (if any) attempt to warn or protect Tyrell and his employees (in fact they seem entirely ambivalent in regards to security or self preservation).

It appears that the blade runner's job is purely one of pursuing and destroying replicants, regardless as to whether they merit it. Which is why I suggest that simply allowing replicants to live out their last remaining days would be a better alternative.

What job? Replicants are slaves whose jobs are to do mostly nasty things people can't or don't want to. The four in the movie have jobs, which they "quit" to go to earth to seek out Tyrell. Batty is just the leader - all of them have the same goal of trying to extend their lives, and one has been killed already trying to break into Tyrell. Leon shoots Holden in a second attempt.

Tyrell and employees should know better, but Sebastian and Tyrell exercise the wrong kind of empathy. The newest replicants are smart enough to manipulate people without sympathizing with their enslavers.

The idea to me is that since replicants were originally designed for slave labor the first generations were not much more than vaguely anthropomorphic robots, maybe something like the T-800 in Terminator. But for some reason or reasons (for the benefit of human coworkers who might have been uneasy working alongside emotionless robots, for the technological challenge it posed, or simply because of replicants sex workers needing to look and feel more human to their human users and this trait being passed on to all kinds of replicants for convenience's sake), companies manufacturing reps started a competitive race between themselves to see who could design the most human-looking replicants of all, and Tyrell came out on top with its "more human then human" biological machines.

I think they never developed mechanical robots or AI, but they did develop biological robots based on biology. Just like the snake, the ostriches and owl. The better replicants aren't more biological, they are just more intelligent and seem more human.


I don't think the 2049 replicants are emotionless. K has a girlfriend. But they have safeguards, and cops like K who have a lot of access are much more carefully watched for errant thoughts. Illegal replicants are still retired from the old generations.