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- PaulOwen, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12If you watched the film and paid attention, you wouldn't have needed oOLiquidNightOo or Ridley Scott to tell you that.
- bitcloud, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10There are two movies... Blade Runner: The Cinema Release, and Blade Runner (sometimes called the directors cut, but if we can just omit the cinema release from history we don't need the suffix)
They put all this ham throughout the cinema release - "Sushi.. thats what my ex wife called me.. cold fish" who the ***** wrote that nonsense... apparenltly harrison ford was so pissed at having to record these cornball monologues for the cinema release he only did one take... they were taken out for the final correct release (directors cut)...
also that shmalzy "driving into the sunset" scene... it was unused footage from a different movie, thrown in to give a "nice ending". The correct ending is seeing the origami unicorn on the ground, suggesting to deckard that he is a replicant...
There's no doubt when you watch "Blade runner" (as opposed to that footage salad that was the cinema release) that deckard is a replicant... It's subtle, it's not blatantly obvious, but was in no way an afterthought... - JorgeGT, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9In the original book, a Voig-Kampff test is performed on Deckard after being arrested. The result is negative: Deckard is human.
This is very important in the novel, because Deckard thinks he has lost his empathy - the principal difference between a replicant and a human, so he thinks: "I discover and hunt replicants because their lack of empathy. I am a proved human I feel no empathy, What's different between us?" Very interesting thoughts that can be extended to many things nowadays. - rodrigo74, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8And the scene when Deckard picks up the origami unicorn, was that an outtake from Legend too?
- Chasuk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Whereas Deckard was always a replicant in my reality. I saw Blade Runner on the day that it premiered, and it is still my favorite film, so I have avidly followed Blade Runner discussion for all of the intervening years. Decades ago, in the Twilight Zone magazine, Scott plainly stated that Deckard was a replicant, so it hasn't been a secret for quite a long while.
- BarriedaleNick, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Blimey! I thought that was the whole point of the film. Same as the book - though the story is widely different the message is roughly the same. If you make a replicant so real how do you know if he's human or not - in fact does the replicant know. I thought the idea was to leave us questioning ie How do we know whether Deckard is really human and consequentially how do we know we are. I think Dick would have approved.
- BarriedaleNick, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Funny I walked out of the cinema 20 years ago thinking - Was Deckard a replicant? - just becasue you didn't spot the clues doesn't mean the intention wasn't in the film. Maybe youre a replicant and you've been programmed not to notice these obvious things ;)
- aplardi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+51) This is probably one of the best science fiction films of all time. Anyone who hasn't seen it should rent it, or watch it on FX next time it's on.
2) RS at other times said he is NOT a replicant. Thus the major confusion. He and Ford argued for a while over that. - brokensk8er, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4The movie wasn't constructed that way? Did you see the same movie I did?
- Bitgod, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8Screw Scott, Deckard will never be a replicant in my reality.
- BeefBaron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Quoted from Chasuk
"Decades ago, in the Twilight Zone magazine, Scott plainly stated that Deckard was a replicant, so it hasn't been a secret for quite a long while." - PaulOwen, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Really? Are you sure?
- fifalover, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I agree. I like it better when the director doesn't answer those kinds of questions and each person has to decide for themselves.
- sakuraz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Point of the movie is not to find out if Deckard is a replicant, but to question the human nature.
and for that, tsk tsk. - doubtfuly, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@bitcloud
"that shmalzy "driving into the sunset" scene... it was unused footage from a different movie, thrown in to give a "nice ending"."
That footage was from the "The Shining". - vkxmai, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3My favorite movie of all time.
- Klarth, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3RIP Phil. May you dream of electric sheep for all eternity.
- PaulOwen, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4rodrigo,
that scene could have been incidental to the plot. What bugs me is that if Stanley is right, with that unicorn scene being an outtake from the awful film Legend, then it was a genuine afterthought, and not the original concept either.
Personally, I don't think Scott should have commented on whether Dekard was a Bladerunner. It's not so relevant to the film as it was originally released anyway. - skunkman62, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3this has got to be one of the best posts on digg that i've seen in a long time.
- forgueam, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3http://www.brmovie.com/Articles/Sammon_Interview_11.htm
From this interview with Paul M. Sammon:
"N: When did you notice Harrison Ford and Sean Young not getting along? Do you know why that was?
PS: I guess the politest response would be to say that Sean and Harrison just didn't seem to click, personally or professionally. Ford's an intelligent man with a deeply ingrained work ethic, you know - he does what he does with great focus and integrity. Sean, on the other hand, was new to the business then. A little green. What's interesting is how the real-life tensions between those two actors carried over into characters they portrayed in the film. In a positive way. I mean, I think the personal issues Sean and Harry were dealing with behind the scenes added an interesting edge to BR's Deckard/Rachael romance."
Hope this helps... - brickbat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I didn't realise there was doubt about him being a replicant. Doesn't the original title give it away?
- EGOvoruhk, on 10/12/2007, -6/+8Way to spoil it!
- wmtrader, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Blade Runner is the first movie to make a reference to Global Warming.
Global Warming is represented in the movie with L.A. being covered by clouds and constant rain, a warmer environment can and would cause certain areas to become much wetter such as the constant rain over L.A. that is in the movie, but it is Sci-Fi so don’t take the example to seriously.
I am not a die hard Global Warming theorist so don’t read my post as an unconditional belief in the idea, I just wanted to point out something in the movie. - frant1c, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6Hate to burst your bubble, but Scott isn't really an authority on whether Deckard is a replicant or not. Read the book.
- kolanos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I always saw the frequent showers as a result of urban pollution (acid rain).
- uncleFester, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Is this based off the Future Noir book, or is this a standalone documentary/history-of kinda thing? (want to watch this, just don't have time right now..)
http://tinyurl.com/y7tzgp (points to the book @ amazon.com) if you don't know what i mean. I bought the book off the reccomendation of a guy who owns a scifi shop in LA, and it was a GREAT history of the making of the movie.
-r - EntropyMan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2In the book, it's dealt with more directly. Deckard is told he's a replicant by the replicants (a whole underground movement worth of them). But it's a ruse, to try to distract him. He figures he's human, but it's not certain in the end, iirc.
I thought the movie was amazing, but I wouldn't have complained if Scott had included a bit more of this question in the movie, e..g, one of the replicants tells Deckard he is a replicant and Deckard thinks he proves him wrong. - zonk3r, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I second that suggestion. That was a VERY good book and an interesting companion to the movie. Also gives lots of insight into the filmmaking process especially from a writing POV.
As others have mentioned, the original book "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" which BR was "inspired by" (NOT based on) couldn't be more different from the movie. BR is one of my all time favorite movies and I'm also a huge PDK fan and while I love both the book and the movie I think of them as two separate and different works that have some common relationship but they are definitely not to be confused with each other. - uncleFester, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3.. at that time, maybe he did. other times, he's claimed deckard wasn't. ultimately, nobody knows if deckard was or was not. and i (shamefully) haven't read the book yet (though I have it, it's in the near-to-next position in my stack) but i think Dick himself was a little ambiguous on the subject.
A section in the Future Noir book bounces between the many people responsible for the movie (including Scott, Harrison Ford, Hampton Fancher, David Peoples, et al) and their postulations. Plus, a kind of breakdown scene-wise in the book indicates the answer may differ between the US theatrical release and the Director's cut (where it's 'logically' presented deckard HAD to be a replicant).
I think it's one of cinema's better mysteries myself.. :) I just wish they would get off their ass and release the forever-in-limbo dvd special edition (and i hope it includes the workprint version of the film; from what i read it is quite interesting itself).
-r - RANDARR, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I remember the origami unicorn scene always being in the movie. Back then I thought it meant that Olmos' character knew about Sean Young's character, but was letting them go.
- geekzapoppin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3The unicorn footage that is in the "Director's Cut" is indeed from LEGEND but only because the original unicorn footage that was shot for BLADE RUNNER was lost by the time the D.C. was assembled. The "happy ending" footage was actually from Kubrick's THE SHINING.
- cutebanana, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1they hated each others' guts...
- zcreem, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You should go for the voice over version, it was added for people who didn't get it.
One of the most innovative and truly original Sci Fi films ever, except maybe 2001.
Directors cut shouldn't that be the directors uncut. - nmap, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1in the directors cut he has to be a replicant, otherwise the unicorn scene doesn't make sense. This is becasue RS wanted Deckard to be a replicant. Personally I prefer that he's not.
- kolanos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Blade Runner is one of my favorite movies, I've read most of PKD's books and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? isn't even in my personal top five. From what I remember of the book, it was more tongue-and-cheek than anything. It had quite a bit of satire and social commentary about materialism (Deckard obsessing over collecting rare animals, trying to keep up with the Jones' by passing off a replicant animal as authentic, and so on). Blade Runner, meanwhile, is a very dark interpretation of the book and not at all how I imagined the book when I first read it. If you ask me, this is one of those rare cases where the film (the Director's Cut) is actually superior to the book. PKD is an incredible writer, and if you haven't read his stuff you should. But I just don't see DADOES? as his best work.
- k3ymaster, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I bought it on DVD a while ago and didn't really like it... I thought: "is this a Sci-Fi classic?". But watching this documentary I see one has to watch the movie more than once to really appreciate it, so I'll give it another try. I really want to like this movie.
- schoofman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1the movie and the book should be looked at as two separate entities. as said before, the stories are different but the message is the same. two authors could never replicate each other perfectly, its the differences that make the interpretations worthwhile.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4awesome find. if I could digg it 10 times i would.
- andresombrero, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1After the Second World War the Scott family moved back to their native north-east England, eventually settling in Teesside (whose industrial landscape would later inspire similar scenes in Blade Runner).
Pictures Of My Beautiful Teesside.
http://pages.britishlibrary.net/alan.myers/ici.jpg
http://images.google.co.uk/images?svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&q=teesside+industry&btnG=Search - joeydoo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Kermode is great. Anyone listen to his weekly film podcast?
- DAC1138, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1If you guys, like me, enjoy the movie enough to discuss the deeper issues, hop on over to bladezone.com. There's a great webforum community that would love to have all of your inputs and thoughts on the movie.
- dingdingding, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Thanks for the link. It made me want to watch blade runner again.
- dave2010, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I read the book way before watching the film and I though Dekkard was replicant. Then I forgot the contents of the book and watched the film and it's nowhere near as clear what/who he's supposed to be.
- proust, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0 Anyone else get a strong Fellini influence in this film? I think Ridley borrowed heavily myself.I still love the film though.Far less clinical than Minority Report which I also liked.
- mcdavis941, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0great find, thanks for sharing
- GhostofaNinja, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1It doesn't matter what Ridley Scott says about him being a replicant. Its widely known that Scott always directed the movie with the perspective that Deckard was a replicant. BUT on the other hand Harrison Ford acted the part as though he were not. Thats where a huge source of confusion comes from.
And no the original title doesn't give anything away. The movie makes it sound a lot like he was a replicant, but the book, Do Androids Dream..., didn't really even pose that question at all. The "android" refered to something else, and while he questioned himself it was clear he was human. The book and movie disagree. - StanleyKoolPrik, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I got dugg down earlier, for what reasons mystify me -- maybe my wording was crude -- but, hey, I got the last word.
Fact is, in absolutley zero of Scott's original cuts -- and there were many, including those shown before the studio sought to change the movie --did the film ever infer that Deckard was a replicant. The unicorn footage was inserted many years after from outtakes from his Legend, which came a few years after. Scott says that that the original footage of unicorns was lost, but the fact is this footage was never ever shown in any form. The BS meter is going bonkers. - smokesteam, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Lots of people who read this have probably never seen the theater version of Blade Runner. If you have only seen the so called "Directors Cut" then watching OTEOBR will give you a very distorted perspective. Unfortunately the theater version of BR is out of print, if you want to see it you have to track down the first VHS release or if you are very lucky, the Criterion LD. That is the version of the film which inspired the following which the film enjoys, not the "Direcors Cut" version. Personally I dislike the DC, I feel that by removing the voiceover and the various adds/cuts done to the film, Ridley Scott (or whomever did it, that is debatable) stripped out much of what made the film unique in the first place. I do hope that some day we will get a DVD release of the theatrical cut of the movie. The DVD as sold is the "wrong" version and not a very good transfer at all.
- deralte, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1the real question is: is Harrison Ford a replicant?
- kolanos, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1No, the real question is: Does it matter if he is a replicant or not? Does it matter if he is human or not?
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