Blade Runner (Beware: SPOILERS!) About Deckard - Page 4

Re: Blade Runner (Beware: SPOILERS!) About Deckard

"Not all replicants are equal."

You are correct. When Deckard is having the briefing with Bryant,looking over the replicant profiles, you can see theyre given physical and mental grades. Even though Leon has Grade A strength, he has Grade C intelligence. Roys stats show someone who might be given a leadership role, but Leon is prob someone who would have a follow orders/do labor/grunt role.


"Rachel who is a replicant, is weaker than Deckard who you believe to be a human. Rachel seems to be next generation, let's say Nexus 7. If Deckard is Nexus 7 or even 8. It would seem logical to make him weaker than the 6s."


"More human than Human" is what Tyrell is aiming for.The difference is that Roys group knew they were replicants. Rachel didnt.Rachel herself thougth she was human. It would have been a huge tipoff if she was able to stick her hand into boiling water and be unaffected or the like. Her strength has to be brought down to human female level to blend in with others and fool even Rachel herself.
The escaped Nexus 6 replicants were designed for combat = amped up strength. Its even mentioned in the final cut that Leon can haul 400 pounds loads all day.




" Deckard slips because the beam is wet. Strength doesn't matter there."

Deckard doesnt make it to the beam. He comes up short, lands on the edge, and grabs for the beam. Strength would matter for making that jump.Deckard doesnt have the strength to make it across. Roy makes it easily.


"Or that later Nexus units were purposefully created weaker than earlier units."

As I mentioned on the last page,Deckards lack of strength compared to the others was always my main argument for his being human. Its not just the confrontation with Roy and not being able to do a jump Roy makes easily. Were shown, clearly, that Zhora, Pris and Leon all are significantly superior to Deckard in strength. He simply doesnt stand a chance against any of them. You can argue that if Deckard is a replicant, shouldnt someone who hunts replicants have a higher grade in the strength department. But thinking about Rachel made it clear about Deckard. IF Deckard is a new type of replicant like Rachel, complete with memories and all, he would have to be human enough to even fool himself, so he would be given human level strength.


"Also, it has become more and more obvious to me that whether Deckard is a replicant or not is truly irrelevant. The film is about what makes a human human."

Exactly.

Re: Blade Runner: Deckard can't be a replicant

Agreed. As Pink Floyd wrote:

I don't know what it is
But it fits on here like ...

As to the unicorn scene, I had been neutral to the scene. But reading some of these posts has me agreeing ... awkward overkill. I think that the film is better off with a nice duality, with reasonable points on both sides versus scenes that telegraph their intent.

Re: Blade Runner (Beware: SPOILERS!) About Deckard

I meant when Batty saves him from falling. Not when he jumps.


I don't think there's anything overkill about it. When you can use the unicorn scene, like Darabont has, to prove Deckard's a Human nothing is telegraphed.

Re: Blade Runner (Beware: SPOILERS!) About Deckard

I did reread all of the thread. I am now finding a disconnect that I think explains what we all "see", in our own way.

Deckard was not a replicant in the original novel. The screenplay writer Hampton Fancher meant him also to be human. He was also plainly human in the original cut. But as explained earlier in the thread, it seems as though Ridley Scott misinterpeted something Hampton wrote, and he's the one who sort of ... changed things. So yes, Scott says he's a replicant, but he wasn't meant to be, and that's why there are story elements that support both sides of the discussion. In the end, I kind of like it this way, in that it's up to each viewer to judge for him or herself.

One person earlier made a comment that I 100% agree with: I wish there was a cut like the latest director's cut (without the narration), but also without the unicorn scene.

Re: Blade Runner (Beware: SPOILERS!) About Deckard

I have to agree with you. Plus as others have mentioned there are huge flaws in the logic of this when it comes to the many fight scenes and physical challenges. I mean what idiot created a Rep meant to chase down and kill other dangerous Reps but left him vastly inferior to them physically?

The whole point was to match his human fraility against their superiority. Not only this, but SCOTT AGREES!!! On the DVD you have Dick talking about how he viewed Rep's as sub-human and how Scott came back at him with the idea that they were super-human ("Superman without flight"). Except Deckard apparently.


I love the film and I can appreciate the interesting aspect of this debate going either way, but frankly this has become very Lucas like of Scott over the years. The more he goes back to fix it, the more intrusive it becomes. A lot of things don't match up and the strongest Rep indicators are also the most ham-fisted and awkward.

It's like the voice-over aspect. It didn't work because it was also ham-fisted and forced, trying too hard to be a noir detective film.

I also like Darabont's defense of Deckard as a human.


However we can all agree, this is a brilliant DVD set and includes so much good info all around that it lifts up this debate rather than ending it, in spite of Scott's own "this is the fact" statement on the issue.

Re: Blade Runner (Beware: SPOILERS!) About Deckard

It's been covered countless times, but Deckard's weakness as a replicant makes sense. The film proves it's humanity that matters, and ultimately it's humanity that does prevail. Being a replicant doesn't negate humanity.

Deckard's weakness as a replicant makes him more human than human. It's his stubborness and resilience that gives him human qualities, and make him better than the other replicants. He may be physically weaker than them, but he outlasted all of them. So he is a better replicant than them. In spite of the numerous reasons why he may not be able to man handle any of them, which are all in the film. Let's not forget Deckard almost died a ton of times in the film. With all the risks the job has, bringing in a worthless replicant makes sense, especially if they don't know any better.

Kevin C Brown, Scott directed the film, not Philip K Dick, not Hampton Fancher, not David Peoples. Fancher also toyed with the idea of Deck-a-rep, by the way. It's Scott's vision up on the screen not anyone elses (there ideas certainly led to it, but it is Scott's film). In Fancher and Peoples' script you can argue all you want that he is human because that was the intent, but in the film it wasn't Scott's. I also don't see anything in the domestic cut that proves he's a human either. It's left open because I think Scott truly likes the idea of the question more than the answer. He's just very clear with what his answer is.

I say all of those things but I still lean with Deckard being a human. It's my human prejudice that wants him to be human, I think.

Re: Blade Runner (Beware: SPOILERS!) About Deckard

Wow. Talk about major spin.

Assuming for the moment that Deckard is a replicant ... did you say ... he outlasts all of them? That seems to forget/ignore that Rachael saves his ass from certain death and Roy takes pity on him.

Roy Batty shows great intelligence, a sense of humor, deep feelings, poetic phrasing AND great strength. Sheesh, I'm wondering if we watched the same film.

Re: Blade Runner (Beware: SPOILERS!) About Deckard

In the final cut when we first see Roy in the phone booth as the camera pulls back from his clenched fist you can see someones hand on his shoulder. It is not Leon's hand because he is outside the booth. I am sure this has been covered somewhere in one of the BR threads but I cannot find it. Does anyone have a quick answer as to whose hand that is?

Re: Blade Runner (Beware: SPOILERS!) About Deckard

Bob,

I think you mean Director's Cut, not the Final Cut as the hand is no more (as far as I can see).

The short answer comes from Paul Sammon who says the shot was actually 'borrowed' from the Tyrell death scene with Batty and Tyrell. So the hand is actually Tyrell's around Batty's shoulder that they 'used.'

Sammon is also on record as saying that Batty is using the phone to learn where the eye guy works.

However, the inexplicable reason they wanted to to use this footage of having Batty look back at someone and smiling is unclear. What were they going for?

Re: Blade Runner (Beware: SPOILERS!) About Deckard

I may have seen it in the "Work Print". The FC and the WP are the two versions I watched over the last two days. I never really understood what Batty was doing in that phone booth and just assumed it was something that was cut from the movie and the hand was just left over. Thanks for the info.

Re: Blade Runner (Beware: SPOILERS!) About Deckard

Dick wrote the book, from which Hampton Fancher and David Peoples wrote the screenplay, from which Scott directed. Hmmm... And Deckard was plainly human in the theatrical cut. Please go reread the earlier post in the thread about that passage of Hampton's that got misinterpreted by Scott. Deckard was meant to be human all along, but Scott, the director changed that, and that's why there are contradictory elements in the film.



After I saw the movie originally, with no unicorn scene , that is exactly how I saw this scene. I saw it as Gaff having some humanity (and pity) towards Rachel (and Deckard) because he knew she wasn't going to live that long anyway.

Re: Blade Runner (Beware: SPOILERS!) About Deckard

No, it doesn't. It makes him more human than other replicants. Which is odd, since watching the movie when he is a human, it is clear that the replicants are being made to be more human than him; he has no emotions, they are overly emotional, and such.


Except that they're more stubborn and more resilient.


Actually, that's not true. The movie does nothing to address why the police would knowingly send out a replicant who could not physically combat other replicants to capture stray replicants through pure moxie. It does nothing to address why the police would deliberately break the law regarding not having replicants on earth in order to have a replicant at hand who could capture replicants who make it to earth (which seems like the sort of paradox one ordinarily needs time travel to encounter).

In fact, other than Deckard being a replicant, the movie makes it quite clear that they can program whatever sort of strength is appropriate for whatever job is at hand. A secretary is given enough strength for what she needs to do, while a miner is much stronger. But a police officer built to exclusively fight other replicants doesn't warrant sufficient strength to do so? And, worse, your stated reason appears to be that they don't give him the strength in some sort of 'Boy Named Sue' type of logic, to make him a better human being... except that nobody he was working for care at all about whether the replicants "like" themselves, or feel human, or anything at all. Why would they pamper one specific replicant like that?

None of these things will ever make sense as long as Ridley Scott insists on his sledgehammer-subtle ending.


So what you're saying is, because his job will be physically tasking, it makes more sense to you to put up a replicant which is not physically up to the job? you're using that to strengthen your argument? Seriously?


I don't see how anybody can argue with Ridley Scott; this cut makes it absolutely clear that Deckard is a replicant. Any sort of explanation as to how he might not be is not in the text, and, no matter how good it is, will always have a "No-Prize" feel to it.

I mean, if I watch 'To Serve Man', I can certainly argue that the linguistic experts were wrong, or that the main character misinterpreted his secretary, and that the book "To Serve Man" was not, in fact, a cookbook. But there is nothing in the episode to confirm or strengthen this interpretation (and, in fact, several things which seemingly contradict it).

Re: Blade Runner (Beware: SPOILERS!) About Deckard

The only thing about the ending that I like at all is Deckard's reaction. The way that he looks at it, takes it in for an almost angry beat, and then shrugs it off as if it doesn't matter. I like to think that moment is Deckard reacting to how stupid and arbitrary the twist is, and then deciding that the only way to live with it is to completely ignore the revelation.

And it seems I'm not alone in feeling that that reaction is the only way to watch the movie. Just ignore the revelation and close your eyes for the earlier unicorn shot.

Re: Blade Runner (Beware: SPOILERS!) About Deckard

Do you mean Deckard or Harrison Ford?


I have my own remedy for that, I just watch the International Theatrical Cut sans unicorn reverie. That version is loaded with ambiguity.

Re: Blade Runner (Beware: SPOILERS!) About Deckard

Sean, here's another possible explanation for Deckard's physical weakness: A replicant that knows that it's a replicant will not hunt its own kind. It has to believe it's human in order to fulfill its task! Give it special strength and you'll take away that belief.

Then why is Deckard is reluctant to do the job he was "programmed" for? Identity crisis! Deep inside it knows it's killing its own kind.



Alex

Re: Blade Runner (Beware: SPOILERS!) About Deckard

That explanation just sounds so much like clutching at straws.

Re: Blade Runner (Beware: SPOILERS!) About Deckard

I don't think it's that far-fetched. A slave might stick up for a fellow slave. Could you give me a reason for dismissing my little theory?


Alex

Re: Blade Runner (Beware: SPOILERS!) About Deckard

Doesn't fly with me either, sorry. If it's kill or be killed, you use every available resource at your disposal. And he still did kill the ones that he could. Physical weakness is different from moral ambiguity and mentally questioning the decision to kill your own kind or not.

There is another problem with Deckard being a replicant. In the physical confrontations with Pris, Leon, and Roy, and maybe even with Zhora too, if he had indeed exhibited more strength and resilience than a human should have, at least one of them should have spotted that he was a replicant, and gee, maybe mentioned it to him. But obviously, that wasn't part of the movie.

I 100% believe that he was supposed to be human, but Ridley Scott changed that in spite of the pre-existing elements in the screenplay (*and* novel), and that's why there's conflicting details in the final cut.

I think the whole point to the movie rides on him being human. That he as a human actually acts less human than the replicants he is hunting down, but ironically, his love for Rachel, a replicant herself, is what shows him beginning to thaw.

If he is a replicant, yeah, it could be seen as a neat twist, but then what's the point?

Re: Blade Runner (Beware: SPOILERS!) About Deckard

I personally found it rather convincing - the discussion had made me doubt whether Deckard being a replicant actually made sense. But, if hunting replicants is so dangerous, the idea of making replicant blade runners that don't know they're human actually makes sense. You make someone that has, perhaps, above-average strength, intelligence, resourcefulness, while perhaps not being so over-the-top that they start to question their humanity, and they might just be able to retire most replicants, and if a replicant takes them down, then no big loss.
That actually makes sense to me.

Re: Blade Runner (Beware: SPOILERS!) About Deckard

I also think that Alex has brought an interesting slant to this.

Obviously there are replicants that aren't doing what humans want them to. With that knowledge, do you give another one a big gun and hope for the best or do you make them think their human?

If the latter, than giving them super-human strength wouldn't make the replicant think their human now would it?

Let's face it, no theory is perfect but this idea is not easily dismissed in my mind.

Re: Blade Runner (Beware: SPOILERS!) About Deckard

I agree with Alex's possible explanation for Deckard's lack of super-human strength, etc. - in fact, I've been forwarding the same premise in a discussion on another board!

Is it grasping at straws? I don't think so. I think it makes sense. If Deckard realizes that he's a replicant, then the hunter becomes the hunted and he'll be much less eager to off his own kind...

Re: Blade Runner (Beware: SPOILERS!) About Deckard

I saw the Final Cut last night. It wasn't till I saw this version that I finally got the reason so many suspected that Deckard is a replicant. I was never one to follow this line. I always felt he was a human.

And like most of you, I have the Criterion laserdisc, the Directors Cut laserdisc and DVD and the recent DVD and now the Final Cut HD-DVD. And I first saw it during my college years back when it first came out in 1982. As a design student, Syd Mead was a hero. His work was influential to me then and still is now as a professional designer. But I have no where the depth of knowledge you guys have for this film. I mostly focused on the production design, a lot of really great work here. I often found it hard to watch the film. Though I know it pretty well, even many lines of dialogue. Not till now that I have really started to delve into the subtle and really listen to the dialogue!

This time, I turned on subtles to finally get some lines of dialogue. I finally see the subtle hints in the script. But I never could see the connection with the Unicorn.

Here are some lines that really struck me this time,

“Is this to be a test of empathy, eye dilation....” Is Tyrell’s dialogue, to be a double meaning? His comment referring to Rachael’s testing Deckard rather then Tyrell asking Deckard how the Voight-Kampff test works.

“The experiences you and I take for granted” Tyrell telling Deckard that we have experiences as if he is human.

And a new line I never understood before, because it was hard to understand till I used the subtitle feature, is Gaff’s line after Batty dies, “You’ve done a man’s job, sir.” That one was a new one for me.

It can go either way for me on the question of Deckard. As art, it really is up to the viewer to interprete. Scott can tell us what he meant after the fact, but that's not his job, his job is to tell a story that has points to make that let us believe what we make of it to believe. One funny thought for me is that if he is a replicant, then the humans really don't want to do any of the dirty jobs anymore and have to have replicants kill other replicants.

As for Rachael, to me, she's definitely a replicant. Well, this new Final Cut version has done one more thing for me, a new appreciation for the film!

Re: Blade Runner (Beware: SPOILERS!) About Deckard

Reading over the posts, a lot of people assume Deckard was built to be a Blade Runner and should have suitable capabilities. That is entirely assumed on the viewers part and no one can actually hold the film responsible for their own assumptions. Why is it so hard to accept Deckard was built, like Rachael, to be as close to human as possible? The fact that he doesn't have super human abilities makes it awkward to assume otherwise.

I've always envisioned that there was a real Deckard who was killed in the line of duty shortly before the film that Replicant Deckard was based on. It seems natural that 'Runners would have dealings with Tyrell from time to time and Real Deckard may have even had a loose friendship with Tyrell. Deckard cooperates with Tyrell in his attempts to create a perfect human replicant.

I was never too sure why the police wanted to use Deckard (human or otherwise) to hunt down these particular replicants. If he's human you have to accept the reason given in the film, (He's the best) which is stupid and contrived. If he's a replicant of a real Deckard it's easily conceivable that the Blade Running business has a high fatality rate, and officials wanted to see if they could hunt replicants with replicants. Luckily they had the perfect candidate.

Re: Blade Runner (Beware: SPOILERS!) About Deckard

I think all the conjecture that tries to support Deckard being a replicant in the final cut, a) relies way too much on evidence *not* included in the film at all, ignores the information that *is* there, and, b) ignores the facts that he was a human in the book, he was a human in the screenplay, and he was a human in the original theatrical release. Scott changed that, which results in the contradictions we all see, and why some of us still see him as human (which it seems to me, he was clearly * meant* to be), while others try to justify Scott's decision, which goes right back to (a).

Rachel was clearly based on Tyrell's niece, so yes, she is a "weak" replicant. She's not a combat unit, or an assassin. But I don't believe that it makes any sense to make a replicant whose sole function is to hunt down and kill other replicants, weaker than they are. And remember, replicants have 4 year life spans, so it's not like he could have started out to be a TV weatherman, and then Deckard himself changes "careers" to be a Blade Runner. 4 years is not a lot of time to get good at something, so if he was a replicant, he must have been designed as a blade runner from the beginning.

And also remember that replicants are illegal on earth. So now all of the sudden we have one working for law enforcement? And this isn't some hack police dept out in the middle of nowhere that we're talking about. It's the LAPD, and in addition, since replicants were such a big deal that they were outlawed on earth, it can't be just the LAPD involved, but presumably at least the U.S. government and potentially other world governments too. But again, Deckard is associated with the LAPD, and not in a black ops CIA/NSA/etc unit where it just might be easier to support the notion of an illegal replicant on earth.

It also seems clear to me that he and the captain had a long standing relationship which also negates the idea of a 4 year life span. So then there *was* an original Deckard, and a replicant replaced him? There's nothing in the film which supports any replicant ever being made to replace a human, which we don't even know is possible.

This discussion has been fun. But it seems as though no one is really going to change any one else's mind, so then it becomes people trying to justify their stance, which isn't as much fun. Cheers!

Re: Blade Runner (Beware: SPOILERS!) About Deckard

Nexus 6 replicants have 4 year life spans, other replicants do not.

After being a Blade Runner ("the best") for years, it is only during Bryant's briefing that Deckard first learns of the 4 year life span.

Re: Blade Runner (Beware: SPOILERS!) About Deckard

This was ever in doubt? The movie tells us right from the start that she's a replicant - not sure why you added the "to me" when there's never been a question about Rachael's status...

Re: Blade Runner (Beware: SPOILERS!) About Deckard

I was commenting on post #63 where Rich_D postulates that Rachael could be human. Like you, I took the information presented in the begining of the film at face value. Everyone tells Deckard she's a replicant and he comfirms she's a replicant.

I saw the first hour and 20 minutes of Dangerous Days, really great stuff!

Re: Blade Runner (Beware: SPOILERS!) About Deckard

Watched Dangerous Days yesterday...about as in-depth as you can get. If a movie ever deserved this much love in a home release - this is it.

Re: Blade Runner (Beware: SPOILERS!) About Deckard

Whoops - sorry! That's what I get for not reading all the posts - I didn't realize someone else had theorized that she might be human!

I'll have to take a look at that post, but I can't imagine any justification for the theory that Rachael's not a replicant. We're told she is and there's nothing in the movie that contradicts that concept. She's even got the eye glow of the replicants - what's the confusion?