30 years!

[Rhodes]

I see, thanks! I didn't remember the eyes scene, but then again, since I find out who plays Gaff, I want to re-see the film!
I always dislike the "theory" of Deckard being a replicant, but in being one, he was on earth all that time? He was retired, he was a blade runner, so the info of his past that we learn trough out the movie is also made up, is not?

But he is also a replicant as Rachel, with more life span?

Never read the book, but like the title much!

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Rhodes

I see, thanks! I didn't remember the eyes scene, but then again, since I find out who plays Gaff, I want to re-see the film!
I always dislike the "theory" of Deckard being a replicant, but in being one, he was on earth all that time? He was retired, he was a blade runner, so the info of his past that we learn trough out the movie is also made up, is not?

But he is also a replicant as Rachel, with more life span?

Deckard is a replicant created to hunt down replicants. Which is the hidden cynism here, that made people chracaterising the movie as a continuation of the famous film noir series from earelier times. Dick's novels often have a very pessimistic undertone, and anything but an optimistic ending, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is no exception. Whether Deckard has more life span, we do not know, and I would say the film leaves that uncertain. The police know for sure, so did Bryant - maybe that is why he is dealing with Deckard a bit haughty, and is smiling so glibbery.

The movie goes beyond the movie level, like many of Dicks better novels do, too. It asks to what degree we all are controlled and manipulated by impkanted mind patterns - the values focussed on by our cultures, the goals in life society presents to us, the everday stuff and routine we take for granted and assume to be the real basis, worth to found our lives upon. But in the modern consumer workld, and multimedia world, can we really be so sure we really are in control of ourseloves, our thinking, our likings and dislikings? Just watch TV commercial, the bombardement it send into your neocxortex via the eye'S highway.

We all are replicants in this modern time. And, like Deckard, we all believe that we are "authentic". But our imagined indovioduality is mass-produced. We all are products - programmed to believe we are no products, but "originals", and programmed to believe the world that is artifically produced around us, is real and is without alternative so that we have no other choice than to set into the system and function as intended.

Deckard flees, but at a price. He gives up safety, security, certainty, the world he believed to know, for he now knows it is a lie - and he cannot say at all what future and how much times lies ahead of us. The door to the lift slams shut with a loud bang, the screen goes black, and the movie ends with loud, pumping music. The audience needs to go home without having a comfortable answer. It gets thrown out with a loud bang, leaving no room for sentimental wallowing in comfortable certainty.

The producers released the first version of the movie against Scott's will, because they thought the original, sudden ending were too pessimistic for the American audience, also, they thought they need that off-narration to explain it. The sentimental Hollywood-like happy ending was the result, done with material from Kubrik'S "Shining". Scott never wanted that, Ford also never wanted that narration (and thought he could discourage them when he did the narration so bored and demotivated as he did in the English version - the (else very good) German dub does not transport that, and the dubs for the later versions of the movie added some very bad mess-ups due to terrible translation, unfortunately). That the film ends with the liftdoor slamming shut, and that'S it - that'S like a sudden blow with a sword: the blade falls, the head drops, and then nothing but darkness. It is much more in line with the movie and the novel. There is no room for sentimental happy-endings.

[Rhodes]

I remember the two endings. When I saw the directors cut, I thought that was a better ending!

[Agiel7]

But with his cold, detached attitude towards his work, Deckard comes off as less human than the Replicants in the film. This to me presents the most interesting existential quandary. I'm sorry, but Deckard being a Replicant is way too Shyamalan for my tastes. Plus, Deckard being a human fits more with Dick's themes in his book.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Agiel7

But with his cold, detached attitude towards his work, Deckard comes off as less human than the Replicants in the film. This to me presents the most interesting existential quandary.

Which just falls in line with the way the replicants in the movie develope. They start as preprogrammed robots, doing what they were programmed for. The combat models (Roy, Leon). The sex models (Pris, Zorah). The experimental model (Rachel). The police hunting model (Deckard). Tyrell says that Rachel had began to feel that she was a replicant, she fell in despair and gave in to a path that led to revolting: she agreed to flee. Figther Roy and whore Pris fell in love - a human emotion, and decided to revolt, and tried to expand their lives. Fighter Leon got obsessed with his artificial memories, and revolted. Zorah is a bit less differentiated in the movie, we do not get shown her motive why she revolted, but she did. And Deckard functioned like an automat, and then fell in love, and got scruples - and revolted as well. Like the other replicants, he turned out to becomer human after his rebellion against the system. - We also learn in the film that time and again replicants risk their lives to return to Earth, although they know it means a death sentence for them when they get caught - this is the treaosn why Blade Runners even exist.

So what you say, makes sense in supporting that Deckard is a replicant.

I'm sorry, but Deckard being a Replicant is way too Shyamalan for my tastes. Plus, Deckard being a human fits more with Dick's themes in his book.

The film does not tell the story of the book, indeed the book is VERY different. Plus Dick's protagonists almost always find out that reality remote-controls people or is not the natural relaity it is taken for, but an artifical product. His protagonists than are confronted by a universe that all of a sudden breaks apart around them, often leaving them with nothing but uncertainty, even about themselves and their own identity.

The movie stresses this question very strongly - to what degree are people, their ideas and ways of thinking, their beliefs about world and life and their own nature, just produ cts of artifical, alien construction and manipulation processes that they have no own control over, and mostly are not even aware of?

And again I remind of what scott said in an interview himself. He made it clear that the role of Deckard is constructed in a way to make it clear to the careful watcher that Deckard finds oiut to be a replicant himself. It is said in the material and the Making-ofs that come with the metal 25 year-jubilee box, which has hours and hours of documentaries about how the film was made. Very well done dociumentary, btw, I watched it all three times, and found it to be extremely fascinating. Usually I do not care for such stuff.

Their extensive making-of for Gladiator also was a very compelling piece of work, also several hours, as I seem to recall. Or I mix that up with LOTR.

Anyhow... I'm easily getting passionate about Blade Runner, so I better log out here.