Amph Blade Runner (Original, Black Lotus, 2049, 2099)

Blade Runner (1982 / 1991 / 2007)

Let's discuss this seminal film in its various versions and expansions.There are evidently seven total cuts, but the main three are:

• The original 1982 theatrical edition loses some of the director's intended subtleties, and inserts a voice-over narration that some (myself included) consider clunky, plus a Hollywoodificized happy ending that seems to contradict some of what's come before.
• The 1991 Director's Cut included changes such as the removal of the voice-over; re-insertion of a unicorn sequence, and removal of the studio-imposed happy ending.
• The 2007 Final Cut was overseen and controlled by director Ridley Scott, who considers it his definitive vision of the film. It's a minute longer even than the 1991 version, and is my own preferred version of the movie.

To begin discussion, I remain confused as to who the six escaped Replicants are meant to be in the in-universe opinion of the lead character, Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford). Whereas he killed Zhora (the snake dancer), Leon (the mustached thug) and Pris (the blonde street urchin), while Batty (the bleach-blond android leader)'s time expired at film end... who are the other two?

If the answer is "Rachael (the brunette leading lady) and Deckard himself", then how is it that Deckard himself thinks there are three remaining Replicants after he killed Zhora? And why does the police captain (played by M. Emmet Walsh) refer to Deckard's past as an expert Blade Runner?

Inquiring fans want to know!

 

You mean the 'Alien' universe, right?
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/10/ne...firms-blade-runner-and-alien-share-a-universe

 

That was never intended by screenwriters Fancher or Peoples, or director Scott for that matter, but yeah, sure. Why not? Let's talk about it if ye like.

 

This really should have gone into the Amphitheatre sub-section, BTW. I didn't realize I had control over that when I created the thread.

 

If you ask, a mod may retag it as an Amph thread for you.

 

6 renegade replicants

Basically it is just a filming mistake.

I have not scene the final cut version. I do actually like the theatrical release with the narration(which is very noir gumshoe) and even the happy ending tacked on.

I think Deckard is supposed to be a replicant himself as he has an eye glow moment in the kitchen with Rachel. He may be literally a replicant who hunts replicants and as the motto goes more human than human so he lacks the usual super strength as shown by Roy's batch. Deckard would possibly be "Nexus 7", so human-like that he is indistinguishable from human, he is an alcoholic, human strength, etc.

This is also IMO where the film utterly out performs the book. Do Androids Dream Electric Sheep sucked to high heaven. The title "Bladerunner" comes from a story about a medical supply smuggler(I glossed over the very used book this past weekend). It was paid for and used for no better reason than the cool factor of the name.

 

If you remember, it was said that one had already been destroyed. As for the other unaccounted-for one, she was simply dropped from the film and they didn't fix the dialogue to reflect that. Rachael wasn't part of the original count. She wasn't publicly known to be a replicant at that point.

The thing that seems indicative of Deckard being a replicant is the fact that Gaff left behind an origami unicorn. Gaff is apparently in Deckard's head the same way Deckard was in Rachael's.

 

wait!? deckard's a robot!?

 

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe."

 

It actually makes sense when you think about what his job is....

 

In the subsequent Director's Cut and Final Version he is (Scott added/edited scenes to make it more notable eg. Deckard's glowing eyes). In the original film it was left more ambiguous so it can be debated amongst fans (though Scott has insisted it was always his intention, Ford himself always saw Deckard's as human and played him as such - Scott's subsequent revelations were a surprise to him).

 

I always thought of Blade Runner as more gumshoe than science fiction, oddly enough. The narration is one element, certainly, but I finally realised why I had that impression when I got round to reading Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep. It doesn't rip off the plot as such, but it does share a number of character templates with that story: the hard-but-good investigator (Decker), the amoral rich guy who employs the detective (Tyrell), the boss's somewhat aloof daughter and love interest (Rachel), and the 'bad seed' other daughter (the other replicants).

 

alright, well, i guess i've only seen the director's cut and not the definitive cut. the deckard thing still is a little weird but i guess i see how it could work. i was looking into blade runner talk on some other website last fall and someone brought up the unique perspective of roy batty being the actual hero of the film and deckard being the antagonist. it's not that i agree with it, but i do think that idea could be argued. especially with all of batty's jesus symbolism towards the end there and whatnot.

 

As far as the eye glow thing is concerned, aren't the replicants intended to be practically indistinguishable from humans? Wouldn't it be kind of a giveaway if replicants, as a rule, had weird-looking eyes? You wouldn't need Voigt-Kampff if all you had to do was look at someone's eyes in the right lighting.

 

I don't think the glowing eyes are meant to be literal, they're just a visual element that's apparent to the audience.

Another thing that I forgot to mention earlier that makes it apparent that Deckard is a replicant are the added unicorn dream scenes (actually shots lifted from Scott's 'Legend'), which tie in with the little origami figures Gaff keeps making (hinting that he knows Deckard's dreams as he's been programmed with them).

 

Just an incredible performance by Rutger Hauer, and it's a damn shame he never really went on to have a great career.

 

edit

 

Yeah, glowing eyes are a shout to the audience that the being you are looking at is artificial. The owl, Deckard, Rachel. Not every replicant is shown with them.

The theme here is a symbol of "eyes are the gateway to the soul". What makes someone human? You see it in the opening scene where an up close eye views the cityscape, the test where the eye is the focus, the glowing eyes, and lines such as "if only you could see what I've seen with your eyes", and Roy kills his maker by sticking his thumbs through his eyes. Eyes and memory, Rachel and Leon collect photos---those photos are fake(or at leats not theirs), does that make them(the being, the replicant) fake? Does that mean they have no soul despite their very apparent ability to feel? "All those memories will be lost like tears in rain" .

In Iain Banks Culture novels there is extreme virtual reality. Beings live lifetimes in them, or use them as an afterlife. The Minds of the Culture sometimes use VR as a means of figuring out problems. The VR is so perfect that they give rise to thinking entities and they have a conflict about deleting the SIMS after they are used because such SIMS become free thinking entities.

 

There is also the upcoming sequel to Blade Runner to consider. I've created a website that has all of the latest news on this: www.bladerunner-2.com let me know what you guys think?

Also if you guys are interested there are a load of deleted scenes from the original here:

 

Ah, thanks for the link. This line especially clarifies: "In the 'Final Cut' version however, the overdubbing states that 'two of them got fried'." I missed that in my recent viewing of the FC. 6 - 2 = 4. Yay. Cinematic narrative perfection restored.

 

A minor niggling point here: The unicorn shots are not "lifted from Scott's Legend". When insert shots were filmed for BR in London during post-production in late 81/82, Legend had yet to be written, much less shot. The horse is different, the horn is different and the film stock is different. So.

Agreed on every other point, though.

 

I like that it will feature a female protagonist and that it will be a sequel, not a prequel. I will continue to harbor grave reservations about the script, however, until my concerns are relieved by an actual viewing of the film. After Scott's intellectually bankrupt Prometheus I no longer have faith in his ability to establish a credible universe populated by real-seeming characters. He is a visual master, but he needs a solid script to work from.

All over the site linked above, I see references to "the script". Who is the author of this script?

 

Hampton Fancher (the writer of the original) is supposed to be penning the sequel, which I guess is a good thing, although his credits after the original film aren't exactly notable.

I entirely agree with you RE: Ridley Scott and Prometheus, hopefully he will have taken note of some of the feedback from disappointed fans.

 

BTW, using my wikia account I've edited the above-linked page for grammar, syntax and clarity of thought.

 

Oh, sweet! I'm thrilled with this news. Fancher's first drafts of BR were less hard-edged and more romantic in tone than the eventual filmed version, but by all accounts his first screenplay was brilliant and would have made a superb movie if it had been filmed. Ridley Scott had other ideas, though, and Fancher was replaced by Peoples for the final version. So it's a bit of exoneration that Fancher is returning to the fold now, almost 30 years later.