I've just watched Blade Runner for the 1st time...

Depends entirely how the memory is coded. If the memory is entire visual, but doesn't include sound, touch or smell then it would be a limited memory. Total speculation, but if the memory coding technique was limited to visual then it would limit your ability to replicate a function - especially something sensual. That was always my feeling.

 

I watched it for the first time last year. I honestly don't see what is so great about it.

 

A lot of people say that about 2001: A Space Odyssey, Cassablanca and Citizen Kane.

Or Star Wars for that matter.

 

Hal, you might need to be more specific about which version you've actually seen (there are four, not including the work print). There is no version that does not include the voice over and the unicorn dream sequence, it's either one of the other.

And the voice-over was added for numerous reasons. Perhaps the main one being that the film was test screened to an audience of teenage girls who had no idea what was going on and were only there because Harrison Ford was a teen heart-throb at the time. When the test cards came in Warner Brothers got scared and ordered the voice-over to clarify the plot, and to get rid of any suggestions that Deckard was/might be a replicant.

 

It was the final cut, so the unicorn sequence was there. It's the full length "dream" as Deckard is awake, so it's not really a dream. (In the other versions, he was dropping off beforehand)

 

Aye, I see what you mean now. Yep, the final cut is more of a day dream but the intension is the same; an implanted memory.

I've always liked the idea that Deckard was not a replicant, but I've always been slightly alone on that opinion (until now it seems ). I have read the book and I think it's briefly suggested, merely as a passing thought, that Deckard could be a replicant but it's nothing more then that.

Cozmic - one theory is that the reason Deckard is such a good Blade Runner is because he has the physical & thinking ability of a replicant.... because he is a replicant. So that's why he's given the task of hunting down the Nexus 6 models. However, it was only the Nexus 6 models that had memory implants and obviously Deckard would have to be a Nexus 6 model himself. There was a script error that confounded this theory because at the start, Bryant is going through the Nexus 6 models and telling Deckard how many there were, and one was always unaccounted for, that one being Deckard.... perhaps!?!?

 

Or Rachael

 

I suppose it's kinda like Terminator 2, where the T-800 now inferior model has to go and take out the superior T-1000. OK in Blade Runner it's more probable that Deckard might have been the same model as the replicants he was hunting, but it's a similar principle.
To be able to defeat the enemy, you have to know what it is like to be them. T-800 was a Terminator, so he could think like and interpret the behaviour of one.

 

Perhaps they do, but they are brilliant

 

Indeed they are, but many consider Blade Runner to be brilliant too. Not perhaps in the same league as those mentioned previously, but I've rarely seen a Top 100 movies list or Top Sci-Fi Movies list that does not include Blade Runner.

 

It's not in imdb's top 100

 

^ That suprises me actually. I'm not sure which poll it was but recently ( as in a couple of years ago) Blade Runner came top in a poll of the all time greatest Sci Fi Films. I'll have to dig up where I got that info from ...

 

But if he was a replicant, then he wouldn't have had any problem taking on the Nexus 6's. Instead, everyone of them beat him up or nearly kill him. Deckard shouldn't have had any problems if he was one of them. You could say because he didn't know he was a replicant, that Deckard didn't use his full potential but I think that's pointless, why not just send someone that knows they are a skin job.

And there were two that were unaccounted for, one that tried to break into the Tyrell building and the other being Rachael

 

Isn't imdb's top 100 voted for by users/members?

If 99% of Channel 4's "100 Greatest.." shows are anything to go by, the public have a pretty poor opinion of what is great.

 

Samual Jackson never got an oscar
Point being awards and point don't mean much but to glamourised and are voted on popularity instead of merit.

 

I saw it for the first time when the big 5-version set came out, and I watched the final cut first.

Even then, and knowing all the debates about 'is he/isnt he?', I still didnt get that he was a replicant. I dont know why, cant really explain it, but watching the movie I kept thinking it was all deflection and subdefuge. It wasnt that I felt they didnt put up neon signs saying 'he is a replicant', as that wasnt needed. Reasons other people have said (he is too human throughout the film, especially if he is an older model than the actual replicants, and the being beaten up stuff)

If he is an older model, then surely he would be less sophisticated and less 'blend-in-able' (not a word), yet he is the most human of all the replicants, and so I dont think he is one. Maybe Harrison played it wrong, maybe he was supposed to be a more obvious replicant but Ford went too human with it.

Usually I agree with a director's view, as it is their film, but I really dont agree with Scott on this one. Im with Ford, he isnt a replicant. And maybe it is all just my want for him to be human for whatever reason.

 

Maybe harison ford played it bad purposely to get back at Ridly Scott

 

Dewback, that was kinda the point I was trying to make. I just didn't do it as well lol.

You're right, he is too human. You ever get the feeling Scott says Deckard is replicant cos he gets asked so many times about it?

 

You tell me one performance that Samuel Jackson deserved an Oscar for and I'll agree with your point.

As for whether Deckard is a replicant or not; does the book give anything away?

 

Was reading the timesonline today and came across this paragraph;

A poll of colleagues was remarkably consistent about which films had the best twists: Great Expectations (when Pip discovers that his entire fortune, privilege and place in society has been paid for by an ex-convict, Magwitch); Rebecca (the scene in the boathouse when de Winter reveals to his new bride that he absolutely hated his dead wife); Blade Runner (when we realise Harrison Ford is a robot); The Shining (when Wendy, Jack?s wife, realises that he is insane; the book he has been writing is one line written hundreds of times: ?All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy?); The Usual Suspects (Kevin Spacey is pulling the strings); The Prestige (double twist: Christian Bale is his own twin and Hugh Jackman has managed to clone himself), The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (the ?narrator? of this silent movie turns out to be telling the entire story from inside a mental institution); The Others (Nicole Kidman realises that she and her children are dead); and The Empire Strikes Back (Darth Vader is revealed as Luke?s father).

 

That article is complete tosh!

Whether Deckard is a replicant (not robot!!) or not is one of the most hotly debated topics in classic Sci-Fi.

This article makes it sound like a bloody transistor fell out of his nose or there was the sounds of a
fan powering down when he fell asleep!

There has never been conclusive proof either way and for these people to include Blade Runner as one of the
"ultimate twist endings" in movie history just goes to show how much of a grasp the average Times Online journo
has on reality. I mean the twist isn't even a twist, its just a series of oh so subtle nods that could be
interpreted in a number of ways.

Not even the director and star of the movie can agree on the correct interpretation, so what the hell is going on??

And for the record, I do not think Deckard is a replicant. It just doesn't make sense. The character of Deckard
has a long history with the police department and has served for long enough to be promoted to dectective, get assigned
to the Blade Runner task force and then retires before being re-enlisted. Hardly the kind of character that has only
been "online" for a few years.

Though I do think that it would be rather cool if all Blader Runner agents were Replicants, since that would mean that
Edward James Olmos is a stinking fraking machine and doesn't know it!


Edit: Sam Jackson maybe should have been nominated for A Time to Kill. Was very good in that.

 

...episode III

 

I agree.

Better examples would be the twists in Sixth Sense or The Crying Game rather than those listed.
I don't count Bladerunner or The Shining as 'twist' movies, as the things described in the article (ie replicant vs human, and Jack's insanity) are critical to the developing plot, not a twist.

 

Absolutely. A twist has to be clearly stated. Something still left open to interpretation after 27 years is in no way a twist!

As for the books, from what I've read, it's not definitevly stated either way in the original story, but there are no real indications that Deckard is a replicant. There are no glowing eyes, no unicorn dreams etc. All the "evidence" in the film is stuff added by Scott.

The sequels to the book (written after the film) clearly state that Deckard is not a replicant.

But the original book offers a lot less evidence than the film does. It appears that Scott decided that he was, and made the film with that in mind and is why he made the other versions which show it more. But that's just Scott's interpretation. To answer the question, you should ask Mr Dick.

It should also be pointed out that the sequel novels were written by a friend of Mr Dick.

 

It should also be pointed out that Dick is dead.

Never thought I would ever have to write that sentence....