Controversies in Blade Runner

Blade Runner is that unique science fiction film.  It’s ground-breaking in a way that is similar to how 2001: A Space Odyssey is ground-breaking.  Most films up to 1982 that envisioned the future typically portrayed it in one of two ways.  One way was to show a highly technologically advanced future.  These films commonly had a sterile and de-humanized tone to them.  2001 is probably the classic example of this, but there are others such as Metropolis, Fantastic Voyage, Silent Running, and the Star Trek films.  

2001: A Space Odyssey's sterile future

Metropolis (1927)

Fantastic Voyage (1966)

Silent Running (1972)

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

Other science fiction films commonly depicted a step backwards.  It’s usually humanity trying to survive after some disaster occurred, typically a human-made one.  Examples of these are Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green, and the Mad Max films.

Planet of the Apes (1968)

Soylent Green (1972)

Mad Max (1979)

Blade Runner combines the two.  We are immersed in an eerie, dark metropolis.  It’s very crowded, noisy, grimy, loud, and rainy.  It doesn’t appear to be a very pleasant place to live.  Although it’s not stated, one gets the feeling that something really bad had happened and people are forced to live in the urban jungle of Los Angeles or take their chances off-world as the advertisements in the skies above are perpetually encouraging.  But the technology is there, also.  There are flying cars, computer screens, huge advertisements of high-tech companies along with space travel and of course, replicants.

Gloomy, dark, rainy, Los Angeles 2019

...with flying cars and high-tech computers

Replicants aren’t androids as typically shown in film.  They aren’t computers with mechanical bodies and limbs.  They are organic.  They are grown.  We soon learn they are slaves grown primarily to assist in space colonization.  They are probably used to doing dangerous jobs that humans shouldn’t do.  They also are used as soldiers in warfare and as sex dolls.

Leon

Pris

Zhoura

Roy

You might be tempted to think that the movie takes place solely in 2019.  The very first scene takes place in November, 2019, but there is a clue that the latter part takes place in early 2020.  Check out Roy Batty’s incept date.  Four year lifespan, remember?

With Roy dying "naturally" after 4 years, we can see that the film ends in 2020.

There are two major controversies in Blade Runner that have been and will likely forever keep fans discussing and arguing.  I’m not going to attempt to deliver anything definitive, but I will put my perspective of both of these.

Is Deckard human?

The first one I’ll talk about is whether or not Rick Deckard is himself, a human or a replicant.  In a nutshell, here are the arguments that Deckard is a replicant who, like Rachel, doesn’t know because he has fake memories.  

An eye shown early in the film suggests eyes are significant to the story

There’s the “eye” thing.  Replicants seem to show dark or reddish eyes at times.  When we first see the fake owl, we see that the eyes are completely, unrealistically red.  We can take this as a clue that red eyes indicate a manufactured life form.

The owl is a clue

Rachel’s eyes typically appear very dark or slightly reddish.  Yet, when we see Deckard performing the Voight-Kampff test, the monitor shows her eye as very green.  Maybe it’s difficult to get eyes in replicants to appear as human’s eyes do.  The Tyrell Corporation has yet to get that little detail just right.  

Rachel's eyes appear to be red in certain lighting conditions

However, the monitor shows Rachel's eyes as green

And of course, Deckard’s eyes appear dark throughout the film and even show a hint of red in a scene or two.  

Deckard's red eyes

The next argument is that Rachel asks Deckard if he had ever been tested.  This may just have been intended as an insult or maybe she suspects something.  “Sushi!  That’s what my ex-wife called me – cold fish” remarks Deckard to himself as he eats sushi.  This is in the Theatrical Cut where Deckard has an internal monologue.   

"Sushi".  That's what my ex wife called me - Cold Fish.

Deckard notes that replicants seem to be attached to photographs.  As he peruses Leon’s photos, we see a myriad of photos on Deckard’s piano, many of them appear to be quite old.  

Deckard's photos

“You did a Man’s job, sir!”  This seems an odd thing for Gaffe to say unless Deckard really isn’t a man.  

Then you get the big, perhaps, definitive ones.  The versions of the film made after the Theatrical Cut show a brief unicorn dream that links to the origami unicorn that Gaffe makes at the end.  Why would Gaffe make a unicorn for Deckard to see if he didn’t know that’s something in his mind?  

Why is Deckard dreaming of unicorns?

Apparently, Gaffe knows why.

Going back to photographs.  If you ever have watched the deleted scenes that come with the 4 and 5 disc sets of Blade Runner, you will have seen a photo of Deckard and his wife.  If this photo seems familiar, it should.  It appears to take place on a porch similarly to Rachel’s childhood photo.  This would link Deckard and Rachel even more.  Rachel was made in likeness to Elden Tyrell’s niece.  Is Deckard also made in the image of a relative of Dr. Tyrell?  And finally, Director Ridley Scott himself declared that Deckard is a replicant in an interview.

Deckard with his now ex-wife.  Does this photo look familiar?

Rachel and her mother

Now the arguments that Deckard is human.  I have only two.  One is that if Deckard is a replicant cop created to hunt and “retire” other replicants, why doesn’t he possess their superior strength?  Each of the replicants in turn beat the crap out of Deckard.  

The second argument is the important one.  The movie Blade Runner is a much more interesting and better film if Rick Deckard is human!  When I first heard the theory that Deckard may himself, be a replicant, it seemed intriguing at first.  I soon realized that many of the meanings in the film would be lost (like tears in rain) if I believed this.  In Deckard’s hunt of the replicant’s, he discovers his humanity in realizing he has feelings for the replicants he’s “retiring”.  Like his boss Bryant, Deckard is prejudiced against replicants.  In early drafts of the film (shown in the aforementioned deleted/alternate scenes), Deckard and Holden, like Bryant, refer to them as “skinjobs”.  This is akin to a racial slur.  He uses that word to himself when he’s deciding whether or not to “retire” Rachel in his apartment.  

"She wasn't a woman.  She was a skinjob."

In doing so, he is dehumanizing her so he can work himself up to shoot her.  But it doesn’t work.  He realizes he feels for her.  He also feels for Roy Batty at his end.  This journey Deckard makes in initially thinking of replicants as “part of the problem” to outright falling in love with one is meaningless if he is a replicant.

It’s needless to say that I have Deckard as a human being.  This is a major reason why I love this movie so much.  If Deckard is a replicant, then Blade Runner is just a film of an android hunting other androids.

Which version?

Now, let me get into the different versions of the film.  June 1982 is when the first “Theatrical Cut” came out in theaters.  It was released at the same time as ET and did not do very well in terms of the box office or the reviews.  The 1982 version’s signature difference from subsequent versions is that Rick Deckard narrates throughout the film.  This gave it a 1940’s quality in a futuristic film.  This anachronism didn’t work for a lot of moviegoers.  Also, the Theatrical Cut is also the only release with the “happy ending”.  It shows Deckard and Rachel leaving the city together with the voiceover stating that Rachel did not have a 4-year limited lifespan like the other Nexis-6 replicants.  The film’s unique visuals and storyline did resonate with many viewers.  In the ‘80’s, the film began building a cult following.  

1982's Blade Runner: The Theatrical Cut

In 1992, a “Director’s Cut” was released.  It removed the voiceover and the “happy ending”.  It added the previously mentioned brief unicorn dream that got viewers surmising that Deckard was a replicant.

1992's Blade Runner: The Director's Cut

In 2007, a “Final Cut” was released.  This was basically, a re-mastered version of the Director’s Cut. 

2007's Blade Runner: The Final Cut

I am aware of the “Workprint” version as well as the “International Cut”.  I want to limit my discussion to the Theatrical Cut vs. the Final Cut, which is really the Director’s Cut.

So what’s the better version?  If you’ve been paying attention, you probably know I prefer the Theatrical Cut.  After all, it maintains the ambiguity concerning who Deckard is.  Additionally, I realize I’m probably in the minority here, but I like the voiceover.  Sources report that Harrison Ford hated the voiceover and basically phoned it in.  The funny thing about that is Deckard is supposed to be tired and bored, so it works.  The tone fits and while I would agree that it doesn’t really add anything to the story itself, being inside Deckard’s head makes the film unique stylistically.

When I saw Blade Runner in 1982, the origami unicorn that Gaffe leaves for Deckard perplexed me.  Earlier, we saw a chicken when Deckard was reluctant to take on the four Nexis-6 replicants.  The subsequent man figure seemed to indicate Gaffe’s growing respect for Deckard as he is now conducting the investigation.  What did the unicorn indicate?  The Director’s and Final Cut answer this, but in taking the Theatrical Cut on its own, it’s not so clear.  I was able to come up with my own interpretation.

I had read Tennessee Williams’ play, The Glass Menagerie just a few years before seeing the film in 1982.  It has an awkwardly, shy young woman with a collection of glass animals.  Among these was a unicorn.  Laura, the young woman, has many such pieces, but the unicorn is unique among them – being the only fictional or unreal figure in the menagerie.  The glass unicorn represented Laura, whose shyness made her different from other women.

The glass unicorn from "The Glass Menagerie" (1987)

The paper unicorn in Blade Runner immediately had me thinking of this play and I made the connection of the unicorn to Rachel.  Rachel is not like other replicants.  She does not have that four year lifespan.  Rachel was unique and Gaffe understood that.  That’s how I prefer to interpret the unicorn and it’s the main reason why I prefer the Theatrical Cut.

Two criticisms

I’m going to be nit-picky here and point out two flaws that all the versions of the movie have.  First, this scene with Bryant.

“They were designed to copy human beings in every way except their emotions.  The designers reckoned that after a few years, they might develop their own emotional responses.  Oh, hate, love, fear, anger, envy.  So they built in a fail-safe device.  (Which is what?)  Four-year lifespan."

This is pure exposition.  There is no reason Bryant should have to explain this Replicant 101 stuff to an experienced and formerly retired Blade Runner.  This scene should not exist.

This scene should not exist

Second is the scene where Deckard is using a computer to examine the photograph from Leon’s hotel room.  The image of Zhoura that we see on the screen is not the image that is printed out.  Again, referring to the alternate/deleted scenes, there was an earlier version of this scene where the printout does match.  I wish they would have just used that one.  The one they used isn’t any better in my opinion and it even shows a tube-based screen.  The original’s screen appears flatter with a more “matte” quality.  Ironically, it’s more modern than the one they used.

As Zhoura appeared on Deckard's screen

As Zhoura appeared on the printed photo

Deckard's photo analyzer used in the film

The more modern appearing version from the deleted scenes

But these are small criticisms in what is truly a fantastic piece of cinematic art.