Tuesday 4 November 2014

Blade Runner



I downloaded and watched Blade Runner on my iPad. As a scifi movie, it looks dated now: amazing that the idea of Deckard using a huge screen to converse with Rachael woud be viewed as futuristic just 30 years ago, for example.

The storyline is unconvincing: Deckard is convinced to help out after a gang of 6 replicants escaped from outer colony and slaughtered a ship load of human passengers. Quite how an apparently ageing Deckard can be the only person capable of seeing off six replicants is never explained; it is rather a case of never mind how we got here, let's get on with the main story, which is Deckard killing off the replicants in sometimes bizarre circumstances, but, and here is the rub, he engages with them all. He knows them as more than mere wannabe humans, an important clue as to his own identity. For example, Deckard knows some details from Rachael's younger age. She is in denial that she is a replicant and seizes on the memories to justify, then Deckard lets on that the memories were implanted, being memories of Tyrell's niece.

Pris finds the home of JF Sebastian who the replicant gang of six led by Nexus have found by questioning the Chinese manufacturer of eyes. Sebastian can get them to see Tyrell.
 
Very few people live on earth, characterised as a bleak wet place. The scenes are all shot in the dark. Sebastian lives in a huge condominium by himself, with only his 'toys' for company.

Note how smoking is commonplace, both for the actors and the bars they frequent.

One clue that Deckard might be a replicant is that he has no known family. In one scene with Rachael, his eye seem to have the replicant glow.

Another clue as to Deckard's status is when Bryant says "four more to go" after Deckard has shot Salome. Deckard replies: "three, there is three to go."

With the release of the Final Cut version in 2007, some say the argument can be finally put to rest. Ridley Scott, with full control of the media, has put/left in the unicorn dream sequence as Deckard is sitting at the piano daydreaming. Thus, at the end of the movie, Deckard's knowing nod when he picks up Gaff's origami unicorn and recollection of Gaff's last comment - "too bad she (Rachael) won't live, but then again who does?" - concerning Rachael signifies Deckard's own realization of the facts.

Ridley Scott finally came clean that Deckard is a replicant:

That's the whole point of Gaff, the guy who makes origami and leaves little matchstick figures around. He doesn't like Deckard, and we don't really know why. If you take for granted for a moment that, let's say, Deckard is a Nexus 7, he probably has an unknown life span and therefore is starting to get awfully human. Gaff, at the very end, leaves an origami, which is a piece of silver paper you might find in a cigarette packet, and it's a unicorn. Now, the unicorn in Deckard's daydream tells me that Deckard wouldn't normally talk about such a thing to anyone. If Gaff knew about that, it's Gaff's message to say, "I've read your file, mate." That relates to Deckard's first speech to Rachael when he says, "That's not your imagination, that's Tyrell's niece's daydream." And he describes a little spider on a bush outside the window. The spider is an implanted piece of imagination. And therefore Deckard, too, has imagination and even history implanted in his head. (Scott, 2007)

Reference:

Scott, Ridley (2007) Is Deckard a Replicant? Available from http://bladerunner.wikia.com/wiki/Deckard_as_Replicant. Accessed on 4 November 2014


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