Ridley Scott on Deckard in Blade Runner

As the talk of potential sequels to the classic sci-fi picture (click on link to see our original review of Blade Runner) ensue the director Ridley Scott has plenty to talk about. Especially the more people want to talk to him about his anticipated sequel to Prometheus.

Recently he has been quoted as verifying that Deckard is in fact a Replicant and we will get clarification in the sequel. This bothers me because I feel like it is simply catering to the popular myth from the movie. Given more than 30 years have passed without that question actually being answered I am even more certain that this turn in direction is simply to satisfy all those who just really wanted to believe it.

I am a fan of the movie and also read the book by Phillip K. Dick, not that it mattered what happened in the book at all. I do not feel like it was even possible for Deckard to be a Replicant despite Scott’s recent comments or the thirty plus years of speculation.

The main reason being this; if Deckard was a Replicant, he was the worst made robot of all time. Throughout the movie he literally gets his ass handed to him time and time again. He only survives the actual Replicants by the skin of his teeth and in fact gets lucky pretty much every time he faces them.

So my question is, how is a Blade Runner who can barely handle the real Replicants supposed to be one himself? Had Deckard actually been a Replicant wouldn’t he have been able to go toe to toe with these human looking machines with more ease and efficiency? His job is literally to hunt them down and he has so much trouble defeating them. Not only that but had he been a Replicant one of his peers should have been able to spot him. In fact when the Replicants show up on Earth Deckard is actually the second choice to find them as the first was murdered during the Empathy Test (going off memory, I’m pretty sure that’s what it was called).

No, Deckard was much too human with his oh so human attitude of rebellion against authority and lust after the Replicant Rachael. I will be excited over the sequel regardless and look forward to whatever they come up with but I just think this turn in direction is a cheap ploy to get people more invested. They are finally setting the record straight on the matter but I think they are submitting to popular opinion rather than doing what they originally had in mind.

Sound off with comments if you have any thoughts of your own on the matter.

Blade Runner

Year: 1982
Directed By: Ridley Scott
Written By: Philip K. Dick

RYAN’S REVIEW

When Christopher Nolan got ready to start shooting The Dark Knight he gathered the crew together for a screening of this movie.  When it was over he told them that this was how he wanted to make the next Batman movie.  That was what finally got me to sit down and really pay attention to this movie, to recognize how great it really is.  It’s weird but I intentionally avoided this movie for a long time.  I had always heard how great it was but found it slow and vague when I tried to watch it. I would not call myself a big science fiction fan and this movie was always too much science fiction for me. What I mean is that I like science fiction intertwined with real life, a la Terminator or Jurassic Park. These movies are set in real-time and real life with fictitious elements of scientific nature.  A movie like Blade Runner is the whole nine yards, it’s in the future with robots and flying cars and new technology still unknown like the Voight-Kampff machine.

It wasn’t just the heavy science fiction nature of the film that kept me away though, that isn’t usually a problem.  This film is a thinker, and I have never found it enjoyable enough to give it that much effort.  People are literally still debating parts of this film today, 30 years later.  Was Deckard a replicant or not? Who knows? I don’t and while I can see the quality and excellence of this film now I still don’t like it enough to put that kind of time into it. This is the kind of movie you can watch 25 times and analyze over and over again but you have to love a movie to do that and I do not love Blade Runner.  I merely recognize and respect it as a classic, I have heard some call this one of the greatest movies ever made.  I can’t say I agree with that but I can see why people could feel that way, the movie is well made and iconic.

There was apparently a lot of tension between Ridley Scott and Harrison Ford on set during the filming of the movie.  I think at times you can see Ford’s frustration and you can plainly see that he isn’t comfortable in the part. Sean Young is good in this film, though she would go crazy about 10 years later.  I believe she confronted Tim Burton on the set of Batman Returns in a homemade Catwoman suit in an effort to win a part already cast, or something like that.  This is easily one of the best performances from Daryl Hannah, she looks great as Pris. Rutger Hauer also looks great as Roy Batty, this is his best performance as well. This was very early in the career of Ridley Scott, he made this movie right after Alien. You could see early on that he was going to go on and do great things. Blade Runner looks great and it’s very visionary, but I find it boring to an overwhelming point at times.

You should watch this movie because it is a classic.  It is worth your time to see it at least once.  It can be hard to follow and if you are seeing it for the first time it’s easy to get lost or confused. I think that is because this movie has been released in so many formats.  We own the four disc collectors edition, I don’t know what year, but that is only one of I think 6 or 7 editions of the film released over the past 30 years.  However, if you can make it to the second half of the film it gets much better.

Just one final thought, on the Deckard debate.  I can see why people would think that he is a replicant.  Deckard dreams of a unicorn and Gaff makes the origami unicorn indicating that he knew what Deckard dreamed of blah blah blah.  I don’t buy it though, Deckard is always getting his ass kicked.  He is way too pathetic to be a replicant, all the replicants were badass and he was lucky to beat any of them.  If he was a replicant wouldn’t he be designed and built with the capabilities to do his job better?

AMBER’S REVIEW

Oh my god, Ryan wrote way too much about this boring, boring movie. I have tried to watch it three times now and every single time I have fallen asleep. It is the most slow-moving movie in history. Every time that I would wake up for a little bit it would be on some scene playing some ridiculous music and people would be staring at each other hence making me fall asleep once again. This has got to be one of the most boring movies ever made. All I know about it is that Harrison Ford is a Bladerunner, who apparently is someone who chases down and recognizes who a “Replica” is, which is like a human replica that’s not really a replica. I don’t know what else happens but I just assumed at the end he was a replica himself. How is that for irony for a boring ass movie?

NEXT MOVIE: Blast From The Past (1999)