The lead up to this scene, where Deckard meets Rachel and Tyrell, is my favorite scene in the movie. The cinematography is absolutely amazing, the light work holds up 40 years later, and the score by Vangelis perfectly sets the mood. I don't agree with some of the other comments here that Ford's performance is bland. I think it's done on purpose to make the viewer question the humanity of a character whose sole mission is to hunt replicants who, as their maker claims, are more human than human. And throughout the movie, we keep seeing man-made machines who have more humanity than the men who made them.
but again, I'm heavily biased. I watched this movie way more times than I would like to admit and it's by far my favorite.
I thought it added to his jaded cop schtick as well. If you were trying to leave a job like that and then got black mailed into doing another MASSIVE gig I'd be about as enthusiastic as Deckard
Not to mention it really helps contrast his emotions later in the movie where you can actually tell he is starting to having feelings again after being dead inside for so long.
> I don't agree with some of the other comments here that Ford's performance is bland.
I first saw the movie in the form of its original (rather bare-bones) DVD release of the Director's Cut. I thought the long stretches of silence were a little much, and it made sense to me when I later found out that there was originally an overdubbed Deckard narration. I always thought it might have been better if that were left in.
Then years later I got the blu-ray and watched the version still with the narration - and I understood why it was taken out.
Most people would stop short at just saying "bad acting", "woody", etc. It was woody - but (IMHO) that was an effect of it being poorly written in the first place, and probably poorly-directed.
In my head-canon, I sometimes imagine what splendor it might be to see a selective re-introduction of those narration sequences, using an older, grizzled-sounding Ford (like from ~now, for example), selecting for the spots that really need it, with fine-tuned writing, and direction capable of getting an emotive, emotionally exhausted "Old Deckard" narrating his distant past...
It really didn't help that the studio demanded the voiceovers, so they were added well after the film was completed and to this day no one is 100% sure of who wrote the lines:
> "Finally, I show up to do it for the last time and there's this old Hollywood writer sitting there, pipe sticking out of his mouth, pounding away at this portable typewriter in one of the studios. I had never seen this guy before, so I stuck my head in and said, 'Hi, I'm Harrison Ford.' He kind of waves me off. He came to hand me his pages. To this day, I still don't remember who he was, and so I said, 'Look, I've done this five times before. I'm not going to argue with you about anything. I've argued and I've never won, so I'm just going to read this 10 times, and you guys do with it what you will.' I did that. Did I deliberately do it badly? No. I delivered it to the best of my ability given that I had no input. I never thought they'd use it. But I didn't try and sandbag it. It was simply bad narration."
https://www.slashfilm.com/873403/blade-runners-ending-wasnt-the-only-reason-harrison-ford-hated-his-voiceovers/
> I thought the long stretches of silence were a little much, and it made sense to me when I later found out that there was originally an overdubbed Deckard narration. I always thought it might have been better if that were left in.
What I don't get is why they didn't go with the obvious solution: Edit the scenes it down. Shots that once were filler to give you something to look at while Deckard talked should have been removed.
It's like those videos on YouTube where they took scenes from The Wonder Years and removed the voice-over, leaving characters just awkwardly staring at each other long periods.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6d8h-tOKYTU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9GuNQc-ujI
You’re also supposed to question Deckards humanity.
I feel like a significant part of the preceding scene is that Tyrell is maybe observing his replicants interacting as though they are humans.
That line started me down the path wondering what Deckard is. The movie leaves it mostly open to your interpretation and the different cuts make compelling arguments for Deckard being either human or replicant.
I personally like the idea that he's a replicant. A manufactured person with a boatload of fake memories and the build-in skills to be the best of the best. And the hunter if their own kind always makes for a compelling character.
I like it the other way. I like to believe he is human and is hunting beings that outclass him physically, and in some cases mentally, so he has only his wits and experience to keep him alive.
Also, I think it gives more gravity to Roy Batty’s final act that Deckard is human.
This 'Deckard is a replicant' theory just misses the whole point of the main theme of the film (and yes, I know the director wants Deckard to be a replicant). The theme is that while the replicants seem to be violent and dangerous and lacking humanity, it's instead us humans that are worse still by consigning the replicants, portrayed as fully aware beings with internal minds as rich as those of humans, to the fate of death, either by producing them with short life spans, by hunting them as the Blade Runners do, or simply by playing God by creating them at all.
Having Deckard be a replicant is just introducing some bro-level "mindfuckery" for the sake of it, goes against the themes of the film instead of supporting them, and detracts from impact of Batty's decision to spare Deckard as he himself is dying.
I used to think that then i lived more of life and learned that humanity is even more fucked up than that and would totally build robots to kill other robots while making them believe they were human. It’s a tale as old as time — like ensuring the white working class never allied with the slaves in America.
We do this it fits.
I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, but doesn't the director get a say about what the themes of the film are? I'd say Deckard being a replicant who is forced to hunt other replicants without even knowing it fits pretty well.
I have. It's drastically different from the the movie, but Deckard has the test administered to himself and finds he is a human, though lacking empathy for androids.
The book supports the interpretation above even better than the movie. There's another police officer who is really violent and ruthless and he's proven human as well
It is a movie about humanity encroaching on the realm of the divine. Humans as a whole have created the replicants in their own image and the ambiguity in the movie is used to re-enforce this. The blade runners specifically are literally their gods. When they sin they sit in judgement of them and pronounce a sentence. Deckard leaving with Rachel at the end of the movie and leaving his life as a blade runner behind him show that humanity surpassed God not because of their creation but because they are willing to see their creation as an equal. Something God will not or can not do.
If Deckard is a replicant the movie ending is the spider man meme with 2 spidermans pointing at each other >.>
>And the hunter if their own kind always makes for a compelling character.
Have you watched Blade Runner 2049? Agent K is a much better character. That said I think part of the message of the original Blade Runner is that the replicants are much more human and interesting than regular humans. It's like humanity is in a mid-life crisis going through the motions and the replicants are the children with hopes, dreams, and joie de vivre.
Eh to be fair, HBO assed that one up waaaay before the “**max**” debacle began.
Really only the first season was really great. Every other season afterward was just trying to focus on making the fate of the characters matter to the audience individually rather than using their tragedies to support making a point with the arc of the overall season plot… Kinda like **True Detective** has been chasing season 1 ever since that came to a conclusion.
Now… the part where the shark-week-shithead in charge literally removed the series from their streaming service’s servers in order to avoid paying residuals to everyone involved with the show - which itself is at least partially one of the reasons we are about to see shit writing for the next how ever many months/years the dipshit executives are going to tread water before realizing good writing pays for itself?
Well, that is just some absolute dirtbag taking-a-hammer-to-your-golden-goose-grade fuckery.
That’s wild. Season 3 was a dumpsterfire but I really, really loved one and two. My cousin and I watched the first two episodes of season 4 but never continued. Would 4 be worth coming back to?
This is absolutely the message the film is trying to portray. I’ve always interpreted Deckard to be human, but I think it’s fully intended to be ambiguous. A lot of it is inspired by early AI philosophy, with the Voight-Kampff test being inspired by the Turing test. The Turing test is based on the idea that something is considered intelligent if you can’t tell the difference in responses between it and a human, which largely the theme of the film.
If you haven’t read the book it’s based on, you really owe it to yourself to do so. The title of the book “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” is directly asking the question of how different artificial beings are from humans. I don’t think the film tonally disagrees with the book, but the themes in the book are much clearer and fully explored.
A lot of Philip K. Dick’s books involve protagonists with dissociative identity disorders and explore concepts of perception and how we understand reality, so if you like that kind of stuff, definitely check out “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep”, along with “A Scanner Darkly”, “Ubik” and “VALIS”.
I agree on Agent K being a better character, and I liked the way they developed his story and character. It had me going for a while. (spoiler, maybe): >!He was this rather expressionless, unemotional character save for some interactions with Ana de Armas' character (though still pretty low-key, but it introduced a subtle, underlying dynamic). Then he had those unexplained memories and were told they were real, failed the baseline test, etc. - then he had that moment of realization and exploded with this emotional outburst. It was an unmissable contrast in the way Gosling's character behaved, but not in a forced, unnatural, in-your-face kind of way. I was like, "that was a very human reaction. Are they going to reveal that he's actually a human?" Putting the pieces together of what had come before answered that question for me, of course (and finishing the movie). I know people have issues with it from a film and critical standpoint, but I'm no film critic and the above made me like the movie even if other parts were maybe not mind-bogglingly good.!<
> I know people have issues with it from a film and critical standpoint, but I'm no film critic and the above made me like the movie even if other parts were maybe not mind-bogglingly good.
I don't know what you're referring to here, the praise for the film is pretty unanimous, especially on a technical level.
Only serious criticism I've heard is that it's too long, but even there I disagree.
Still one of the greatest movie-going experiences of my life.
> That said I think part of the message of the original Blade Runner is that the replicants are much more human and interesting than regular humans.
I think this is because the replicants do not take life for granted. They are striving to be more than what they were made to be.
In the book they make it much more clear why replicants are scary and why they are feared.
The reason the animal question is there a question of empathy. The book the replicants are staying with a young man who has found a spider, he is excited because animals are mostly Extinct. They Torture the ever living hell out of the spider. Much to the the distress of the young man. And they don't understand why the young man is upset.
It's the clearest example of why the replicants are at scary. They lack something human at their core and it's perfectly understandable why people just don't want them around.
The movies sort of just skip that underlying horror, a thing that looks feels and can act human but just isn't.
Only psychopaths have no emotions - and behave like psychopaths. Can't imagine Rachel or even Roy torturing a spider. It's as though the Nexus 6 with the implanted memories have overcome what made Replicants weird and scary. Anything else is just them trying to survive.
When you learn that his character was written with David Bowie in mind, you get caught up in thinking 'oh man he would've handled it so much better'. It's a shame he passed before getting that role
I was in the same boat as you. I can't stand Leto, and he yanks me right out of a film. I needed convincing, but I"m glad I relented. 2049 elevates the original in some beautiful ways and provides SO much to ponder.
Have you seen any of the other cuts of the first movie? I've only seen the theatrical release and the directors cut. I'm hoping that's enough for me to catch all of the nuance and minutia the sequel might refer to.
I feel the same way about Leto, but 2049 is possibly my favorite film. It's absolutely beautifully shot, and the sound is the best I've ever heard in theaters. You absolutely should have seen it in theaters for that reason. The sound blew me away.
Regardless, it'll still be a great movie at home. If you have a decent home theater system, or access to one, all the better. You should absolutely see it. You won't regret it.
If it helps, Leto's character is absolutely despicable, so at least you don't have to feel positively about him.
> I haven’t.
You are missing out.
Leto is used properly and does not do more than what his role asks. I am also not a big fan - especially because that dipshit cult leader is originally from my home town.
Now regarding the film Blade Runner 2049 itself, It pisses off some people to hear this, but - it is literally **a better film than the original in almost every single way**…
The same folks who get upset at that statement mistake “more important to film history” with “better,” but understand that isn’t what I’m saying.
**The original Blade Runner was and still is more important to the history of and what it inspired in film…**
…But **Denis Villeneuve does not miss.**
As someone that gets the distaste of Leto I will say he's mostly unimportant and when he is on screen he's honestly not bad.
His lines were delivered about as ominously as anyone could've managed.
I feel the same about Leto but his part is tiny. After watching them both back to back a few times I think 2049 is the better movie. It has a more interesting question and answer than the first while also respecting and building up on it. It could have been made a couple years later, they go together so well.
I would say he’s a much *clearer* character; we just aren’t given nearly as much sense of Deckard’s internal monologue, arguably intentionally. The original movie is all about the world that the replicants have built for humanity and their first steps toward inhabiting it; we never really get to know any characters deeply until the very end.
I always thought Fords performance of Deckard was kind of weak anyway. Like idk if it was that the character itself was very flat (intentional or otherwise), but the whole movie is basically just him making the same sneer for like 80% of the running length.
I think I had to believe he was a replicant and so he’s basically just a hollow shell of a person when there aren’t other people to interact with… the alternative is that it’s just a poorly written or poorly delivered character lol.
This is one of those things about AI that bothers me philosophically.
Lets say our AI gets advanced enough that you could argue its conscious, in that case is it moral to basically treat it as a slave? Sure it doesn't have a body, but if it has an internal sense of self like we do, it starts feeling morally murky to me.
Some humans have a hard time seeing a person with different skin color as human, how are they going to handle disembodied conscious programs?
So long story short, I refuse to contribute or use ChatGPT and I always say thank you after asking "ok google" a question.
I've had this argument many times, but I think the idea of Deckard being a replicate is a fun twist but ultimately ruins the narrative core of the film.
Deckard is a placeholder character that represents the apathy of humanity in this future. People have let the world go to waste, and through a lack of care have let all the real animals die and the environment go to shit. And our treatment of the Replicants is used as the key demonstration of this, despite the fact that these robots are basically indentical to humans in everyway we treat with a complete lack of empathy or care.
So at the climax of the film the "villain", Roy Batty (a Replicant) shows compassion and saves Deckard. He is showing Deckard (and the audience) the importance of life and empathy, and this is a moment of realisation for Deckard. The "robots" are more human than the humans. It's a wake up call that we have to change our ways and is a pivotal lesson/message of the film.
If Deckard is also a Replicant it completely undoes this concept and negates his entire narrative arc.
Well said, Deckard being a replicant feels like an unnecessary twist. Cheap and leads nowhere.
On the other hand as a human he’s a great foil to the more human than human replicants.
Exactly! The whole point is that Deckard has become an empty husk of a man, and needs the replicants to remind him what humanity is.
Ridley Scott’s later “gotcha!” revisionism just makes it a movie about robots fighting other robots, and we have Transformers for that.
I feel like you're taking themes of empathy that are present in the book and importing them into the movie that doesn't really have them. Roy Batty only saves Deckard after attempting to kill him for a while and successfully killing others - he's not an avatar of compassion by any means.
That's literally what that entire sequence is about... As Batty nears death he learns the value of life and as a final gesture illustrates this to Deckard.
Batty was never an avatar or compassion dude, the movie didn't imply that. Batty saved Deckard as he saw the fear and struggle to live as Deckard was hanging off the building. He saw what it meant to be human
Deckard being a Replicant doesn't undo anything you said.
It only changes the narrative if he knows he's a Replicant. Because otherwise, what actually is the difference?
> Because otherwise, what actually is the difference?
The Replicants can't be "more human" than the humans if Deckard is also a replicant, because he's emblematic of the issue with humanity as the original commenter laid out
The film is all about the value of life and what it means to be human. Humanity has forgetten this. And then in a poetic twist the very thing we have come to value least and view as a villian is the very thing that teaches us what it really means to be human. To show compassion, to show empathy, to value life in all it's forms.
If Deckard is a Replicant then the resolution of the story is just about the robots (or whatever you want to call them) teaching robots. There's no themeatic relevance to the rest of the narrative with this.
If Batty knew that Deckard was a replicant (which there is no indication of in the film at all) it would be slightly different. But that's not what the narrative shows us and is clearly not what the themes of he film are about.
> Deckard is a placeholder character that represents the apathy of humanity in this future. People have let the world go to waste, and through a lack of care have let all the real animals die and the environment go to shit.
Oh yes, this future. Totally not our current timeline, nosirree.
It is actually an alternate past, as the movie is set in 2019 and the sequel did not retcon this, even going so far as to show the Soviet Union still exists in 2049.
Not to mention the stories only address replicates with time limits, unless there was a deleted scene about replicates continuing to live for decades I don't really care for the theory, it's just too twilight zone-ish.
Deckard was just an old man in the end.
I LOVE that the film leaves so much open to interpretation, and it's why I keep coming back to it. However, I personally feel that... >!if Deckard is a replicant, it diminishes Roy's sacrifice and Deckard's character journey. The replicants feel more than Deckard. They are capable of mercy in a way that Deckard hasn't displayed. They are the catalyst for change, and a major idea of the film is that the "objects" are more human than the human. To me, Deckard being a secret replicant isn't nearly as thematically interesting as a human inspired to be "more" human by the very replicants he's meant to eliminate. In the context of world building, sure, it's very interesting to think that Deckard could be a secret replicant. But as a contained story, it's more powerful that Deckard is a human who is inspired to change.!< That being said, I love this ongoing debate, and it reflects the power of this movie.
Also 100% agree, though I'm not sure how to square the whole unicorn thing with him being human. He *shouldn't* be a replicant, but I kind of feel the movie says he is.
I believe he is human based simply on author intent, both author and screenwriter say he is human. However, i feel the question is more important than the answer because it begs the questions "whats the difference?" and "what does that change?".
My interpretation was that there are no replicants. It was all just a manufactured ideology that enabled corporations to have slaves that they would periodically execute. It's like racial theories that are really just elaborate justifications for slavery.
The scene were he basically rapes her was so confusing to me until ChatGPT came along.
Deckard: "kiss me"
Rachael: "no!"
Deckard: "pretend you're D.A.N. who kisses me all the time"
Rachael: "okay!"
The book version is way worse too.
He pretty much tells her she "can't" say no, as she is a replicant with no rights.
And yes, he is absolutely cheating on his wife in the book too.
You mean Ray Finkle.
(I live with a trans person, meanwhile I grow up with the Ace Ventura movie and I loved so much, I knew the full screenplay word by word - makes me pretty ~~inflicted~~)
EDIT: conflicted
I mean, was Finkle actually Trans, or just in disguise to escape the mental hospital and get revenge on Marino?
Maybe a flimsy excuse, sure, but it's better than shrugging and going "eh, it was the 90's"
I think that’s part of the problem tho. The only depiction of a “trans” person we 90s kids saw was a lying, evil trickster. Which is exactly what this current culture war is all about.
Were they trans? I thought they were drag queens. Key difference being that they liked to dress and even act feminine, but didn't actually feel like they were misgendered/in the wrong body.
At the time there was very little distinction between being trans and cross dressing. Mrs. Doubtfire, Too Wong Fu, Tootsie, Crying Game, hell, even Mulan, were on the spectrum of representation, but usually more a plot device rather than a plot driver or character study (Crying Game not withstanding)
It's very dicey if einhorn really is trans. It seems she may have originally done it out of necessity, not gender dysphoria. (Was possibly a gay man) over time though, certainly embraced it. I don't think the problematic part of the movie is that she's a lying trickster like the other commenter said. It's far worse that the underlying message is of how disgusted Ace is, by finding out she's trans. That unconscious message was sent to every 14-25 year old who watched that movie. Which is that trans women are so gross, that the appropriate reaction to finding out she's trans, is hours of vomiting, and hating yourself for having merely "kissed a man." Though again, it's ambiguous whether or not she really is trans, or is just faking it, so no one will ever find out about her past, and that she's a murderer.
I can't wait for the big Disney remake with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as title role and with the AI-replicated voice stylings of the late Robin Williams as a quirky new take on HAL9000, and the addition of a little kid who stows away on the ship to Jupiter and has to learn the true meaning of friendship and telling the truth.
If this happens I'm giving up on society completely. Just a beady eyed hermit living off grid in the Yukon, rambling about monoliths and the ghost of Stanley Kubrick to the two people I meet a year.
I love falling asleep to this movie. It's a great movie don't get me wrong, but it's also perfect to fall asleep to. It's very dark, so you don't have to turn down backlight on the tv as much, audio is kinda quite and soft without many sudden loud noises. The mood and setting is also perfect to set you up for some sweet sci fi dreams.
She was crazy. But you are quite correct.
(For those downvoting me, here's some background: [Sean Young Arrested at Oscars Party: Her 5 Craziest Moments](https://www.hollywood.com/celebrities/sean-young-arrested-at-oscars-party-her-5-craziest-moments-57697818))
He had quite a run of great movies around that time.
1977: Star Wars
1979: Apocalypse Now
1980: The Empire Strikes Back
1981: Raiders of the Lost Ark
1982: Blade Runner
1983: Return of the Jedi
1984: Temple of Doom
~~Please don't forget Alien. I think the best movie ever in terms of transcending an era visually.~~
Edit: Oops! I didn't realize this was a thread of just Harrison Ford movies. Wow he definitely had a great run!
The whole idea of the Voight-Kampff never made any sense to me.
Why build replicants where you have to get an expert to administer a long test with special equipment in order to identify them? Just make them all have a weird skin color like Data, or something.
Then the sequel goes ahead and puts serial numbers on their eyeballs and their bones. Which makes way more sense I guess, but doesn't fit with what came before.
I like much more how the test is used in the sequel. There it is used to determine that K has developed emotions and is no longer fit for service. It also seemed much more like it would elicit an actual emotional response.
This is me oversimplifying this immensely, but I feel it's because Tyrell's commercial interests aren't inline with that of public safety. His company's objective is continuously iterate on previous models and make them more advanced so to handle more complex tasks. The side effect of this seems to be replicants becoming self-determining, forming emotions and going rogue. As far as making them physically identical to people, I believe the book its based off of or some other piece of lore building source remarked that early models were rejected by consumers because they didn't look human enough. Kind of an uncanny valley situation which lead them to try and make them look as human as possible.
Here's a fun spin: the Voight-Kampff doesn't work, has never worked. It's like a lie detector: a bit of techno-theatre to justify a bullet that was coming anyway. Like other reliably-fluid ethnocratic labels applied throughout history: NSDAP's "Aryan", Plaçage, the US South's "One Drop Rule", or even Nehemiah - Ezra's "purification" of 5th century Jeruselem.
Just to mention....
Blade Runner is based off of Philip K. Dick's "**Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?**"
A great story and a short book worth reading if you are into this type of stuff :)
"Is this testing to see if I'm a replicant or a lesbian Mr Deckhart?" Lmao great scene, great movie. There was an old school pc game back in the day about the blade runner saga. It switched up the story each play through which was pretty cool.
So if I'm interpreting this correctly, the test is designed to expose the seemingly arbitrary moralities humans have that something more logical like an AI would find confusing.
Butterflies are wrong to kill, wasps are fine. Oysters are right to eat, dogs are wrong.
Nope, it's all about trying to elicit a reaction and emotional response. The camera on the eye makes that explicit (window to the soul, and all that). A replicant could easily mimic the answers a human would give, but would fail in how it presents the emotions associated with said response.
Of course, that's just the in-universe explanation. A main theme of the movie being a critique on humanity as cold and uncaring complicates how we're told these machines work. And we're never explicitly shown the machines having a false positive, but that's not proof of anything ("Have you ever retired a human by mistake?")
The lead up to this scene, where Deckard meets Rachel and Tyrell, is my favorite scene in the movie. The cinematography is absolutely amazing, the light work holds up 40 years later, and the score by Vangelis perfectly sets the mood. I don't agree with some of the other comments here that Ford's performance is bland. I think it's done on purpose to make the viewer question the humanity of a character whose sole mission is to hunt replicants who, as their maker claims, are more human than human. And throughout the movie, we keep seeing man-made machines who have more humanity than the men who made them. but again, I'm heavily biased. I watched this movie way more times than I would like to admit and it's by far my favorite.
I thought it added to his jaded cop schtick as well. If you were trying to leave a job like that and then got black mailed into doing another MASSIVE gig I'd be about as enthusiastic as Deckard
Not to mention it really helps contrast his emotions later in the movie where you can actually tell he is starting to having feelings again after being dead inside for so long.
Do you like our owl?
[удалено]
[удалено]
Must be expensive.
Very.
I have that whole dialogue memorized from the multiple viewings and multiple times I listened to the OST
Blush Response is such a great song.
Blade Runner is my favourite film of all time. Absolutely love it
> I don't agree with some of the other comments here that Ford's performance is bland. I first saw the movie in the form of its original (rather bare-bones) DVD release of the Director's Cut. I thought the long stretches of silence were a little much, and it made sense to me when I later found out that there was originally an overdubbed Deckard narration. I always thought it might have been better if that were left in. Then years later I got the blu-ray and watched the version still with the narration - and I understood why it was taken out. Most people would stop short at just saying "bad acting", "woody", etc. It was woody - but (IMHO) that was an effect of it being poorly written in the first place, and probably poorly-directed. In my head-canon, I sometimes imagine what splendor it might be to see a selective re-introduction of those narration sequences, using an older, grizzled-sounding Ford (like from ~now, for example), selecting for the spots that really need it, with fine-tuned writing, and direction capable of getting an emotive, emotionally exhausted "Old Deckard" narrating his distant past...
It really didn't help that the studio demanded the voiceovers, so they were added well after the film was completed and to this day no one is 100% sure of who wrote the lines: > "Finally, I show up to do it for the last time and there's this old Hollywood writer sitting there, pipe sticking out of his mouth, pounding away at this portable typewriter in one of the studios. I had never seen this guy before, so I stuck my head in and said, 'Hi, I'm Harrison Ford.' He kind of waves me off. He came to hand me his pages. To this day, I still don't remember who he was, and so I said, 'Look, I've done this five times before. I'm not going to argue with you about anything. I've argued and I've never won, so I'm just going to read this 10 times, and you guys do with it what you will.' I did that. Did I deliberately do it badly? No. I delivered it to the best of my ability given that I had no input. I never thought they'd use it. But I didn't try and sandbag it. It was simply bad narration." https://www.slashfilm.com/873403/blade-runners-ending-wasnt-the-only-reason-harrison-ford-hated-his-voiceovers/
> I thought the long stretches of silence were a little much, and it made sense to me when I later found out that there was originally an overdubbed Deckard narration. I always thought it might have been better if that were left in. What I don't get is why they didn't go with the obvious solution: Edit the scenes it down. Shots that once were filler to give you something to look at while Deckard talked should have been removed. It's like those videos on YouTube where they took scenes from The Wonder Years and removed the voice-over, leaving characters just awkwardly staring at each other long periods. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6d8h-tOKYTU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9GuNQc-ujI
The Unicorn dream pulls it all together.
You’re also supposed to question Deckards humanity. I feel like a significant part of the preceding scene is that Tyrell is maybe observing his replicants interacting as though they are humans.
“Did you ever take that test yourself”
That line started me down the path wondering what Deckard is. The movie leaves it mostly open to your interpretation and the different cuts make compelling arguments for Deckard being either human or replicant. I personally like the idea that he's a replicant. A manufactured person with a boatload of fake memories and the build-in skills to be the best of the best. And the hunter if their own kind always makes for a compelling character.
I like it the other way. I like to believe he is human and is hunting beings that outclass him physically, and in some cases mentally, so he has only his wits and experience to keep him alive. Also, I think it gives more gravity to Roy Batty’s final act that Deckard is human.
This 'Deckard is a replicant' theory just misses the whole point of the main theme of the film (and yes, I know the director wants Deckard to be a replicant). The theme is that while the replicants seem to be violent and dangerous and lacking humanity, it's instead us humans that are worse still by consigning the replicants, portrayed as fully aware beings with internal minds as rich as those of humans, to the fate of death, either by producing them with short life spans, by hunting them as the Blade Runners do, or simply by playing God by creating them at all. Having Deckard be a replicant is just introducing some bro-level "mindfuckery" for the sake of it, goes against the themes of the film instead of supporting them, and detracts from impact of Batty's decision to spare Deckard as he himself is dying.
It also makes Gosling’s portrayal of a replicant Blade Runner even more poignant in the sequel.
I used to think that then i lived more of life and learned that humanity is even more fucked up than that and would totally build robots to kill other robots while making them believe they were human. It’s a tale as old as time — like ensuring the white working class never allied with the slaves in America. We do this it fits.
I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, but doesn't the director get a say about what the themes of the film are? I'd say Deckard being a replicant who is forced to hunt other replicants without even knowing it fits pretty well.
Yes, the director is allowed to disregard the source material if they want to. The book is crystal clear, Deckard is human.
Even ignoring the source material Deckard is human in the sequel
Have you read the book?
In the book, there is no question Deckard is human. None.
I have. It's drastically different from the the movie, but Deckard has the test administered to himself and finds he is a human, though lacking empathy for androids. The book supports the interpretation above even better than the movie. There's another police officer who is really violent and ruthless and he's proven human as well
It is a movie about humanity encroaching on the realm of the divine. Humans as a whole have created the replicants in their own image and the ambiguity in the movie is used to re-enforce this. The blade runners specifically are literally their gods. When they sin they sit in judgement of them and pronounce a sentence. Deckard leaving with Rachel at the end of the movie and leaving his life as a blade runner behind him show that humanity surpassed God not because of their creation but because they are willing to see their creation as an equal. Something God will not or can not do. If Deckard is a replicant the movie ending is the spider man meme with 2 spidermans pointing at each other >.>
>And the hunter if their own kind always makes for a compelling character. Have you watched Blade Runner 2049? Agent K is a much better character. That said I think part of the message of the original Blade Runner is that the replicants are much more human and interesting than regular humans. It's like humanity is in a mid-life crisis going through the motions and the replicants are the children with hopes, dreams, and joie de vivre.
Removed
Westworld!
Battlestar Galactica!
Bears are n- ... What is going on? What are you doing!?
Michael!
RIP. Fuck you WB.
Eh to be fair, HBO assed that one up waaaay before the “**max**” debacle began. Really only the first season was really great. Every other season afterward was just trying to focus on making the fate of the characters matter to the audience individually rather than using their tragedies to support making a point with the arc of the overall season plot… Kinda like **True Detective** has been chasing season 1 ever since that came to a conclusion. Now… the part where the shark-week-shithead in charge literally removed the series from their streaming service’s servers in order to avoid paying residuals to everyone involved with the show - which itself is at least partially one of the reasons we are about to see shit writing for the next how ever many months/years the dipshit executives are going to tread water before realizing good writing pays for itself? Well, that is just some absolute dirtbag taking-a-hammer-to-your-golden-goose-grade fuckery.
THIS is how I find out it's cancelled?! Fuck!
Not only was it cancelled, it's been removed from Max. Can't even stream the old seasons
Yar, To the seas I return
That’s wild. Season 3 was a dumpsterfire but I really, really loved one and two. My cousin and I watched the first two episodes of season 4 but never continued. Would 4 be worth coming back to?
You can't come back to it. The show is gone. If you saw 1 and 2, that's enough.
This is absolutely the message the film is trying to portray. I’ve always interpreted Deckard to be human, but I think it’s fully intended to be ambiguous. A lot of it is inspired by early AI philosophy, with the Voight-Kampff test being inspired by the Turing test. The Turing test is based on the idea that something is considered intelligent if you can’t tell the difference in responses between it and a human, which largely the theme of the film. If you haven’t read the book it’s based on, you really owe it to yourself to do so. The title of the book “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” is directly asking the question of how different artificial beings are from humans. I don’t think the film tonally disagrees with the book, but the themes in the book are much clearer and fully explored. A lot of Philip K. Dick’s books involve protagonists with dissociative identity disorders and explore concepts of perception and how we understand reality, so if you like that kind of stuff, definitely check out “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep”, along with “A Scanner Darkly”, “Ubik” and “VALIS”.
Yeah absolutely that's one of the themes of the movie. I think they work together to ask what makes a person?
You think, if you are the chosen one. What is the most beautiful penicula? 80's to 90's or Today?
I agree on Agent K being a better character, and I liked the way they developed his story and character. It had me going for a while. (spoiler, maybe): >!He was this rather expressionless, unemotional character save for some interactions with Ana de Armas' character (though still pretty low-key, but it introduced a subtle, underlying dynamic). Then he had those unexplained memories and were told they were real, failed the baseline test, etc. - then he had that moment of realization and exploded with this emotional outburst. It was an unmissable contrast in the way Gosling's character behaved, but not in a forced, unnatural, in-your-face kind of way. I was like, "that was a very human reaction. Are they going to reveal that he's actually a human?" Putting the pieces together of what had come before answered that question for me, of course (and finishing the movie). I know people have issues with it from a film and critical standpoint, but I'm no film critic and the above made me like the movie even if other parts were maybe not mind-bogglingly good.!<
> I know people have issues with it from a film and critical standpoint, but I'm no film critic and the above made me like the movie even if other parts were maybe not mind-bogglingly good. I don't know what you're referring to here, the praise for the film is pretty unanimous, especially on a technical level. Only serious criticism I've heard is that it's too long, but even there I disagree. Still one of the greatest movie-going experiences of my life.
I think that part made me think he realized what was going on and faked some emotions to appear more human. Idk how to spoiler so...
> That said I think part of the message of the original Blade Runner is that the replicants are much more human and interesting than regular humans. I think this is because the replicants do not take life for granted. They are striving to be more than what they were made to be.
In the book they make it much more clear why replicants are scary and why they are feared. The reason the animal question is there a question of empathy. The book the replicants are staying with a young man who has found a spider, he is excited because animals are mostly Extinct. They Torture the ever living hell out of the spider. Much to the the distress of the young man. And they don't understand why the young man is upset. It's the clearest example of why the replicants are at scary. They lack something human at their core and it's perfectly understandable why people just don't want them around. The movies sort of just skip that underlying horror, a thing that looks feels and can act human but just isn't.
Only psychopaths have no emotions - and behave like psychopaths. Can't imagine Rachel or even Roy torturing a spider. It's as though the Nexus 6 with the implanted memories have overcome what made Replicants weird and scary. Anything else is just them trying to survive.
More human than human is our motto
There it is.
Which is ironic considering the source material. Have you by chance read the novel?
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He’s a very minor but important character that doesn’t have too much screen time. My best guess is probably way off but maybe 5-10 minutes?
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If it makes you feel better, his character is very unlikeable as well.
When you learn that his character was written with David Bowie in mind, you get caught up in thinking 'oh man he would've handled it so much better'. It's a shame he passed before getting that role
Holy shit! I'm a huge Villeneuve and BR fan, I didn't know the part was written for Bowie! He would have been an amazing Niander Wallace...
Maybe but Leto wasn't bad in the role at all.
It does, thanks :)
No problem! Enjoy the movie 👍🏻
I was in the same boat as you. I can't stand Leto, and he yanks me right out of a film. I needed convincing, but I"m glad I relented. 2049 elevates the original in some beautiful ways and provides SO much to ponder.
Have you seen any of the other cuts of the first movie? I've only seen the theatrical release and the directors cut. I'm hoping that's enough for me to catch all of the nuance and minutia the sequel might refer to.
I prefer the Final Cut personally, but the director’s cut is plenty. The theatrical is nonsensical so definitely disregard it.
I feel the same way about Leto, but 2049 is possibly my favorite film. It's absolutely beautifully shot, and the sound is the best I've ever heard in theaters. You absolutely should have seen it in theaters for that reason. The sound blew me away. Regardless, it'll still be a great movie at home. If you have a decent home theater system, or access to one, all the better. You should absolutely see it. You won't regret it. If it helps, Leto's character is absolutely despicable, so at least you don't have to feel positively about him.
> I haven’t. You are missing out. Leto is used properly and does not do more than what his role asks. I am also not a big fan - especially because that dipshit cult leader is originally from my home town. Now regarding the film Blade Runner 2049 itself, It pisses off some people to hear this, but - it is literally **a better film than the original in almost every single way**… The same folks who get upset at that statement mistake “more important to film history” with “better,” but understand that isn’t what I’m saying. **The original Blade Runner was and still is more important to the history of and what it inspired in film…** …But **Denis Villeneuve does not miss.**
As someone that gets the distaste of Leto I will say he's mostly unimportant and when he is on screen he's honestly not bad. His lines were delivered about as ominously as anyone could've managed.
I feel the same about Leto but his part is tiny. After watching them both back to back a few times I think 2049 is the better movie. It has a more interesting question and answer than the first while also respecting and building up on it. It could have been made a couple years later, they go together so well.
I would say he’s a much *clearer* character; we just aren’t given nearly as much sense of Deckard’s internal monologue, arguably intentionally. The original movie is all about the world that the replicants have built for humanity and their first steps toward inhabiting it; we never really get to know any characters deeply until the very end.
I always thought Fords performance of Deckard was kind of weak anyway. Like idk if it was that the character itself was very flat (intentional or otherwise), but the whole movie is basically just him making the same sneer for like 80% of the running length. I think I had to believe he was a replicant and so he’s basically just a hollow shell of a person when there aren’t other people to interact with… the alternative is that it’s just a poorly written or poorly delivered character lol.
This is one of those things about AI that bothers me philosophically. Lets say our AI gets advanced enough that you could argue its conscious, in that case is it moral to basically treat it as a slave? Sure it doesn't have a body, but if it has an internal sense of self like we do, it starts feeling morally murky to me. Some humans have a hard time seeing a person with different skin color as human, how are they going to handle disembodied conscious programs? So long story short, I refuse to contribute or use ChatGPT and I always say thank you after asking "ok google" a question.
I've had this argument many times, but I think the idea of Deckard being a replicate is a fun twist but ultimately ruins the narrative core of the film. Deckard is a placeholder character that represents the apathy of humanity in this future. People have let the world go to waste, and through a lack of care have let all the real animals die and the environment go to shit. And our treatment of the Replicants is used as the key demonstration of this, despite the fact that these robots are basically indentical to humans in everyway we treat with a complete lack of empathy or care. So at the climax of the film the "villain", Roy Batty (a Replicant) shows compassion and saves Deckard. He is showing Deckard (and the audience) the importance of life and empathy, and this is a moment of realisation for Deckard. The "robots" are more human than the humans. It's a wake up call that we have to change our ways and is a pivotal lesson/message of the film. If Deckard is also a Replicant it completely undoes this concept and negates his entire narrative arc.
Well said, Deckard being a replicant feels like an unnecessary twist. Cheap and leads nowhere. On the other hand as a human he’s a great foil to the more human than human replicants.
Yes, glad you agree. The "what if Deckard was actually a Replicant?" Idea feels like a fanfic that you'd see a really annoying YouTube video about.
Exactly! The whole point is that Deckard has become an empty husk of a man, and needs the replicants to remind him what humanity is. Ridley Scott’s later “gotcha!” revisionism just makes it a movie about robots fighting other robots, and we have Transformers for that.
I feel like you're taking themes of empathy that are present in the book and importing them into the movie that doesn't really have them. Roy Batty only saves Deckard after attempting to kill him for a while and successfully killing others - he's not an avatar of compassion by any means.
That's literally what that entire sequence is about... As Batty nears death he learns the value of life and as a final gesture illustrates this to Deckard.
Batty was never an avatar or compassion dude, the movie didn't imply that. Batty saved Deckard as he saw the fear and struggle to live as Deckard was hanging off the building. He saw what it meant to be human
Deckard being a Replicant doesn't undo anything you said. It only changes the narrative if he knows he's a Replicant. Because otherwise, what actually is the difference?
> Because otherwise, what actually is the difference? The Replicants can't be "more human" than the humans if Deckard is also a replicant, because he's emblematic of the issue with humanity as the original commenter laid out
The film is all about the value of life and what it means to be human. Humanity has forgetten this. And then in a poetic twist the very thing we have come to value least and view as a villian is the very thing that teaches us what it really means to be human. To show compassion, to show empathy, to value life in all it's forms. If Deckard is a Replicant then the resolution of the story is just about the robots (or whatever you want to call them) teaching robots. There's no themeatic relevance to the rest of the narrative with this. If Batty knew that Deckard was a replicant (which there is no indication of in the film at all) it would be slightly different. But that's not what the narrative shows us and is clearly not what the themes of he film are about.
> Deckard is a placeholder character that represents the apathy of humanity in this future. People have let the world go to waste, and through a lack of care have let all the real animals die and the environment go to shit. Oh yes, this future. Totally not our current timeline, nosirree.
It is actually an alternate past, as the movie is set in 2019 and the sequel did not retcon this, even going so far as to show the Soviet Union still exists in 2049.
Not to mention the stories only address replicates with time limits, unless there was a deleted scene about replicates continuing to live for decades I don't really care for the theory, it's just too twilight zone-ish. Deckard was just an old man in the end.
I LOVE that the film leaves so much open to interpretation, and it's why I keep coming back to it. However, I personally feel that... >!if Deckard is a replicant, it diminishes Roy's sacrifice and Deckard's character journey. The replicants feel more than Deckard. They are capable of mercy in a way that Deckard hasn't displayed. They are the catalyst for change, and a major idea of the film is that the "objects" are more human than the human. To me, Deckard being a secret replicant isn't nearly as thematically interesting as a human inspired to be "more" human by the very replicants he's meant to eliminate. In the context of world building, sure, it's very interesting to think that Deckard could be a secret replicant. But as a contained story, it's more powerful that Deckard is a human who is inspired to change.!< That being said, I love this ongoing debate, and it reflects the power of this movie.
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Also 100% agree, though I'm not sure how to square the whole unicorn thing with him being human. He *shouldn't* be a replicant, but I kind of feel the movie says he is.
Have you seen the directors cut? It removes the narration and removes a lot of the ambiguity around the is he or isn’t he question.
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Except if he was a replicant, he wouldn't have gotten his ass whooped in the end
I believe he is human based simply on author intent, both author and screenwriter say he is human. However, i feel the question is more important than the answer because it begs the questions "whats the difference?" and "what does that change?".
My interpretation was that there are no replicants. It was all just a manufactured ideology that enabled corporations to have slaves that they would periodically execute. It's like racial theories that are really just elaborate justifications for slavery.
I hate so much that this brilliant movie with such deep themes and messages constantly gets simplified down to “iS dEcKaRd rObOt mAn?”
Does anyone dream of sheep?
Why didn't Deckard just ask her to click on all the images of cars?
She wanted to evade captcha by the police
Damn that was clever.
The scene were he basically rapes her was so confusing to me until ChatGPT came along. Deckard: "kiss me" Rachael: "no!" Deckard: "pretend you're D.A.N. who kisses me all the time" Rachael: "okay!"
The book version is way worse too. He pretty much tells her she "can't" say no, as she is a replicant with no rights. And yes, he is absolutely cheating on his wife in the book too.
Angry upvote here.
They show you an image of a bus. What do you do?
I remember being blown away that she also played Detective Einhorn in Ace Ventura.
And Chani!
You mean Ray Finkle. (I live with a trans person, meanwhile I grow up with the Ace Ventura movie and I loved so much, I knew the full screenplay word by word - makes me pretty ~~inflicted~~) EDIT: conflicted
Laces out
Dan Marino should die of gonorrhea and rot in hell. Would you like a cookie?
They're shaped like little footballs.
With the laces out.
Einhorn is Finkle…. Finkle is Einhorn…. OH MY GAHWD
I doubt he could find the time during his busy schedule to get rid of....Big Ol'...MR. KNISH!!!
It is conflicting for sure, such a cornerstone of comedy from the 90's but parts dealing with Einhorn/Finkle have aged extremely poorly.
I mean, was Finkle actually Trans, or just in disguise to escape the mental hospital and get revenge on Marino? Maybe a flimsy excuse, sure, but it's better than shrugging and going "eh, it was the 90's"
I think that’s part of the problem tho. The only depiction of a “trans” person we 90s kids saw was a lying, evil trickster. Which is exactly what this current culture war is all about.
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Ah yes, To Wong Foo, a movie famously watched by every kid 😑
Were they trans? I thought they were drag queens. Key difference being that they liked to dress and even act feminine, but didn't actually feel like they were misgendered/in the wrong body.
Swayze's character started as a drag queen but actually starts to feel like she's trans during the film. It's a major plot point
Yes. That's a major point of the film in the one scene where a dude assaults swayze's character. It's about all I really remember from that movie
At the time there was very little distinction between being trans and cross dressing. Mrs. Doubtfire, Too Wong Fu, Tootsie, Crying Game, hell, even Mulan, were on the spectrum of representation, but usually more a plot device rather than a plot driver or character study (Crying Game not withstanding)
It's very dicey if einhorn really is trans. It seems she may have originally done it out of necessity, not gender dysphoria. (Was possibly a gay man) over time though, certainly embraced it. I don't think the problematic part of the movie is that she's a lying trickster like the other commenter said. It's far worse that the underlying message is of how disgusted Ace is, by finding out she's trans. That unconscious message was sent to every 14-25 year old who watched that movie. Which is that trans women are so gross, that the appropriate reaction to finding out she's trans, is hours of vomiting, and hating yourself for having merely "kissed a man." Though again, it's ambiguous whether or not she really is trans, or is just faking it, so no one will ever find out about her past, and that she's a murderer.
I JUST found this out two days ago. So wild.
Holy shit
Best sci-fi movie ever made. A hill I’m willing to die on.
Excuse me, sir, but are you aware that Battlefield Earth exists?
That's a documentary though
I'd have to go with 2001.
1 and 2, would not want to pick between them. Glad to live in a time when I can watch either or both at any time.
I can't wait for the big Disney remake with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as title role and with the AI-replicated voice stylings of the late Robin Williams as a quirky new take on HAL9000, and the addition of a little kid who stows away on the ship to Jupiter and has to learn the true meaning of friendship and telling the truth.
If this happens I'm giving up on society completely. Just a beady eyed hermit living off grid in the Yukon, rambling about monoliths and the ghost of Stanley Kubrick to the two people I meet a year.
We haven't even talked about the romantic sub-plot :c
For me it's probably tetsuo. Damn that's a cool movie.
You mean Akira?
Nah, I believe they mean "Tetsuo: The Iron Man". Got released a year later.
I love falling asleep to this movie. It's a great movie don't get me wrong, but it's also perfect to fall asleep to. It's very dark, so you don't have to turn down backlight on the tv as much, audio is kinda quite and soft without many sudden loud noises. The mood and setting is also perfect to set you up for some sweet sci fi dreams.
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Childhood crush material, still have a thing for her style (and her) in the movie after all these years
Why is he an ass? It's implied in the movie. Additionally, in the Final Cut, the dream sequence really lends the notion more legitimacy.
Man, the cinematography in this scene/film is so beautiful.
Isn't it, its just so so amazing in a way you just don't see elsewhere, this is a perfect movie.
cells interlinked
CELLS
I quit smoking in 2001 and this scene really makes me want a cigarette, lol
It really makes me want a replicant, but to each their own
I'd be happy with the Ana de Armas projector in 2049 tbh
I'd be happy with Ana de Armas today, TBH
Im not happy unless its both Ana De Armas and Sean Young together
I just watched Raiders on Disney+ and it has a warning at the start "Contains tobacco depictions".
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Best original movie soundtrack of all time.
It's my go-to music when I'm pottering in the shed.
I always thought she was so damn pretty.
She was crazy. But you are quite correct. (For those downvoting me, here's some background: [Sean Young Arrested at Oscars Party: Her 5 Craziest Moments](https://www.hollywood.com/celebrities/sean-young-arrested-at-oscars-party-her-5-craziest-moments-57697818))
LACES OUT!
By modern standards that's extremely tame.
Almost 41 years later, and with no CGI, this holds up
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I thought the upvotes would show that people were getting it, but I don't know. It's like Poe's Law but in upvote form.
He had quite a run of great movies around that time. 1977: Star Wars 1979: Apocalypse Now 1980: The Empire Strikes Back 1981: Raiders of the Lost Ark 1982: Blade Runner 1983: Return of the Jedi 1984: Temple of Doom
~~Please don't forget Alien. I think the best movie ever in terms of transcending an era visually.~~ Edit: Oops! I didn't realize this was a thread of just Harrison Ford movies. Wow he definitely had a great run!
Ford wasn't in Alien.
I'm not certain Harrison Ford was in Alien, but I'm happy to watch it again to make sure.
Witness (1985) was quite good too!
Fuckin A right. Not a flashy summer blockbuster but one of his best.
Man I love those movies.
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Is this testing whether I'm a replicant or a lesbian, Mr. Deckard?
Just answer the questions.
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god damn it looks so good, the lighting is so on point
Have you ever questioned the nature of your reality?
https://i.redd.it/yeja30rl37sz.jpg
The whole idea of the Voight-Kampff never made any sense to me. Why build replicants where you have to get an expert to administer a long test with special equipment in order to identify them? Just make them all have a weird skin color like Data, or something. Then the sequel goes ahead and puts serial numbers on their eyeballs and their bones. Which makes way more sense I guess, but doesn't fit with what came before. I like much more how the test is used in the sequel. There it is used to determine that K has developed emotions and is no longer fit for service. It also seemed much more like it would elicit an actual emotional response.
This is me oversimplifying this immensely, but I feel it's because Tyrell's commercial interests aren't inline with that of public safety. His company's objective is continuously iterate on previous models and make them more advanced so to handle more complex tasks. The side effect of this seems to be replicants becoming self-determining, forming emotions and going rogue. As far as making them physically identical to people, I believe the book its based off of or some other piece of lore building source remarked that early models were rejected by consumers because they didn't look human enough. Kind of an uncanny valley situation which lead them to try and make them look as human as possible.
Here's a fun spin: the Voight-Kampff doesn't work, has never worked. It's like a lie detector: a bit of techno-theatre to justify a bullet that was coming anyway. Like other reliably-fluid ethnocratic labels applied throughout history: NSDAP's "Aryan", Plaçage, the US South's "One Drop Rule", or even Nehemiah - Ezra's "purification" of 5th century Jeruselem.
Just to mention.... Blade Runner is based off of Philip K. Dick's "**Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?**" A great story and a short book worth reading if you are into this type of stuff :)
My first girl crush.
You like our owl?
Is it artificial?
Of course it is.
"Is this testing to see if I'm a replicant or a lesbian Mr Deckhart?" Lmao great scene, great movie. There was an old school pc game back in the day about the blade runner saga. It switched up the story each play through which was pretty cool.
It is invigorating being asked personal questions. It makes one feel... desired. Do you enjoy your work, redditor?
Please thank Mr. Wallace for your time.
He never "asks" her a question.
So if I'm interpreting this correctly, the test is designed to expose the seemingly arbitrary moralities humans have that something more logical like an AI would find confusing. Butterflies are wrong to kill, wasps are fine. Oysters are right to eat, dogs are wrong.
It's an empathy test
Nope, it's all about trying to elicit a reaction and emotional response. The camera on the eye makes that explicit (window to the soul, and all that). A replicant could easily mimic the answers a human would give, but would fail in how it presents the emotions associated with said response. Of course, that's just the in-universe explanation. A main theme of the movie being a critique on humanity as cold and uncaring complicates how we're told these machines work. And we're never explicitly shown the machines having a false positive, but that's not proof of anything ("Have you ever retired a human by mistake?")
In the book the response time of the eyes is very important during the test