Blade Runner: Final Cut

B

Beamwalker

250+ Posts
I just watched this movie for the first time, and I was really impressed with it. The whole feel of the movie was just great, and I loved the backstory. I'm going to get do androids dream of electric sheep soon. I do have a few questions though:

POSSIBLE SPOILERS BELOW




1. When he is talking to the snake dancer chick replicant in her dressing room what is the reason he is acting so weird? Is he drunk? Thats what I thought when he future video drunk dialed racel, but I wasn't sure. His voice kept changing and that dialog was hilarious, but weird.

2. Is Deckard a replicant? I've poked around on the interwebs about this and it seems there has been a debate for the last 20 years about this. Apparently the director recently said he was, but Harrison Ford said he wasnt or something, and in the other versions it spelled out he wasn't, but in this version it says he may be - with the unicorn gaff leaves at his door. So replicant or not?

3. What are the differences between this cut and other cuts of the movie? Apparently there are some real differences that could make a difference as to the characters and plot.
 
All JMO

1. I always felt he was playing a character who happened to be a little goofy.

2. I've gone back and forth on this and I'm not sure we're supposed to know. I saw the movie before I read the book and I think it lead me to view him as human.

3. I'm assuming this is the same as the Director's Cut. The original release had naration that explained a lot of the background and internal monologue. The endings are very different as well. The theatrical version had a "happy" ending with Deckard and Rachel out in a field. I much prefer the Director's cut that had Deckard find the origami, know that they're coming after him and ends with the elevator doors closing.

RR
 
SPOILER (sort of )



















There's another scene that is cut from some versions, but evidently added to the last, final "Director's Cut" involving a unicorn running through the forest or something, that supposedly clearly shows the Deckard is a replicant.
 
1. He doesn't want her to know he's a cop. And he needs a story to get in there. Plus, he might believe that she knows they are being hunted.

2. Yes. He's a replicant. They show his eyes kinda glow at one point. Also, they know he had the Unicorn dream, and the paper unicorn is proof of that.

3. Minor differences. The sex scene seems more consensual, and they fixed the line about 6 replicants coming down and TWO dying, not one. In the last 2 versions, there is only one dead, which people used as proof that Deckard was a replicant (being #6).

I bought the 4 disc edition, and was looking for the 5 disc. When I get a PS3 eventually, I'll get the Blu-Ray version, because I love that film and I bet it looks awesome.
 
SPOILERS....





In the final cut, you see Decker nods yes a bit at the end to acknowledge that when he sees the unicorn origami, that he accepts that he is a replicant. I don't recall if this was in the director's cut.

And the conjecture all along was the Almos was following Decker because they knew what he was and were keeping tabs on him.

It was a controversy because the unicorn scene wasn't in the original.

He was acting goofy because he was pretending to be a bureaucrat to get in her room. He said he was from some agency in charge of stopping sexual harassment or some such.

Great movie. Ushered into the mainstream the non-sanitized version of the future.
 
I don't know if you'll like the book or not. The whole film noir in the future atmosphere is there and captured pretty well by the film, but there's a lot else in the book that some people love (like me) but I don't know how much people who come to the story from the movie (I not only read the book before the movie came out, but I've also always read a ton of science fiction) will like it.

In the book, Earth is even worse off than in the movie. There's also a huge existential part involving a recurring Sisphyean scene and an odd prophet completely left out of the movie (for good reason --- it completely changes the tone of the story).

**** SPOILER ****






The book leaves no doubt he's human, although the question is raised over and over again.

Actually, that's the pivotal thematic element of Philip K. Dick's stories --- what does it mean to be human? Is there any quality central to being human that distinguishes us from other beings? And he uses the unique storytelling elements of science fiction (as well as the personal use of a lot of psychedelic drugs) to explore that question.

There's also a paranoid element in the book much more omnipresent than in the movie, including an odd scene with an entirely separate police department whose existence is seemingly unknown, with them having no knowledge of Deckard's either.

***** End Spoiler *****

I'd love it if anyone who has read the book would post there thoughts here. It's been a good 25 years since I've even picked it up, but I've always liked the story, and Philip K. Dick remains one of my favorite writers.
 
Anybody else see Roy as a Christ allegory? The wounds to his hands, trying to save the other replicants, the dove flying away when he dies?
 
SPOILERS STILL

When he grabs deckard at the end and says kinship! and have the nail in his palm, that could be like him "saving humanity" with the same kind of wound. I think its a bit of a stretch, but could be. Why did he poke himself with the nail anyway? Did it stave off his time for a little while? Did he feel the pain and make him feel alive? Do the replicants feel pain? Also, I thought it was really interesting how Roy broke only 2 of Deckard's fingers for the 2 women replicants. Why not Leon? Did he know Leon went after Deckard? That perhaps men fighting men was understandable, but women should be off limits?
 
deckard is a replicant. ridley has gone on record saying that. he said that harrison used to argue with him on that but not anymore.

the unicorn scene gives it away.
 
Harrison still maintains that the character is human, that he and Scott agreed that he was human, and that it was only later that Scott went back on it.
 
In the book (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), Deckard is definitely human. Without going into to much detail, he depends on an empathy box for appropriate emotional reactions. The empathy box he relies on gives him the proper response to situations. The responses are basically what "Mercer" would do (Mercer is a leader who may be artificial). If he is relying on an electronic box for his emotions, how is he that different from an synthetic human?

One of the major points of the book and the movie is the false distinction between "real life" and the life we lead through modeling our reactions based on how others have acted in similar situations (especially those situations where we learn a response by plugging into an "electric box"). We have lost touch with what is human and what is artificially presented to us. Ultimately, if our emotions are products of what we learn, how are we different from androids taught to model their reactions after what happens in Hollywood movies. Perhaps the ultimate distinction between "life" and non-life is the ability to emulate what we see. Our conditioned responses to emotional stimuli are perhaps is why we thrive - and why artificial intelligence is much simpler than we imagined.

Fascinating book and movie. They are very different but both touch on what it is to be human.
 
This isn't going to do anyone any good whatsoever, but I didn't find out about it until I was in town Saturday for the basketball game (from Houston) and I didn't have any access to the board until I got home tonight.

It turns out the State Theater in Austin --- on Congress right by the capital --- did showings of Blade Runner: The Final Cut from Wednesday through Sunday. I saw it advertised in the Austin American Statesman on Saturday, and because of it I chose to stay in town until Sunday to watch it. I'm pretty sure there won't be any kind of theatrical release in Houston, although there's a decent chance some day the Museum of Fine Arts will screen it in their auditorium.

Unfortunately, while I enjoyed my experience thoroughly --- the State Theater is a truly grand movie watching environment overall --- the sound system is simply not up to snuff compared to the most modern movie theaters available these days. It's decent, but it doesn't give one an immersive sound experience. I'd watch another movie there in a heartbeat if given the opportunity, but I couldn't help but be wistful about missing on the chance to see it in a big screen environment with a sound system powerful enough to make the walls shake.

Still, it was a wondrous experience. It amazes me how well that movie holds up over 25 years later, which is really tough to do for science fiction. It probably shouldn't have been timestamped as occurring in 2019, but other movies/stories timestamped similarly --- specifically 2001: A Space Odyssey or Orwell's 1984 --- haven't been harmed unduly with even more overt year associations.

Anyway, a gorgeous film, with a terrific atmosphere. The decision to add Harrison Ford's narration to the original theatrical release, and the director's cut having the ability to remove it, should go down as one of the most important --- really, IMO, THE most important --- director's cut editing decisions in filmmaking history. It's been since the original release in theaters that I've seen the original version, and it's been since the theatrical release of the director's cut over a decade ago since I've seen *it*, so I can't be specific about what changes were made without reading about it from other sources. I do know I'm not a big fan of so overtly making Deckard a replicant, which the Final Cut certainly does, but I get Ridley Scott wanted his vision on celluloid, and if his vision says that Deckard was a replicant, he's succeeded in removing any reasonable debate with this version.

I don't remember seeing Harrison's eyes glow before, with it being a telltale sign from seeing it happen with the other known replicants, and I recall a possible dream sequence at the end of previous versions which show Sean Young and Harrison Ford together in some kind of pastoral field filled with flowers, but I can't remember all the particular details involving it.

My big problem is that part of the reason why the audience is rooting for Deckard in the movie is that he seems so ill equipped to go after the androids from a combat perspective. Making it apparent he's an android, too, is something of a cool twist within a certain context (wow, those are implanted memories for him as well! How long since his inception? Was he actually just recently created for this job? There's no way for him to know for sure!), the guilt, self doubt, and identification with the androids is much more powerful in my opinion as a story line if they would at least have kept it more nebulous, and would have been at its most compelling if they made us question Deckard's humanity as he questioned his own, only to answer it conclusively somehow that he was human, but his doubts blur the line between human and android, and then it becomes up to the audience's interpretation based on the clues within the story to determine what the possible differences truly might be.
 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Harrison still maintains that the character is human, that he and Scott agreed that he was human, and that it was only later that Scott went back on it.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

i wholehearted disagree. every interview that i've ever seen or read from ridley has maintained that deckard is a replicant. here's an article from the BBC in 2000.

-------------------
Sunday, 9 July, 2000, 18:00 GMT 19:00 UK
Blade Runner riddle solved

Ridley Scott
breaks his silence

Director Ridley Scott has finally revealed the answer to a plot twist in his film Blade Runner which has been the topic of fierce debate for nearly two decades.
Movie fans have been divided over whether Harrison Ford's hard-boiled cop character Deckard was not human but a genetically-engineered "replicant" - the very creatures he is tasked with destroying.

Little suspicion was raised by the 1982 original version of the film, based on Philip K Dick's novel: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

But a decade later the Director's Cut edition - although deliberately ambiguous - convinced many that the hero was indeed a replicant and in a Channel 4 documentary Scott at last reveals they are correct.

'He's a replicant'

The acclaimed British director, who also directed Alien, Thelma and Louise and current box-office hit Gladiator, settles the issue when questioned on key aspects of the film's imagery.

In the Director's Cut version, the biggest clue for analysts was the appearance of a unicorn on screen while Deckard is lost in thought.

The image of the mythical creature appears again towards the end of the film when he picks up an origami model discarded by another character, Gaff.

As the replicants had no memories of their own, they had to be implanted, and fans interpreted the appearance of the model as a sign that Gaff knew what Deckard was thinking because it was an image shared by other non-humans.

In Channel 4's documentary On The Edge Of Blade Runner, Scott discusses the scenes and asked what they mean, he confirms with a grin: "He's a replicant".

Another hint in the film comes from the number of replicants which Deckard is hunting.
We find out that six had made their way to earth, one of whom was killed. Deckard is looking for four, begging the question: "Who is the fifth replicant?".​
 
this is from wired in sep 07. again, in ridley's own words.
The Link


----------------------------------------------------------------------
Wired: It was never on paper that Deckard is a replicant.

Scott:It was, actually. 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.

Wired: You shot the unicorn dream sequence as part of the original production. Why didn't you include it in either the work print or the initial release?

Scott:As I said, there was too much discussion in the room. I wanted it. They didn't want it. I said, "Well, it's a fundamental part of the story." And they said, "Well, isn't it obvious that he's a replicant?" And I said, "No more obvious than that he's not a replicant at the end." So, it's a matter of choice, isn't it?



Wired: When Deckard picks up the origami unicorn at the end of the movie, the look on his face says to me, "Oh, so Gaff was here, and he let Rachael live." It doesn't say, "Oh my God! Am I a replicant, too?"

Scott:No? Why is he nodding when he looks at this silver unicorn? I'm not going to send up a balloon. Doing the job he does, reading the files he reads on other replicants, Deckard may have wondered at one point, "Am I human or am I a replicant?" That's in his innermost thoughts. I'm just giving you the fully fleshed-out possibility to justify that look at the end, where he kind of glints and looks angry. To me, it's an affirmation. He nods, he agrees. "Ah hah! Gaff was here. I've been told."

Wired: Harrison Ford is on record saying Deckard is not a replicant.

Scott:Yeah, but that was, like, 20 years ago. He's given up now. He said, "OK, mate. You win! Anything! Just put it to rest."

------------------------------------------------------------------
 
I finally saw this on my (dead format) HD-DVD this weekend. It had been over 20 years since I had seen the movie, and it was almost a new film to me. It looks great, and I don't miss the narration.

When I saw the movie in its original release, the idea of Deckard being a replicant never occured to me. Now, it's very clear that he is. I agree with SLX that this gradual revealing of his status removes some of the ambiguity that is characteristic of PKD's fiction.

Here's a thought- some people have assumed that Deckard, like Rachel, was unaware that he was a replicant, and had it revealed by Olmos' origami. Perhaps instead Deckard was already aware at the start of the movie. If that's the case, now the story is of a self-aware replicant who tried to quit blade-running, was forced back in on a special case ("You know the rules; you're part of the police or you're nothing!"), who is dislike by the human Gaff, callously disabuses Rachel of her notions of humanity, learns that he can love her, and finally earns the respect of Gaff and the love of Rachel.

If you watch it this way, you have to wonder how eager he was to retire the other replicants. Certainly, he shot Zaura, but Leon, Priss and Roy all attacked him. What exactly was going through Deckard's head?
 
Deckard isn't a replicant in the book and there are way too many inconsistencies in the film for any viewer to think he was clearly one, most of them pointed out in this thread.
 
The movie is a separate entity from the book, an entity controlled by the director. Scott makes it clear in latter-day edits that Deckard is a replicant. I don't see how this can be escaped, especially since the director himself has said as much. I mean, am I to believe that the maze in the on-screen version of the Shining is actually a topiary?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Weekly Prediction Contest

* Predict HORNS-AGGIES *
Sat, Nov 30 • 6:30 PM on ABC

Recent Threads

Prediction Results Threads

2024 Schedules

Back
Top