In 1982, Ridley Scott's tech-noir classic Blade Runner was met with skeptical audiences
and empty theaters, thanks in part to a series of slapdash changes made after low test screening
scores panicked the studio.
But now alternative versions of the movie — more in line with the director's original
vision — are widely available to curious viewers.
As a result, the film's popularity has risen steadily over the years, along with a lot
of burning questions.
"Are you for real?"
No, seriously: is he?
Blade Runner depicts a near future in which androids — known as replicants — are so
advanced that they're virtually indistinguishable from the real thing.
And most of the debate surrounding the film centers on whether its hero Rick Deckard,
played by Harrison Ford, is a human or a replicant.
Let's try to make some sense of it all.
The Origami Unicorn
So, is replicant-hunter Rick Deckard actually an android?
This scene suggests the answer is a definite yes.
After dreaming of a unicorn earlier in the film, Deckard finds and fondles this origami
version — which must have been made by Eduardo Gaff, the veteran LAPD blade runner and origami
maker who orders Deckard around.
But Deckard isn't exactly the type to open up to his coworkers about his nighttime fantasies...
which means the only way Gaff could possibly know Deckard dreams about unicorns is that
he's somehow read Deckard's memory file.
And if there's one thing we learn throughout this movie, it's that...
Gaff is creepy
Who delivers Deckard's LAPD summons at a dirty noodle bar?
Gaff.
Who creeps up behind Deckard as soon as he retires the first of his assigned targets?
Gaff.
Who shows up immediately after Nexus 6 replicant Roy Batty empties the contents of his soul
in the pouring rain?
Gaff!
And who knows all about Deckard's secret unicorn dreams?
C'mon, don't make us say it again.
It's pretty clear that LAPD veteran Gaff is monitoring Deckard.
But why would this so-called "one-man slaughterhouse" need a leash?
Maybe because he's a replicant...only like the film's femme fatale, Rachael, he doesn't
know it.
Who's the man?
Eduardo Gaff also drops one major hint that the our blade runner hero might not be human
after all, after he's completed his mission in a surprising, climactic moment.
"You've done a man's job, sir."
This is one of the most dissected, debated lines in the film's history, and for good
reason: if you want to praise a guy for a job well done, it's kind of a weird choice
of words, right?
That is, unless the man in question isn't a man at all, but a robot, in which case it's
a heck of a compliment… and a good way to tip off your audience as to Deckard's true
nature, in case they hadn't figured it out yet.
The director's take
At this point, the evidence seems to be piling up that Deckard is, indeed, a replicant — and
we haven't even mentioned how he survives through multiple battles that would probably
leave an ordinary person in several pieces.
Or the split-second where his eyes seemed to flash with the otherworldly glow that's
unique to the film's replicant characters.
But since nobody knows the truth better than the man who made the movie, it probably makes
the most sense to just ask him.
Ridley Scott has already said that when it comes to the Deckard question, "If you don't
get it, you're a moron."
But in an interview with Wired, he went into detail for all us morons, saying:
"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."
But wait, there's more
So, Rick Deckard is a replicant, has always been a replicant, and will always be a replicant,
right?
Well... not so fast.
The dissenting opinion on that front is none other than Harrison Ford, who says he and
Ridley Scott were always at odds over Deckard's true nature.
"So I resisted the idea of being a replicant."
Ford felt that Blade Runner's audience should have a human character to connect with — and
in the original theatrical cut of the film, which was missing some of the key scenes that
brought Deckard's humanity into question, Ford's interpretation makes more sense.
But when the director says Deckard is a replicant, and the guy who plays Deckard says he's not,
it's hard to know who to believe… until you remember that Deckard is ostensibly a
robot who only thinks he's a person, which means that Ford's insistence otherwise could
just be a genius bit of method acting.
The more he shares his character's delusions, the realer the film.
Right?
Right?!
The question is the answer
Pretty much everyone involved in Blade Runner has an opinion on the is-he-or-isn't-he debate
about Rick Deckard — but author Philip K. Dick, who wrote the book the movie was based
on, should get the last word.
And according to Dick, the ambiguity surrounding Deckard's humanity — and more broadly, surrounding
whether there's any real difference between humans and replicants — is kind of the whole
point.
It's a replicant who saves Deckard's life and delivers the film's most poignant lines
before dying with grace and dignity.
When the replicants show more empathy than the men who created them, which one of them
is more human?
What do the insights of a robot tell us about the meaning of existence?
"They're just questions, Leon."
In other words, Blade Runner is designed to make you think bigger, about the nature of
life itself — whether you're human, or something more.
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