A replicant is a fictional bioengineered or biorobotic android in the film Blade
Runner. The Nexus series of replicants are virtually identical to an adult
human, but have superior strength, agility, and variable intelligence
depending on the model. Because of their similarity to humans, a replicant can
only be detected by means of the fictional Voight-Kampff test, in which
emotional responses are provoked; replicants' responses differ from
humans' responses. A derogatory term for a replicant is "skin-job."
Origin Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream
of Electric Sheep?, the inspiration for Blade Runner, used the term android, but
director Ridley Scott wanted a new term that did not have preconceptions. As
David Peoples was rewriting the screenplay he consulted his daughter,
who was involved in microbiology and biochemistry. She suggested the term
"replicating", the biological process of a cell making a copy of itself. From
that, one of them came up with replicant and it was inserted into Hampton
Fancher's screenplay. Replicants in the film
Replicants became illegal on Earth after a bloody off-world mutiny by Nexus 6
replicants, before the events of the film. Two weeks before the starting
point of the film, six Nexus 6 replicants escaped the off-world
colonies, killing 23 people and taking a shuttle to Earth; the film focuses on
the pursuit of the replicants by Deckard, a special police officer called
a "blade runner", who investigates, tests, and "retires" replicants found on
Earth. Nexus 6 replicants had been designed to
copy humans in every way except for their emotions. The Tyrell Corporation
"began to recognize in them strange obsession", and in order to be able to
control them better, started to implant false memories into the replicants in
order to give them the years of experiences that humans take for
granted; these memories created "a cushion or pillow for their emotions".
Early in the film, Captain Bryant tells Deckard that the Nexus 6 units' possible
eventual development of emotional responses was the reason the Tyrell
Corporation had implemented the fail-safe device of a four-year
lifespan. Late in the film, Dr. Eldon Tyrell states that the lifespan
limitation cannot be circumvented. Deckard had no experience with Nexus 6
replicants at the beginning of the film; he and Captain Bryant are puzzled as to
why they have risked coming back to Earth, and Deckard is unsure how
effective the Voight-Kampff test would be on them.
Escaped replicants: Roy Batty is a self-sufficient combat
model for the colonization defence program.
Pris Stratton is referred to as a "basic pleasure model" for military personnel.
Four actresses were finalists to audition for the role, among them Hannah
and Stacey Nelkin. Each of the actresses was given free rein to come up with
their own costume and look for the character, ranging from Hannah's
street-punk style to others which were almost doll-like.
Zhora Salome was "trained for an off-world kick murder squad."
Leon Kowalski is a combat model or loader for nuclear fission.
An unnamed replicant, named Hodge in early versions of the screenplay, was
killed in an electrical field at the Tyrell Corporation.
The "6th replicant", named "Mary" in early versions of the screenplay. The
only mention of this replicant occurs in the 2007 Final Cut version of the film,
in which Captain Bryant alludes to her by stating that two Replicants were
killed by the electric field, rather than just one as in the 1982 U.S.
theatrical version. In the original workprint version, Bryant also mentions
two Replicants killed. Other replicants:
Rachael is a prototype replicant with implanted memories from Eldon Tyrell's
niece. According to Deckard, a normal replicant can usually be discovered
using the Voight-Kampff test after being given about 20-30 questions,
cross-referenced; but Rachael answered over 100 questions before Deckard
realized she was a replicant. The theatrical cut's voice-over ending said
that as an experimental replicant, Rachael didn't have the pre-determined
four-year lifespan; but the Director's Cut did not address this.
Ridley Scott has stated that he had wanted to cast a young actress in order
to stress Rachael's naivety and unworldliness, as a newly constructed
replicant. In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?,
the android manufacturer, known as the Rosen Corporation, simply did not know
how to manufacture an android capable of living longer than four years.
Was Deckard a replicant? Blade Runner's dark paranoid atmosphere
– and multiple versions of the film – adds fuel to the speculation and debate
over this issue. In the book Do Androids Dream of
Electric Sheep?, Rick Deckard is at one point tricked into following an android,
who believes himself to be a police officer, to a faked police station.
Deckard then escapes and "retires" some androids there before returning to his
own police station; but Deckard takes the Voight-Kampff test and it fails to
indicate that he is an android. Harrison Ford, who played Deckard in the
film, has said that he did not think Deckard was a replicant, and also states
he and the director had discussions that ended in the agreement that the
character was human. According to several interviews with director Ridley
Scott, Deckard is indeed a replicant. He collects photographs, which are seen on
his piano, yet has no obvious family, beyond a reference to his ex-wife. In a
scene where Deckard talks with Rachael, their eyes both appear to shine in the
way indicative of replicants. In the Director's Cut, police officer
Gaff leaves Deckard an origami Unicorn a day after Deckard dreamed of one. Just
before Deckard finds the unicorn, Gaff says to him in passing, "It's too bad
she [Rachael] won't live...then again, who does?". A unicorn can also be seen
briefly in a scene in J. F. Sebastian's home, amongst scattered toys. A unicorn
also appears in a dream of Deckard's in the Director's Cut, and, as explained in
the film, Rachael's memories are known by her creators, such as the memory
Rachael has of spiders hatching. That Gaff is leaving an origami unicorn at
Deckard's house may imply that Gaff is aware of the content of Deckard's
unicorn dream. Author Will Brooker has written that the
dream may not be uniquely Deckard's, and that the unicorn dreams may be a
"personal touch" added to some or all of the Nexus 6 replicants' "brains." Since
we are not privy to the dreams of the other replicants, this is unknown. From
this one could also speculate that Gaff himself is a replicant and may share the
same embedded memory. Paul Sammon, author of Future Noir: The
Making of Blade Runner, has suggested in interviews that Deckard may be a Nexus
7, a next-generation replicant who possesses no superhuman strength or
intelligence, but neurological features that complete the human illusion. Ridley
Scott has mentioned "Nexus 7" and "Nexus 8" replicants as possibilities in a
sequel to the film. Sammon also suggests that Nexus 7 replicants may not have a
preset lifespan. Sammon wrote that Ridley Scott thought
it would be more provocative to imply that Deckard was a replicant, without
giving a definitive answer. This ties back into the central theme of "what is
it to be human?" What is important is not so much whether Deckard is a
replicant or not, but that very possibility and uncertainty further
blurs the line between humans and replicants.
When Scott was asked about the possibility of a Blade Runner sequel in
October 2012, he said, "It's not a rumor — it's happening. With Harrison Ford? I
don't know yet. Is he too old? Well, he was a Nexus 6, so we don't know how long
he can live. And that's all I'm going to say at this stage."
Organic or mechanical? Although the press kit released to the
media for the film explicitly defined a replicant as, "A genetically engineered
creature composed entirely of organic substance", the physical make-up of the
replicants themselves is not clear. In the opening crawl of the film,
replicants are said to be the result of "advanced robot evolution." The crawl
also states that they were created by "genetic engineers." Characters mention
that they have eyes and brains like humans, and they are seen to bleed when
injured. The only way of telling a replicant from a human is to ask a
series of questions and analyze emotional response, suggesting they are
entirely, or almost entirely, organic. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
makes mention of the biological components of the androids, but also
alludes to mechanical aspects commonly found in other material relating to
robots. In May 2012, Ridley Scott confirmed that
the replicants were biological in nature, and contrasted them to the
androids in the Alien series. "Roy Batty was an evolved... He wasn't an engine.
If I cut him open, there wasn't metal, he was grown... and then within twenty
years you get the first bill not passed in the Senate where they applied for
replication of animals, sheep and goats and cattle and animals and they turned
it down, but if you can do that, then you can do human beings. If you go
deeper into it and say 'Yeah, but if you are going to grow a human being, does he
start that big and I've got to see him through everything?' I don't want to
answer the question, because of course he does... Ash in Alien had nothing to
do with Roy Batty, because Roy Batty is more humanoid, whereas Ash was more
metal". See also
Replicator References
Further reading Glaser, Horst Albert and Rossbach,
Sabine: The Artificial Human, Frankfurt/M., Bern, New York 2011 "The
Artificial Human" External links
- The Blade Runner FAQ – What are Replicants?