Is Deckard a Replicant?
This is the essential question from the best sci-fi movie of all time, Blade Runner. Discuss. Note that Ridley Scott says that he is. I don’t buy it.
Posted on May 24, 2007, in Film, Geekdom. Bookmark the permalink. 12 Comments.
Steve Evans
RJH
Scott B.
John C.
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ninemoons
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Kyle M
Brad
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Clark Goble
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Tim J
In the director’s cut he definitely is. But I’m one of the few who likes the original cut better where it’s more ambiguous. It’s been too long since I read the original Dick novel to remember what happened there. But as I recall the movie didn’t follow the book much.
That’s right, I said “best sci-fi movie of all time.”
Kubrick’s 2001 is better. But it’s definitely top 5.
It would be interesting to see a list of best sci-fi movies of all time – has that already been done here at Kulturblog? I don’t recall …
I like the ambiguity too. Do we really need to know the answer to the question?
I think there was a list of best science fiction films. The problem is that there really aren’t many real science fiction films. Instead you have stuff like Star Trek or Star Wars where a few space ships and being in the future is all there is. There’s very little nod to the science.
But we could always do an other list later.
Regarding ambiguity, I think the end of the film requires it. That is we’re supposed to identify with Deckard and his choices. He reaches this existential moment where he doesn’t know when he’ll die, when his girlfriend will die, but then none of us do. He is in this rather depressing world where everything is dying and people are fleeing the world. Yet it is in death that he discovers life and hope. The death of the Rutger Hauer character and how in that moment of death he learns to love life is very much the message of the movie. The end (better in the original IMO) with Decker flying off to Vangelis’ Memories of Green is that kind of existential moment of creation where in truly experiencing the phenomena of death one learns to live. (It’s oft times called the echatological breakthrough)
I’ve actually not read much on the film. But I have a bet Scott, who was still reasonably young at the time, was channelling either some Kierkegaard or some Heidegger.
Clark, I would put some money that Scott wasn’t reading too much of either at the time — I thought that the voice-overs and the driving scene at the end were add-ons that the studio demanded.
In October, there’s going to be a huge HD DVD/BluRay disk set of Blade Runner, including the theatrical cut, the extended version, the recent Director’s Cut, and lots of documentaries and features. 5-disk set (either HD DVD or BluRay).
oooooo!
The voice over at the end was demanded by the studio as I recall. But it just makes explicit what is a fairly dominant theme in the movie.
Yes, he was.
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