Blade Runner discussion, is Deckard a replicant?

To anyone who has seen the movie Blade Runner (one of my favorite movies), what is your opinion on the Deckard being a replicant debate?

The objective answer is yes, because Ridley Scott specifically said he is a replicant and he shot the whole movie dropping clues as to his artificial nature, which becomes even more evident with the release of the Director's cut and the Final cut. Still, fans seem to be divided on that question, and even Harrison Ford wants to believe Deckard is a regular human being and the screenwriter said he would like to leave it up to the viewers own interpretation.

A lot of fans argue that Deckard being a replicant himself has a lot less impact on the ending of the movie where Roy Batty saves Deckard's life and shows that a replicant is capable of showing empathy and compassion. Then again, others argue it doesn't matter if he is a replicant or not, because there are no real differences between humans and replicants either way which would be further proven by the ending. I personally thought this is where the movie is flawed, because it simply postulated that an artificial person is equal to a human being and equally capable of love and compassion. How? Why? This is where it differs from the novel 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' which I haven't read myself but from what I understood it gave a completely different interpretation with replicants being incapable of empathy, which is one of the main characteristics of being human, and rather Deckard himself questioning his own humanity by having to hunt down and "kill" replicants.

What do you think? Have you read the novel and can you provide more insight on how it differs from the movie?

 

I haven't read that novel but I love Blade Runner.

The interesting thing for me is, if Deckard is a replicant, he is unaware of it? I think a lot of the movie is actually about him beginning to suspect it. I think two interesting points are that a) he falls in "love" with Rachel, or what he thinks is love, but might just be a deeper connection with someone he feels is the same as he is. b) The memories / flashbacks / dream he has of the unicorn while playing the piano, they seem like implanted artificial memory sequences, they can't be real, or it is just a powerful recurring daydream he imagined.

To me the movie makes a whole lot more sense from the perspective he's a replicant.. although it's possible he just thinks he's a replicant because his character is more in common with them than regular humans.. maybe he is just unusual or suffered some past trauma we don't know about.

About the ending, I think Batty showing him mercy can also be interpreted as, despite the fact Deckard is hunting and killing other replicants, Batty wants to show him that they can help each other, and maybe should be doing that, as they are kind of brothers. So he saves him to teach him, it's also a kind of resurrection metaphor, which is what the replicants are searching for, extended life or second life. After that Deckard leaves with Rachel, essentially quitting that role and now knowing he will be the hunted and unsure how much time they have together..

 

Good point, this could be another clue because it could prove that he is the same replicant model as Rachel who is also unaware of being a replicant and like you say, they fall in love with each other, possibly because of their replicant nature making them feel connected. And the ending also makes sense from the perspective of Roy wanting to help his "brother" and give at least him the opportunity to "extend" his life. Thank you for sharing your interpretation of the movie.

 

It's not naive at all, thank you for sharing your thoughts on the movie! You've actually made an interesting point that I've never thought about before. The unicorn dream is not only the connection between Gaff's origami unicorn and Deckard having implanted memories, but the memory itself is of something that doesn't even exist. But then again, isn't it possible that we dream of things that don't exist? Aren't our dreams fantasies that are based on what we have seen in real life? I could dream of a mermaid after having seen drawings in books, without actually ever having seen one in real life. The Blade Runner world is also a world where animals are made artificially (the owl and snake for example), so maybe Deckard has actually seen an artificial unicorn somewhere? I don't know, this is all speculation, but thank you for bringing this to my attention, this is an interesting point to reflect on.

 

My bad, I carelessly used the words dream and memory interchangeably, when they are of course not necessarily one and the same thing.

In the context of the scene, it's kind of left open whether Deckard is recalling a memory or recalling a dream, since he is falling asleep just seconds before recalling the unicorn:

For some reason, a lot of online articles discussing the movie seem to use the word "daydream" when talking about that scene. I guess there is no final answer, I agree with you that not having seen a unicorn in real life (unless an artificial one, which we can't know) would make it impossible to have such a vivid, realistic memory/dream of one, and therefore being further evidence for artificial implanted memories.

Sorry, what do you mean by this? Are you referencing a specific scene that has Deckard doubting his memory of the unicorn?

 

I didn't interpret your comment as condescending at all I just realized that you specifically used the word memory in your post and that I already assumed (in my head) the terms being exchangeable in the context of the movie, which is how I confused you. So it's all good.

 

That definitely makes sense. But like said in my original post, I personally find that whole science fiction premise of artificial humans that are behaving just like humans too unbelievable. I highly doubt with whatever advanced technology will be available in the future that a human that is made artificially can ever be able to love and show empathy just like an actual human being. I understand the movie is saying what if that was possible, but to me that still feels more like fantasy, and I think a movie that is trying to send a message about humanity that is based on fantasy makes the message less effective. But that might just be me.

I have yet to watch Blade Runner 2049, and see how it ties into the original Blade Runner.

 

As said, I haven't seen Blade Runner 2049 yet, so I hope there weren't any spoilers in there. I agree about your first point, if you are also applying that to the Deckard-Rachael relationship. But besides that, the replicants were shown to fall in love with each other and express human emotions, which I find hard to believe. There is a difference between faking emotions like a robot and expressing real human emotions, but I guess the question is how do we tell the difference.

 

My personal take is that it was never meant to be answered, and its best left up to the viewer and their own interpretation. There's no real answer. Taking a (non-spoiler) line from BR 2049, Deckard completely sidesteps the entire debate with one line and I thought that best sums up the whole argument. The conversation about the dog, for those that aren't following me here.