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I recently got the Blade Runner DVD. The cover brings up a question of whether Deckard might be a replicant himself. I understand that the novel the movie is based on, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, raises this question, but I see nothing in the movie that even hints at the possibility, other than maybe the fact that Deckard isn't a mutant like just about everyone else in sight.

Does anyone have any further insight on this?

Also, on a side note, did anyone else notice the similarities between the cityscapes in Blade Runner and The Fifth Element? In both movies, there are scenes looking down from a great height at flying cars (which also look somewhat similar). Both movies feature the hero being served by an ancient Chinese cook (Deckard goes to the booth in BR, while the booth comes to Dallas in TFE) who offers some advice. And in my most convincing observation, both movies even feature Brion James! Spooky, no?

The thing about Dekkard being a replicant doesn't come up at all in the theatrical cut of Blade Runner.  But then, if you watch the directors cut you kind of get the idea that he is a replicant.

He's pretty much emotionless throughout the entire film and the big thing for me is the Unicorn scene.  One can take it as Dekkard dreaming or having a memory.  If it's a memory then he is obviously a replicant due to the fact that unicorns are obviously mythical creatures.  

Ridley Scott has said in the past though that he wanted Dekkard to be a replicant and that in his opinion, Dekkard is.

Take from that what you will.

The only reference I recall is when Deckard is asked "Have you ever taken the test yourself?" by his replicant love interest. (I forget the name). Ridley Scott said Deckard was a replicant in 2000, but Harrison Ford turned around and started b***hing saying they agreed Deckard deffinately wasnt a replicant, so people still wonder.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/trivia

Oh, trivia page on IMDB has some insight.

I think it was designed to be ambiguous, which really comes out in the director's cut.  Another advantage of that version is that it doesn't have the annoying voice over.
I suspect Deckard is a replicant.

I have never suspected that Deckard might be a replicant, even after watching the director's cut for many years. It think it's all in how one analyzes it, I guess.

The DVD I got is the director's cut. The unicorn scene looks more like a dream to me; Deckard isn't in it--it's just a one-second scene of a unicorn running. If it's a memory, then yes, Deckard would be a replicant. However, it isn't really presented that way. While I can't claim to be a world-renowned expert at literary analysis, I do have my master's degree in the subject, so I do have some skills; more than most when it comes right down to it. I watched the movie specifically looking for ambiguities and didn't really see any, not in the way the police treated him (okay, stretching things a bit, we never see Deckard in his former glory days; he is simply told that he was the best), not in the way he is portrayed with normal human strength (the replicants regularly kick his bootay; his only "strength" is in surviving it all), not even, as mentioned, in his lack of emotions (replicants have emotions; they are simply unprepared to handle them like normal humans).

I read the trivia on IMDB. I can superimpose some of the behind-the-scenes stuff to create ambiguities, but I don't think that is a good way to approach any work of fiction. If the ambiguities don't exist in the work itself, then they don't exist for the purposes of analysis. I don't mean to slough off all your comments; I appreciate your taking the time to answer. I guess I'm just looking for something more accessible within the finished film since the cover made such a big deal out of it.

I agree, all my times watching it and I never got that he was a replicant.  The dream sequence seems to me to me a nod to the original book.  Deckard tended to drift off into animal dreams, I recall.
-Ed

If he was a replicant, then he was the biggest wuss replicant I ever saw.  Any time a replicant got their hands on him, they caused serious bodily harm that he was more or less powerless to prevent.  I think it's just one of those things fans of the movie like to argue about and people involved in the movie like to fuel to perpetuate rentals and DVD purchases.  I don't think that was the film maker's intent when making the movie.

I watched the movie many, many times and NEVER got the idea he was  replicant.  When I heard it mentioned somewhere, I watched it again looking for those clues.  It's an interesting debate, but one I don't think holds up to scrutiny.  At least not in the theatrical release.

(I've never seen the director's cut).

Anyone read the book?

I can't really remember, but was it more obvious in it's hints that Deckard might be a replicant?

Not that it really has any baring on the film itself, but it would be interesting to see what Dick thought about it.

Eg. In Fight Club the novel, it was more obvious what the deal was with Tyler Durden.

Damn.  I wish I payed more attention in class...

I never believe Deckard was a replicant. Like someone stated he did get his ass served a number of times in the movie. He was emotionless but that could be explained that he was a cop and might have seen alot of things that made him detached and cold.

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You can’t give it, you can't buy it, and you just don't get it!-Aeon Flux

There's also a part where his eyes glow in a similar fashion to the replicant characters.  I believe Ridley Scott has put it on record that Deckard was supposed to be a replicant, an experimental variety like Rachel.  

In the book, if I remember right, Deckard is not a replicant but at one point he is taken in by a replicant Blade Runner who takes him to a police station that is staffed by replicants.  Need to read it again--I believe the movie only took the basic premise from the book--otherwise they're quite different from each other.

Yeah, the book is alot more political based then the movie from what I remember.  Though, that's about all I really remember to tell you the truth.

Thanks everyone; at least I now know that I'm not the only one who can't see any real "ambiguity" in the movie. I understand the book may add that dimension, and that's fine, but this is the movie version, not the book version. They are two very different stories. One day I may read the book to see just how different. . .

I think if Ridley Scott says Deckard was a replicant, than Deckards a replicant. He probably told Harrison Ford the character wasnt a replicant because Ford's character doesnt know. Or maybe he's just f-king with Ford. I'd have never picked up on that, or even questioned it had I not heard it elswhere though. I don't get the unicorn scene however. I like the directors cut, but injecting a unicorn all the sudden to suggest someone is really synthetic?? WTF?? Too artsy for me to pick up on. "hmm, unicorn, dream, hmm OH MY GOD DECKARD IS A REPLICANT!!!" If I was going to give a synthetic guy memories to make him think he's human, I sure as hell wouldnt give him memories of mythological creatures. It either went over my head or under my butt.

Other than the premise of the replicants and Deckard's job, there isn't much similarity.

The part that seriously raises questions, in my mind, is the part when Gaff brings out an origami unicorn.  Gaff is the scarred, stony-looking cop who is always folding little origami animals.

How would he know to give Deckard an origami unicorn, unless it were a scripted memory in a repicant's mind, that Gaff had been briefed about somehow?

this was always my understanding - that we were supposed to realize that deckard was a replicant because he had the same memories and dreams as other replicants.

Zapranoth wrote:

> The part that seriously raises questions, in my mind, is the
> part when Gaff brings out an origami unicorn.

I'll admit that could be a clue. Gaff could know that the memory was implanted, but how would he know that Deckard had dreamed about the unicorn? I have all sorts of memories, but I never know what I'm going to dream about. Granted, a replicant's memory base would be a bit more limited than a "real" person's, but the mind is so complex that there would be no way to guarantee any specific memory would crop up and make an appropriate origami animal to mark the occasion. I know, I know, this is fiction. But there is a difference between subtle clues and obscure ones. And that strikes me as a bit on the obscure side. Or were all of Gaff's origami creations somehow significant in Deckard's life? Now I'll have to go and check that out.

As if I don't have enough other movies to watch. . .

It's been a while since I read the book, but I'm trying to remember if Deckard actually used an empathy box. I kind of think he did, although I don't think he liked it.

That was another major element of the book that was dropped from the movie - the religion of Mercerism. Basically, you grab the handles on the box, and it puts you into a VR representation of an old man climbing a mountain while rocks get chucked at him. The point is that you share his pain. Replicants, having no ability to empathize, can't do it. So, their master plan revolves around discrediting the religion that so many people cling to. Of course, when they do, it doesn't make a damn bit of difference, because they underestimated the tenacity with which humans will hold onto their beliefs.

Anyway, if Deckard had ever used an empathy box, he wasn't a replicant.

I do vaguely recall the part where he is arrested and taken to a phony police station and they try to make him think he's a replicant, but I think that was a trick.

I wish this book was fresher in my memory, but I'm pretty sure he was human.

I never once got the slightest hint that Deckard was a replicant, not even after watching the director's cut.  Although I have to say that it would make for a very interesting storyline.  Maybe Ridley Scott was trying to say that it would take a replicant to kill a replicant but maybe they couldn't make him too powerful or he would start to put it together like Rachel did.  But that's just an opinion.  And like the rest of you, I also wondered how a dream of a unicorn was supposed to tip off that he's a replicant?

That's interesting... but the movie is not the book.

Obviously. What's your point?

"Obviously. What's your point?"

We may never know.

odinn7 wrote:

> "Obviously. What's your point?"
>
> We may never know.
>

"She often has no point. It's part of her charm."

--A Few Good Men.  Sorry, I couldn't resist.

I've seen the director's cut myself, and what I can say for it is that while the end might suggest that Deckard is a replicant, it might also be making the slightly different point that humans are becoming so much like the replicants there really is no meaningful difference between humans and replicants anymore. As Gaffe tells Deckard near the end, "It's too bad she won't live. But then again, who does?" In other words, replicant or not, what makes you any less robotic than the replicants you're hunting?

Andy:  My comment was just supposed to mean that because the book and movie differ quite a bit, I don't think you can necessarily draw clues on the question we're debating (ie, in the *movie* is Deckard a replicant?) from themes in the *book.*

Anica:  the hint we're talking about is that in the director's cut (only), Deckard has a brief dream about a unicorn.  Periodically in the film (either version), a cop called Gaff sets down origami animals, but late in the film he brings out a unicorn --  making us wonder if this is a hint that Deckard is a machine, that his memories are a script, and that Gaff knows this.

There are certainly other possible meanings, and I think it's an interesting ambiguity.  I agree that it's not provable either way.  The point about humans losing some essential quality of their human-ness, though, is certainly what I get from most of the rest of the movie.

-  Z

"HE say rrrryou brrrade runnah!"

Well, I was trying to answer the question of whether the Deckard-as-replicant idea came from the book or not. Seems you missed that part of the discussion. Even if the question wasn't explicitly asked, it is worthwhile to look at whether this idea was, in fact, Dick's original intent, or whether it was something that came along later. Some of us like to look a little deeper.

No need to condescend.

- Z