July 10, 2000

7:46 AM

Well, I guess that settles it.Thanks for leaving us hanging for 18 years, Mr. Scott.
posted by ratbastard (15 comments total)

I've only seen Blade Runner all the way through once (I know...), but I do remember being confused about the number of replicants. I'm glad it has been explained. I can now continue living my life without this constant torment.
posted by daveadams at 8:52 AM on July 10, 2000

I seem to end up having a Blade Runner conversation with somebody almost everyday, this is fabulous to have definative answers to nagging questions.
Now if OJ would admit guilt, Hoffa's and JFK's killers were to surface talking, and FDR's smoking gun letter admitting that he allowed Pearl Harbor to be bombed without warning were found, I could die happy.
posted by thirteen at 8:54 AM on July 10, 2000

haha. I never really got the hype behind Blade Runner, but then, I only saw the director's cut, which I hear is inferior. I do like the big video ad boards, and hope we get some of those in the future.
posted by tiaka at 9:12 AM on July 10, 2000

Tiaka, go to Toyko sometime; big video screens all over the place.

Is Scott so desperate for attention that he needs to ruin one of the great sci-fi debates of all time?
posted by alan at 9:23 AM on July 10, 2000

If only all debates could be ended by the introduction of an absolute answer. Are you really unhappy? I think Mr. Scottn is the greatest, and am going to send him a honey baked ham to thank him for coming forward.
posted by thirteen at 9:34 AM on July 10, 2000

Tiaka, the director's cut is widely considered to be the best version. It's the original Blade Runner with its terrible voiceover that is usually disparaged as inferior.
Trivia tidbit: the movie studio insisted on putting in the voiceover in order to "help viewers understand the plot". Both Ridley Scott and Harrison Ford protested, especially since the voiceovers were written by some hack, not the original screenwriters, and they sucked. But the money guys won. So Ford intentionally read the voiceover script in the flattest monotone he could muster, hoping that if the voiceovers were bad enough the studio wouldn't use them. Of course, they used them anyway. Fortunately Scott got the chance to restore the movie to his original intentions.
The studio guys were right in that you have to pay close attention to what's going on to follow the plot in Blade Runner, or else it's easy to lose track of what's going on. I'd suggest to anyone who doesn't get the hype around the movie: watch it again. I don't think I really understood the film until about the third time I saw it. It's a rich movie with a lot to pay attention to, and it really holds up to-- and in some ways demands-- repeated viewings.
posted by wiremommy at 9:52 AM on July 10, 2000

Scott offered up another clue to Deckard’s real identity. Early in the film, it is made clear that six replicants arrived on Earth. One was killed and Deckard spent the rest of the movie hunting down four others. That leaves one replicant unaccounted for.

Except almost every source I've read has said that the sixth replicant was killed in a scene cut from the final version of the film and the continuity editor simply missed the line about the number of replicants. (The unicorn dream makes it pretty clear anyway, but still...)
posted by snarkout at 10:05 AM on July 10, 2000

The hunt for the sixth replicant was the hook for one of novelized sequels to the movie, but I did not read it.
Totally agree with wiremommy's assesment of the orignal version vs. the directors cut. I have the orignal on tape, and it will probably never be watched again. You cannot go back to it without being irritated.
posted by thirteen at 10:11 AM on July 10, 2000

This "Deckard as a replicant?" debate and EVERY other aspect of the film is covered in the wonderful book:

Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner

It has great insight into the making of the film.
posted by jca at 11:20 AM on July 10, 2000

The most thrilling moment of Blade Runner for me, I think, is knowing that the opening sequence was inspired by the blazing industrial skyline of my home town.
posted by holgate at 11:55 AM on July 10, 2000

So, does this mean I'm a replicant now?
posted by deckard at 2:04 PM on July 10, 2000

It's an interesting relevation in the light of the Blade-runner computer game released several years ago. That game had the main character as a replicant. It was good variant of the old sierra-adventure-type that I usually hated.
posted by john at 2:41 PM on July 10, 2000

Between this and it's sister thread, I must say again that I am amazed anyone has a problem with this information being made public. What fun is a puzzle that is never solved? It may be fun to debate, but how often are we allowed a REAL answer to our questions. This is the real answer (and I know it is a movie, there is nothing real here), to try and draw it out and say it has grown beyond Scotts intentions are silly. Besides, the answer creates new questions that can now be explored.
It does not ruin the artistic effect, if you cannot enjoy the story because you know something, what does that say?
posted by thirteen at 6:27 PM on July 10, 2000

Cool. I'll have to watch the movie again then. I never heard about this debate before today. It's cool to have another way to look at a film. That's what made Blair Witch so cool to me. Oh yeah I'm sure it's not a movie that will stand the test of time for some people. I'd watch it and think, what if it was that crazy old lady? Or what if Josh and Mike just tried playing a trick on Heather at the end? Maybe they just ran out of film? But it doesn't explain why the search party never found them. Maybe it really was the witch? You can watch that movie and see several different possibilities. Ambiguity IS a rich quality to a film. The studio guys of Blade Runner should have let the audience wonder a bit. But with the assumption that Deckard was a replicant, I can watch Blade Runner again from a fresh new perspective. It'll be like seeing a whole new movie.
posted by ZachsMind at 8:11 PM on July 10, 2000

Pauline Kael once called Blade Runner "the seminal movie of the 1980s". I think she was right. It may not have been a big hit, but it was extremely influential.
posted by dhartung at 10:57 PM on July 10, 2000