July 10, 2000

2:03 PM

Dekard a Replicant
The fact that Ridley Scott felt it necessary to share this information totally ruined my day. Not because I ever thought that Dekard wasn't a replicant, but because by the question remaining open it allowed one to take the film on so many more levels. Now he's just a robot. Thank you Ridley for clearing up all those annoying mysteries.
posted by captaincursor (14 comments total)

Amen. Ambiguity creates richness. The lack of ambiguity makes for crappy art. Like Gladiator.
posted by ericost at 2:17 PM on July 10, 2000

Should have read today's postings more carefullly. Sorry about that.
posted by captaincursor at 2:22 PM on July 10, 2000

I totally agree with you that "ambiguity creates richness".

But despite Scott's claim, the ambiguity is still there for me. No matter what he says, when I watch the movie I'm fully engrossed and the ambiguity still works.

It seems to me there's some point that art no longer belongs to the artist. And I don't mean copyrights. So for me it's just his opinion. I have not read the book so I do not know if, in fact, Deckard is a replicant.

I saw the DVD commentary for Fight Club this weekend with David Fincher, Brad Pitt, and Edward Norton (they were on the commentary, not my couch). There was a part when they each had a different opinion about what a certain scene meant to the rest of the movie. It kind of came off like they were just a couple of movie buffs talking about one of their favorite movies and characters, yet here they were intimately involved in character creation and direction.

If you haven't seen the DVD commentary for Fight Club, you should check it out. It's rather good.


posted by perplexed at 2:55 PM on July 10, 2000

Don't apologize captaincursor. The first instance of this item didn't offer enough information. Same thing happened with "green ketchup." I only click on links that seem interesting or make me curious.
posted by xiffix at 2:58 PM on July 10, 2000

I forgive you for duplicating a post. That happens. However I won't forgive you for misspelling Deckard's name! How dare you?!
posted by deckard at 3:06 PM on July 10, 2000

Today is just chock full of reruns. Must be summer.
posted by jdiaz at 4:44 PM on July 10, 2000

heh. it's like when Andy ruined the end of The Sixth Sense for Conan... that was rather stepping on the toes of the statute of limitations, I think, but yeah, Bladerunner's been around a while.
posted by Sapphireblue at 6:13 PM on July 10, 2000

I read the original Philip K. Dick book, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, and I don't remember the slightest indication that Deckard was a replicant. In the book, he had a wife, and a life of his own. So Scott can say whatever he likes, and I'll find it interesting, but like perplexed said, I don't take his word as gospel. The film means what it means to me regardless of what the creators intended.

BTW, can I just take this opportunity to say that I guessed the "twist ending" of Fight Club before I ever saw it? The first time someone mentioned that it had a twist ending (and said they were kind of disappointed by it), I thought about it for about 10 seconds and said, "Is it ______?" and it was. But I don't think that's reflective of my film acumen, so much as that the twist ending really is kind of obvious.
posted by wiremommy at 7:48 PM on July 10, 2000

Deckard's not a replicant in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, obviously. But you'll note that the whole keeping-up-with-the-Joneses social parody of the book (and the electric sheep itself) has been removed as well...

posted by snarkout at 9:40 PM on July 10, 2000

This isn't really news, either. While there were many things I liked about the Blade Runner Director's Cut, the one thing I didn't like was the closing off of the possibility that Deckard was human. Scott was going around even then essentially saying it without saying it.

Yes, this is like The Sixth Sense or Fight Club in that if you are at all versed in film and story technique it's obvious from the gitgo, so I'm not really concerned about it being discussed here.

I will say that Scott saying this makes me question how good and insightful a storyteller he is. Then again, just seeing Gladiator made me think that ...
posted by dhartung at 10:51 PM on July 10, 2000

But Scott isn't a good, insightful storyteller. It's not the storytelling or the conceit (which was much less apparent in the studio cut) that makes Blade Runner one of the defining films of the '80s. He's a master of surface veneer, and that's why Blade Runner has been as influential as it is. I mean, between Blade Runner and The Third Man, you've basically got your Bible for depiction of the "gritty" or "real" city--lots of night shots, rain glinting off the dirty streets, blazes of neon. What's the ratio of movies which have cribbed the look of BR to movies which have cribbed the (imho, much more interesting) feel of America as a hybrid, a mutant polyglot society ("Not fish! Snake!")? It's pretty frigging high.
posted by snarkout at 9:38 AM on July 11, 2000

Bobo was his teddy bear.
posted by smeat at 11:41 AM on July 11, 2000