Blade Runner/YMMV

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• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Does Rachael actually fall in love with Deckard or does she become his mistress because she knows it's the only way she can avoid being retired by other Blade Runners?
  • Does Gaff let Rachael go because he has a moment of compassion, wants Deckard's job, or because a Blade Runner having a Replicant mistress is just part of the Dirty Cop nature of the work?
• Ass Pull: The "Deckard as a Replicant" theory comes across as this to the rest of the film since it's barely foreshadowed at all, beyond the unicorn dream/origami:
  • For one thing, the point of the film is that the Replicants of the Nexus-7 are stronger, more durable, more acrobatic than the average human. If Rick Deckard is a Replicant of the same make or something older than that, then he clearly doesn't match the Replicants in skills and indeed the film's fight scenes when Deckard hunts down the Replicants, repeatedly shows Deckard winning by scrapping by, being exhausted and fatigued, and winning by fighting dirty. If Deckard is also a replicant (i.e. or an older model or a later up-to-date model), it makes no sense why he should be designated for a job that involves fighting down models far more advanced than he is.
  • Defenders, such as Mark Kermode, note that Deckard in the film is often cold, distant, and a little boring and that Deckard being a robot would explain this. Others point out that this explanation contradicts with how Roy Batty, Priss, Zhora are far more visibly emotional, as is Rachel, and that Deckard being a little reserved, unemotional, and cold better illustrates the Replicant-Human face off, with Deckard being human, since otherwise it's one robot with Dull Surprise against another robot who quotes Blake and Milton.
• Broken Base: And how! The different cuts, Deckard's true nature, the unicorn etc.
• Cult Classic: Has become so ubiquitous in pop culture that it's hard to picture now, but at one time, the film was very much this. It's also the very reason it got a sequel 35 years after it came out.
• Death of the Author: One of the reasons Deckard's being a replicant or not is still hotly debated. (Also, a film has multiple authors, and in this case they disagree with each other.)
• Ensemble Darkhorse: Gaff. In the Westwood Studio's video game, he's something of a Stealth Mentor.
• Funny Aneurysm Moment: Take note of the dirigible with ads all over it. In the following decade, every single company advertised on it either went out of business or -- as was the case with Atari and Coca -- experienced financial hardships. See Product Placement on the main page for a more complete list of companies who got their logos into the film, and their fates.
• Genre Turning Point: The film's unique and widely praised visualization of the future was not only widely copied by other films (sci-fi and otherwise), it either influenced or anticipated the way large cities would look, particularly at night, in the early 21st century.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Edward James Olmos talking about "skin jobs."
• Narm: To some, that unicorn from Deckard's dream sequence.
• The Problem with Licensed Games: Averted. Westwood Studios released a lovingly faithful Adventure Game based on this movie in 1997. Let's Play: Here. The game featured randomized plot points and the player's actions could lead the game towards thirteen different alternate endings.
• Seinfeld Is Unfunny: Giant buildings, neon lights, multicultural cities, film noir aesthetics, and lots and lots of rain? Meh, we've seen it all before.
• Special Effects Failure: The skies above Batty when he releases the dove were supposed to be grimly grey, causing an unintended Cue the Sun moment. This was changed in the 2007 "Final Cut." Crew members stated in a behind-the-scenes documentary that this error occurred because they couldn't get the dove to fly in the rain. The water soaked the bird's feathers and made it too heavy to take off, so they eventually had to resort to filming the scene without the rain.
  • Visual Effects of Awesome otherwise.
• Unfortunate Implications: Fantastic Racism aside, there's also Deckard's rather politically incorrect love scene with Rachael.
• Vindicated by History: Upon its initial release, the film was met with mixed reviews and an underwhelming box office performance. In the ensuing years it became a Cult Classic, and is now generally considered one of the greatest science fiction films of all time.