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Blade Runner: Difference between revisions
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Deckard is a Blade Runner. His job is to [[Deadly Euphemism|"retire"]] renegade [[Artificial Human|Replicants]] -- rogue androids that are not supposed to be on Earth. Some of the most advanced replicants yet have escaped, and Deckard is [[One Last Job|assigned to retire them]]. But they are so like normal humans that Deckard can't help but empathize with them, and he even falls for one.
''Blade Runner'' was loosely based on the [[
The film was a [[Box Office Bomb|commercial failure upon release]], but it [[Vindicated
Not to disappoint anyone, but no one [[Blade Run|runs on blades]] in this movie.
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=== ''Blade Runner'' provides examples of the following: ===
* [[Adaptation Distillation]]: [[Philip K. Dick]] loved the visual imagery of those parts of the film he saw. He said they resonated deeply with his imagined future. But he is also on record as saying [[Ridley Scott]] inverted the meaning of the replicants' inhumanity; from being self-serving non-empathic killers to being 'supermen who couldn't fly'. As impressed as he was, PKD maintained that it wasn't his story. In the final interview before his death, Dick said "After I finished reading the screenplay, I got the novel out and looked through it. The two reinforce each other, so that someone who started with the novel would enjoy the movie and someone who started with the movie would enjoy the novel."
** In an interview, Rutger Hauer revealed that he had been a fan of the book long before the movie, and preferred to think of film Deckard as a sap who was [[Robosexual|pining over a vibrator]].
* [[Adult Child]]: While the Replicants are adults both physically and mentally, they're still very childlike in their emotions, be it Pris's very whimsical behavior or Roy basically having a temper tantrum {{spoiler|when meeting Tyrell and becoming a [[Self-Made Orphan]]}}.
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* [[Crucified Hero Shot|Crucified Anti Villain Shot]]: Batty uses a nail driven into his own hand to stave off death for a few minutes. It's extremely visible as he {{spoiler|saves Deckard's life}}.
* [[Culture Chop Suey]]: The film has a kind of "the future is Asian" theme with a [[Far East|mishmash of East Asian cultural stereotypes]]: Geishas in advertising, Chinese noodle stalls, Japanese and Chinese writing scattered about, broken [[Engrish]], squadrons of bicycles ridden through squalid streets by [[All Asians Wear Conical Straw Hats|people in big hats]], etc.
* [[Cyberpunk]]: possibly an [[Unbuilt Trope]]: without computer networks or virtual reality, it's just another sci-fi dystopia. The genre, however, has been informed by it for ''decades''. Even [[
** And this is the first sci-fi film where the [[Punk Rock|"punk"]] [[Punk Punk|aspect]] is really present.
* [[Cyberpunk Is Techno]]: Vangelis' soundtrack makes heavy use of synthesizers and other electronic elements. The most notable exception is the "love theme" between Deckard and Rachael, which is played on the [[Sexophone|saxophone]].
* [[Cyberpunk
* [[Da Chief]]: An inversion. Deckard does not appear to like or respect the police chief very much.
* [[Darkened Building Shootout]]: The final encounter between Deckard and Batty involves gunplay in a darkened building (the [[wikipedia:Bradbury building|Bradbury Building]] in LA).
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* [[Executive Meddling]]: The ending in the original movie was changed by higher-ups due to its ambiguity, and narration was added to help dispel the ambiguity evident in most of the movie itself. The ending has -- thank God -- been restored and the narration deleted in the [[Directors Cut]].
* [[Eye Scream]]: {{spoiler|Tyrell's death}}. Leon appears to be about to shove his fingers into Deckard's eyes at one point.
* [[Face Death
{{quote| '''Roy Batty''': "All those moments will be lost in time... like tears... in rain. Time to die."}}
* [[Failure Is the Only Option]] {{spoiler|The replicants' quest for more life}} is doomed from the beginning.
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* [[Limited Special Collectors Ultimate Edition]]: Blade Runner has been re-released '''many''' times. There's a Director's Cut, a Special Edition, and now a "Five-Disc Ultimate Collector's Edition" that comes in the same kind of metal briefcase as the Voight-Kampff machines. Ridley Scott tweaks scenes and dialogue in each one, sometimes altering the mood of scenes significantly.
** The 5 versions included in this version are: The 1982 workprint, US Theatrical Cut, International theatrical cut, the 1992 directors cut and the 2007 directors cut. According to [[The Other Wiki]] there are ''two other versions'' that exist but aren't included in the current set.
* [[Mandatory Unretirement]]: At the beginning of the movie, Deckard is no longer a Blade Runner, but is reluctantly recruited back. [[Riddle for
* [[Meaningful Name]]: Deckard sounds like Descartes (famous for "I think therefore I am.") [[Does This Remind You of Anything?]]
* [[Mega Corp]]: The Tyrell Corporation, whose massive pyramidal headquarters dominates the skyline of Los Angeles (not unlike the Ministry of Truth in ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]'').
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* [[Punch Clock Hero]]: Deckard.
* [[Redemption Equals Death]]: {{spoiler|Roy Batty}}, rescuing and sparing Deckard's life just before his death. And {{spoiler|Deckard}} himself: if he is a replicant, he will die very soon "paying" for the {{spoiler|replicants he killed in the name of the state}}.
* [[Riddle for
* [[Ridiculous Future Inflation]]: Deckard has to pay a fairly infuriating price for a 30-second [[Video Phone|vidphone]] call.
* [[Ridiculously-Human Robots]]: The Replicants are almost perfect in resemblance to regular humans, to the point where only a psychological test can detect them. Rachael takes this trope even further: she's a Replicant who thinks she is human. When Deckard tests the machine on Rachael, it takes over one hundred questions for him to determine she is a Replicant (it takes only twenty or thirty, normally). And that's not even getting into the idea that {{spoiler|Deckard}} may be a Replicant.
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* [[Smug Snake]]: Gaff. So very much. Possibly Holden, too.
* [[Snakes Are Sexy]]: "Ladies and gentlemen... Taffey Lewis presents... Miss Salome and the snake. Watch her take the pleasures from the serpent... that once corrupted man."
* [[Spiritual Successor]]: To the 1920s silent film ''[[
* [[Stealth Mentor]]: Gaff, in the Westwood Studio's [[Video Game]].
* [[Stock Footage]]: Not quite "stock", but reused. At one point, a computer displays a clip from ''[[Alien]]'', and more noticeably, the original theatrical ending was {{spoiler|actually one of the alternate opening credits sequences for ''[[The Shining]]''.}}
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* [[Throw It In]]: Somehow "The tiny elevator whizzes down the huge nighttime pyramid" turned into [[Faster-Than-Light Travel|stars zooming past the elevator cage]] on the screen. Since [[Artistic License Astronomy|there is no way you would actually see this]] from an earthbound elevator, as anybody who has ever strolled down a hill at night intuitively understands, the result was to inject an unintentional [[Flash Back]] into the visuals at that point ... which luckily fit together with Roy's [[Final Speech]] a few minutes later.
** Or, it's a view of the constant falling rain from Roy's perspective in the glass elevator...
* [[Tomato in
** Rachael initially believed herself to be human, based on memories duplicated from Tyrell's niece (named Sarah in the novels).
** Depending on the version, {{spoiler|Deckard}} is hinted to various degrees to be a replicant with false memories himself, something that was overtly teased in the novelization. The film's director [[Ridley Scott]] says he is, while Harrison Ford and both of the film's writers say he is not. That particular argument is [[Internet Backdraft|a good way to make enemies]] in the fandom. It's ''that'' divisive.
** Interestingly, the climactic confrontation between Deckard and Roy Batty takes place in the Bradbury Building -- which was also the setting of "Demon With a Glass Hand", the classic [[Tomato in
** Additional behind-the-scenes material on the DVDs reveals that the movie script contained a scene in which {{spoiler|Roy Batty, after killing Tyrell, enters a lab adjacent to Tyrell's penthouse apartment and finds out that the ''real'' scientist Tyrell died years ago; Roy Batty finds a cloning chamber and evidence that the "Tyrell" he killed was also merely a replicant, programmed with Tyrell's memories.}}
* [[Too Dumb to Live]]: Tyrell, Tyrell, Tyrell. When your angry, vengeful creation is confronting you and demanding you perform a medical procedure on him, the correct answer is not to explain why that procedure would be fatal, it's to ''perform it anyway''. Possibly justified in that his idolization of Roy as his ultimate creation may have been stronger than his self-preservation.
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* [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?]]: A major theme in the film.
* [[White-Haired Pretty Boy]] / [[White-Haired Pretty Girl]]: Both Roy and Pris have almost white, platinum blond hair, possibly because they're near the end of their lifespans.
* [[We Are
* [[What Could Have Been]]: An earlier draft of the script, called "Dangerous Days" would have been a far more action-packed affair, including a famous unused scene where Deckard shot a seemingly innocuous man, then took his skull apart to reveal mechanical components.
* [[Window Pain]]: Zhora's retirement.
* [[Younger Than They Look]]: Sebastian has an aging disease, making him look over fifty when he's in fact in his twenties. Replicants never live past four, by design.
* [[Your Approval Fills Me
* [[Zeerust]]: Can be partially overlooked as [[Used Future]], but every [[Flying Car]] looks an awful lot like cars from [[The Eighties]] with jet-like parts added. The rather boxy and overly clicky photo analyzer is similarly dated -- but on the other hand, the ''absolutely insane'' resolution of the photo itself is still something that modern photographers would kill for.
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