Stupidity Comes in Degrees

[koan]

Originally Posted by beyelzu

The implanted kind?

Or do you think that the director was foreshadowing some origami?

I think the oragami was symbolic of freedom and healing and Gaff's message to Deckard was that he was choosing to let him go. I think the dream foreshadowed the moment where Deckard realises he is free to escape... which is what he was trying to do before they called him back to duty.

I find this really weird:

Wired: It was never on paper that Deckard is a replicant.
Scott: It was, actually. That's the whole point of Gaff, the guy who makes origami and leaves little matchstick figures around. He doesn't like Deckard, and we don't really know why. If you take for granted for a moment that, let's say, Deckard is a Nexus 7, he probably has an unknown life span and therefore is starting to get awfully human. Gaff, at the very end, leaves an origami, which is a piece of silver paper you might find in a cigarette packet, and it's a unicorn. Now, the unicorn in Deckard's daydream tells me that Deckard wouldn't normally talk about such a thing to anyone. If Gaff knew about that, it's Gaff's message to say, "I've read your file, mate." That relates to Deckard's first speech to Rachael when he says, "That's not your imagination, that's Tyrell's niece's daydream." And he describes a little spider on a bush outside the window. The spider is an implanted piece of imagination. And therefore Deckard, too, has imagination and even history implanted in his head

because the spider memory was not a daydream. Not at all, it was something Rachael believed happened in her past... as shown by the dialogue:

Deckard: Remember when you were six? You and your brother snuck into an empty building through a basement window. You were going to play doctor. He showed you his, but when it got to be your turn you chickened and ran; you remember that? You ever tell anybody that? Your mother, Tyrell, anybody? Remember the spider that lived outside your window? Orange body, green legs. Watched her build a web all summer, then one day there's a big egg in it. The egg hatched...
Rachael: The egg hatched...
Deckard: Yeah...
Rachael: ...and a hundred baby spiders came out... and they ate her.
Deckard: Implants. Those aren't your memories, they're somebody else's. They're Tyrell's niece's.
Deckard: [he sees that she's deeply hurt by the implication] O.K., bad joke... I made a bad joke. You're not a replicant. Go home, O.K.? No, really - I'm sorry, go home.

Why would Scott not recall the difference between a false memory and a daydream? They are very different things.

[beyelzu]

Yeah, evidently Scott conflated Deckard and Rachael there a little bit, probably cuz they are both replicants.

So Deckard was trying to escape? and his dream foreshadowed not some big event but rather being given a piece of origami that symbolized freedom? Why does Graf make a unicorn, is this a recognized symbol for freedom for some reason?

I am afraid I don't find your argument very convincing.


and you seem to have missed or ignored this.

“Blade Runner was not one of my favorite films. I tangled with Ridley. The biggest problem was that at the end, he wanted the audience to find out that Deckard was a replicant. I fought that because I felt the audience needed somebody to cheer for.”

Which is definite independent attestation that Scott thought Deckard was a replicant while shooting.

Now you can argue that your own view is viable, sure, but I don't think you can argue that the opposing view is false when the director says it was intended and the actor who played the character bitched about the director wanting it that way.

Scott intended Deckard to be a replicant, if you think his opinion doesn't matter, so be it.

[koan]

Originally Posted by beyelzu

Yeah, evidently Scott conflated Deckard and Rachael there a little bit, probably cuz they are both replicants.

So Deckard was trying to escape? and his dream foreshadowed not some big event but rather being given a piece of origami that symbolized freedom? Why does Graf make a unicorn, is this a recognized symbol for freedom for some reason?

I am afraid I don't find your argument very convincing.


and you seem to have missed or ignored this.

Which is definite independent attestation that Scott thought Deckard was a replicant while shooting.

Now you can argue that your own view is viable, sure, but I don't think you can argue that the opposing view is false when the director says it was intended and the actor who played the character bitched about the director wanting it that way.

Scott intended Deckard to be a replicant, if you think his opinion doesn't matter, so be it.

Hehe. I've worked on a lot of film sets and it doesn't surprise me in the least that a director got an idea in his head that nobody else supported and that they prevented him from doing. Scott almost got fired off this shoot. Directors don't have the final say. That's why Director's cuts come out later if the film is popular enough to sell another version.

[koan]

Also, it's extremely unlikely that they would have replicant unicorns as Deckard was surprised at a replicant owl and exclaimed that it must be worth a fortune, which Rachael confirms.

[Angakuk]

Originally Posted by koan

In storytelling, dreams aren't generally used to tell about the past. They are used more for foreshadowing. Also, a unicorn is a suspicious memory to have implanted since it's not something he would have seen. They don't exist in the Blade Runner world any more than they do in this world. What kind of memory would he have had involving a unicorn?

Why shouldn't unicorns exist in the Blade Runner world? James Thurber had one in his garden.

[Kashmir]

Originally Posted by koan

Also, it's extremely unlikely that they would have replicant unicorns as Deckard was surprised at a replicant owl and exclaimed that it must be worth a fortune, which Rachael confirms.

Well, J.F. Sebastian has at least two custom-made whimsical Replicant toys, and he lives in the bombed-out Bradbury Building.

Zhora has an artificial snake. "Do you think I'd be working in a place like this [strip bar] if I could afford a real snake?"

Maybe making things that can fly as gracefully as a bird is still difficult engineering, hence the cost. He doesn't exclaim, he replied to her query pretty flatly.

[koan]

Originally Posted by Kashmir

Well, J.F. Sebastian has at least two custom-made whimsical Replicant toys, and he lives in the bombed-out Bradbury Building.

Zhora has an artificial snake. "Do you think I'd be working in a place like this [strip bar] if I could afford a real snake?"

Maybe making things that can fly as gracefully as a bird is still difficult engineering, hence the cost. He doesn't exclaim, he replied to her query pretty flatly.

Fair enough on the "exclaiming" but Deckard's flatness is actually a big point of the main plotline: What makes a person "human"? Dick wrote the character as having been stripped of his humanity by the job he performs. His conflict isn't really the physical battle of hunting and killing his prey but a crisis point where we see that Batty seems to have more emotion than Deckard and exhibits more human qualities. The film asks "what makes a person human?" If Deckard is a replicant that question is pointless. Him being a replicant actually makes the theme of the film disappear. You're left with asking which non human was more human. Good films have inner turmoil and things the protagonist needs to change about himself. A version with Deckard as a droid makes it not a good story.

The producer (who outranks the director) Michael Deeley said "I never thought Deckard was a replicant, either.... That was just a bit of bullshit, a little extra layer Ridley put in. Also an obfuscation. Not only did I never believe Deckard was a replicant, I also thought it futile to try and make him one."p362, Future Noir- The Making of Blade Runner, Paul Sammon

The snake being cheap compared to a real snake implied to me that real snakes were on the endangered species list.

[Kashmir]

Originally Posted by koan

Fair enough on the "exclaiming" but Deckard's flatness is actually a big point of the main plotline: What makes a person "human"? Dick wrote the character as having been stripped of his humanity by the job he performs. His conflict isn't really the physical battle of hunting and killing his prey but a crisis point where we see that Batty seems to have more emotion than Deckard and exhibits more human qualities. The film asks "what makes a person human?" If Deckard is a replicant that question is pointless.

Bingo.

I identify with the Replicants. Aside from Batty murdering J.F., nothing they did wouldn't fall under self-defense or understandable revenge--fuck Tyrell.

Originally Posted by koan

The snake being cheap compared to a real snake implied to me that real snakes were on the endangered species list.

This is my interpretation as well. Not that I find this situation terribly plausible, though. Animals bred as pets are some of the least likely to be threatened with extinction.

For an example, the New Caledonian Crested Gecko was thought extinct as recently as '94. Now you can buy one in pet shops for $50, or less. Adorable little buggers.

[Dragar]

Originally Posted by koan

Fair enough on the "exclaiming" but Deckard's flatness is actually a big point of the main plotline: What makes a person "human"? Dick wrote the character as having been stripped of his humanity by the job he performs. His conflict isn't really the physical battle of hunting and killing his prey but a crisis point where we see that Batty seems to have more emotion than Deckard and exhibits more human qualities. The film asks "what makes a person human?" If Deckard is a replicant that question is pointless. Him being a replicant actually makes the theme of the film disappear. You're left with asking which non human was more human. Good films have inner turmoil and things the protagonist needs to change about himself. A version with Deckard as a droid makes it not a good story.

But a Deckard who is obviously not a droid is not a good story either.

The whole point of the film is that you wonder, because the whole point of the film is (as you said) "what makes a person human?". The very fact we have this argument (with each other, or ourselves) is enough to highlight the blurred line between the humans and the machines.

It's a bit like Life of Pi, in that...

show spoiler

whether the story is true or not isn't the point - the point is that there exists a tension for the reader between truth and narrative.