- Directed by: Ridley Scott
- Starring: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Daryl Hannah (in a REALLY bad wig)
- Release Date: 1982
SYNOPSIS
20 years ago (give or take), the Tyrell Corporation successfully creates genetically engineered androids, called replicants, designed to be like humans in just about every way. They are physically identical to humans, and they think and learn like humans do. They can be tailored to fulfill specific functions and are all designed to work in adverse environments. Result: the human race now has all the “slave” labor it needs to get things done.
Naturally, the replicants violently revolt, and, naturally, the humans thumb them down.
As our story begins, in 2019, Earth has become that crappy neighborhood everyone’s trying to move out of (to the “Off-world Colonies”). Anyone who stays behind is either physically unable to leave OR has a sick, psychological need to remain with the dregs. Replicants are forbidden to be on Earth, and any found are immediately terminated. Blade Runner squads (part of the police) are tasked to hunt down and kill any replicants that manage to sneak on to the planet.
The only way to tell if a replicant is a replicant is to run a test on them where a weird looking machine (a Voight-Kampff machine) measures their pupil dilation while the tester asks questions designed to provoke an emotional response. Replicants are designed to mimic humans in every way except human emotion. Therefore, lack of emotional response = replicant. Shoot to kill.
Voight-Kampff Machine
Tyrell realizes that replicants are developing their own emotions: not good for business. To solve this problem, his latest models (Nexus 6) have a built in fail-safe: four-year lifespans. Problem: four Nexus 6 replicants kill a bunch of people Off-world and show up on Earth. No one knows why. Deckard is grudgingly pulled out of retirement to find them and kill them quick.
Tyrell asks Deckard to run the Voight-Kampff emotion test on a Nexus 6 but wants him to start with Rachel, Tyrell’s assistant [played to perfection by Sean Young]. The test reveals that she is a replicant, but it takes a lot more questions. After Rachel leaves the room, Tyrell confirms it: Rachel’s a replicant, but get this – she doesn’t know it.
Tyrell tells Deckard that Rachel is an experiment, (“nothing more”). His theory is that implanting memories (borrowed from someone else), into replicants before activation might give them some emotional maturity and make them easier to control. All of Rachel’s memories are from Tyrell’s niece. Once the experiment is over, Tyrell tells her the truth, sends her away and reports her presence to the authorities.
For the rest of the movie, the rogue replicants attack, question and kill just about everyone trying to find out how to live longer. Deckard tracks them down, and they take turns kicking his ass. He kills one, Rachel kills one.
The last two, Roy and Pris pal up with one of Tyrell’s top super-genius designers, J.F. Sebastian. J.F. is stuck on Earth due to his health: Methusela syndrome aka premature aging [this would be what we in the academic world would call thematic overkill]. He lives alone in the deserted Bradbury hotel with all his creepy “toys” that he “makes.”
To remedy his solitude, J.F. fills his life with “friends.” He is referring to the “toys” that fill his apartment. He “makes” them. His toys are genetically engineered and alive, like replicants. He reluctantly agrees to sneak Roy in to Tyrell’s inner sanctum [his bedroom].
Tyrell plays God/Father for Roy, and explains that the 4 year deadline [pun intended], is IRREVERSIBLE. Roy [beautifully played by Rutger Hauer] kisses him and then crushes his skull with his bare hands. [And we hear his EYES pop! EW!]
Between letting the replicants beat him nearly to death (before he shoots them with a hand cannon), Deckard hooks up with Rachel. He tries to help her accept her identity as her own (mainly through piano playing and sex). They fall in love.
During the course of their hook up, Rachel asks Deckard two interesting questions.
- “If I run, will you hunt me down? Kill me?” [Deckard's sincere answer: "No."]
- “Have you ever retired a human by mistake?” [a passed-out Deckard never answers].
Roy meets up with Deckard at J.F. Sebastian’s place just after Deckard gets TOTALLY lucky and manages to kill Pris. Roy plays cat and mouse with Deckard, and they end up on the roof. Nearing his own [pre-determined] end, Roy saves Deckard from falling to his death. They sit together in the rain. Roy briefly postulates on the bummer that is mortality, then quietly dies.
After the fun and games are over, Detective Gaff [Edward James Almos in major guyliner] arrives to wrap things up. The oddly silent yet satirically chatty [via random origami] fellow blade runner notes out loud that it looks like Deckard has completed his mission ["Finished," answers a war-torn Deckard].
Then Gaff says “It’s too bad she won’t live. But then again, who does?“ before he zippapears into the pouring rain.
[Uh-oh.]
Deckard rushes back to his apartment [hand canon at the ready] to check on Rachel. He’s overwhelmingly relieved to find her okay. They kiss and trade verbal commitments. Then he covers the hallway [hand canon at the ready] as she sneaks out of his apartment.
[Remember - Rachel faces a mandatory death sentence for being on Earth because she's a replicant -- regardless of how she got there -- and that putz Tyrell ratted her out to the authorities well before Roy popped his head like a zit.]
As she hurries to the elevator, her [exceptionally high] heel knocks over a small, silver, origami unicorn on the floor just outside the apartment door. Gaff has been there, and even though it breaks all the rules and social conventions of the times, he’s let her go.
Deckard stares at the unicorn as Gaff’s words echo in his mind. Deckard nods, and that’s when WE realize what Gaff’s words mean.
Gaff says:
“It’s too bad she won’t live. But then again, who does?”
But what he MEANS is:
“She deserves to live. She’s no different than the rest of us.”
[Profound, yes? This would be what's commonly known as subtext, folks: the meaning beneath the words. Wordplay, btw, is the double meaning of the words themselves.]
This is a really important thematic moment in the film [probably the MOST important]. As we watch Deckard stare at the unicorn, we understand that he has finally made a choice. He already sees replicants as people, not dolls or toys. They are living things with minds and feelings, flesh and bone. He recognizes their humanity even if that humanity is merely replicated. His struggle over this concept is why he quit the blade runner squad in the first place [he used to be "the best, a real killer"].
However, this time, instead of hiding and avoiding the issue, he’s going to take it up as his own. He’s going to defend Rachel because she deserves defending. He joins her in the elevator. The doors close.
Cut to black. Cue groovy, upbeat, dystopian soundtrack.
A WORD ON THE UNICORN
Halfway through the 2007 version [considered the best of the THREE recuts], Dekard tinkers on a piano looking at old family photographs. We hear music that’s oddly organic compared to the rest of the dystopian-centered soundtrack. Then a brief, slo-mo clip of a white unicorn running through a forest overlaps with a pan of the family photos on the piano. This unicorn (in another thematic overkill move) connects the “specialness” of the unicorn to the “specialness” of being human and/or having “real” human memories and experiences IN THE PHYSICAL WORLD. When we see the origami unicorn at the end, it’s supposed to represent that “specialness.” The ARTIFICIAL version of that specialness.
HOWEVER, did you notice that the use of a UNICORN to represent “real” human identity is a bit ironic? I mean, unicorns are MYTHOLOGICAL creatures. They don’t exist except in stories and legends (and art about stories and legends).
[Let that one sit for a while and see if your brain doesn't start smoking!]
