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Comment by mlevental | Hacker News Reader

you realize there are more people that contributed to the construction of that universe than just Scott right? (at the least Philip k dick) and none of them have come out agreeing with him, let alone that if it's not substantiated by the source material then it doesn't matter what anyone says (and indeed the are no clear indicators in either of the films that deckerd is a replica the)

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You realize the article specifically cited the 1982 movie by Ridley Scott, right? It's most definitely substantiated in that movie, as Scott pointed out. He set the whole movie up for the final unicorn scene.

yeah it’s a real shame he misunderstood the source material so blatantly. made it clearer to me why i’ve found the movie dissatisfying, at least

How about he didn't misunderstand it, but took it as an inspiration, and created a vision of his own. You don't seem to be a creator.

Wouldn't be great if anyone had the legal right to re-interpret creative works of others. Maybe someday copyright will be returned to some rational length. 12 as originally legislated in the US seems reasonable.

The problem with that idea is it makes no sense from the standpoint of Roy's epiphany, which is ultimately the moral of the movie. If Deckard isn't human, there is nothing noble about Roy saving Deckard. Anyway, the unicorn wasn't in the original version of the movie. Directors quite often screw up their movies through reedits, like Lucas' edits to make Greedo shoot first.

In the voice over version, not a fan of the voice over version but it is the original theatrical release:

  Deckard (voice-over): I don't know why he saved my life.
  Maybe in those last moments he loved life more
  than he ever had before. Not just his life, anybody's life,
  my life. All he'd wanted were the same answers
  the rest of us want. Where did I come from?
  Where am I going? How long have I got? All I could do was
  sit there and watch him die.

Deckard is talking about the same Roy that crushed the skull of his 'maker', who's only reason for being was to kill. I think Roy's epiphany as he releases the bird from captivity stands up quite well, regardless of whether Deckard is or isn't a replicant.

How would Roy have known one way or the other about Deckard anyway?

He doesn't know. He may suspect but in the end, he doesn't care. That is the epiphany. Before he might have been trying to win an argument and make a point but in the end, facing death, he doesn't care to kill one more time.

BTW, the bird is probably artificial.

  Rachael:	Do you like our owl?
  Deckard:	It's artificial?
  Rachael:	Of course it is.
  Deckard:	Must be expensive.
  Rachael:	Very. I'm Rachael.

Saving the life of someone who killed your friends is still noble. Roy wasn't some Replicant revolutionary. He was just trying to save his own skin... and the lives of his friends

I thought the line in the original cut when Roy says to Tyrell, "I want more life, fucker." was great. Roy very succinctly is saying, "You made me with a short life span and that was evil, fix it now. I give you no respect."

In Scott's most recent cut he changed it to "I want more life, father." Horrible change to me. Why change that?

At least I own the original on DVD and not some paid access to an online cloud copy that can be changed by others at will.

>In Scott's most recent cut he changed it to "I want more life, father." Horrible change to me. Why change that?

Perhaps because he felt the second version is even more powerful, what with the allusion to him being a prodigal son, Tyrell being a father/God, etc.

Sort of liked the slave saying "fuck you" to his creator a bit more. To each his own.

I think the fuck you is still implied (by the tone -- and end result).

I prefer father myself.

>The problem with that idea is it makes no sense from the standpoint of Roy's epiphany, which is ultimately the moral of the movie. If Deckard isn't human, there is nothing noble about Roy saving Deckard.

When Roy does that, he doesn't know either way. So whether Deckard is or is not a replicant, the nobility of the act stands.

Plus the whole point is in the ambiguity (including of the noble act).

In my mind Ridley Scott's decision to include the voiceover in the film more or less disqualifies him from rendering a final judgement about this stuff.

Scott is an interesting filmmaker. Blade Runner and Alien are two of the best films ever made in my opinion. Everything else he's done is amateurish in comparison (also in my opinion), even the successful/fun stuff.

This makes me wonder whether there's something behind the greatness of those two films other than his direction. Maybe the writer/crew/cast/studio/producers had more power in his earlier films and used that power wisely?

There's an interesting passage on the wikipedia article for Alien:

> Scott had wanted the Alien to bite off Ripley's head and then make the final log entry in her voice, but the producers vetoed this idea as they believed the Alien should die at the end of the film.

All that aside, it's not always clear who "owns" a film. The director tends to get a lot of credit, but film-making is collaborative, and who's to say that the screenwriter doesn't get to decide what the film is really about?

If you like Alien you might go back to Carpenter’s first movie, Dark Star. And if you like Dark Star you might look at They Live! (That is if you haven’t already.)

That said, I’ll need a very strong recommendation before I see Blade Runner 2.

The short story on which the film is based indicates pretty clearly the the main character is a replicant.

I thought the story is clear that he isn't one? He takes an empathy test to make sure.

If he doesn't know he's a replicant, could he not take the test as many times as he wants and still pass just like Rachael in the movie?

Rachael did not pass the test.

I agree.

SPOILER: The bit where he finds out he isn't working for the real police department, I thought, indicated that not only was he not a real detective but also not a real person. I do think a big part of the story was to kind of wonder if this really mattered in the end.

That said, it may be less clear then I remember. If found this GoodReads link where people are mulling this over.

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1827979-the-fake-police...

See, I always thought the book veered towards Deckard not being a replicant: his mind - like Philip K Dick's - veered all over the place whereas the androids (who despite their lack of "empathy" still apparently had bonds with each other) focused on their priorities. He has a lot more regular contact with what he assumes to be the real police department to the police department that arrests him which he concludes was fake. He passes a VG test. And the only reason he's involved in the first place is to appease his apparently very real wife's human concerns.

Reportedly PKD once confirmed that in the book version Deckard was a human that had been dehumanised. Of course, it's PKD so it makes just as much sense the other way round (the "empathy boxes" make more sense as program-update devices than the sci-fi expressions of human religiosity and sentiment they were intended as)

It's pretty clear the film takes the opposite tack but it's a very loose adaptation (and filmmakers have taken the opposite tack from PKD far more explicitly in e.g. Minority Report)

That's irrelevant since we're talking about Blade Runner the film.

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