Or just admit that hinting at something isn’t the same as saying it must be true. A major theme of the movie is to contrast human Deckard with inhuman replicants. Creating ambiguity and confusion between them is consistent with the theme without requiring Deckard to be a replicant. In the end, yes, Scott says that he thought Deckard should be a replicant. That’s not the same as him releasing a movie where that was a necessary conclusion. Just as with all good art, multiple interpretations (including those other than one of the creators) are possible. In this case I think we all agree that there were strong hints, and that at least one person involved wanted Deckard to be a replicant, but the fact that we know all that (as did many who worked on the film) and still can’t agree demonstrates the ambiguity.
Well, if you’re not willing to take Ridley Scott’s word on the matter, then you’re not likely to take anyone else’s - so keep on truckin’ with your bad self, homeslice.
So why build it into Rachel? A second experiment that is crippled when the first one worked? Seems likely it could be fallout from different versions of the script not having all internal inconsistencies and ramifications thought out. Anyway, an explanation isn’t always a good explanation, and to me that seems the case here.
…and you may like the story better if Deckard weren’t a replicant, but Scott’s intentions are well documented. He’s a replicant.
You’re confusing two separate issues, and for the record, I previously noted that Scott’s intent was clear in his Final Cut.
Yeah, I don’t really understand the purpose of Rachel since Deckard is a replicant. It’s a replicant that thinks he’s human teaching a replicant that thinks she’s human how to love. Or something. Aw man, you guys have made my head hurt. I’m going to go watch Eegah!
Great stuff, Musashi.
Which is exactly what I meant by saying that as shot, Blade Runner isn’t at all ambiguous. As it was eventually edited for the theatrical release, I still think it’s not ambiguous because the question is pretty much removed from the story.
And just to single out something Ridley Scott says in the passage Musashi cited: “So I always felt the amusing irony about Harrison’s character would be that he was, in fact, a synthetic human. A narrative detail which would always be hidden, except from those audience members who paid attention and got it.”
That’s exactly what I’m talking about when I bring up the difference between “subtle” and “ambiguous”. So many movies hand things over on a platter, or they pronounce things through a megaphone for people in the cheap seats. So when something is subtle, many people mistake it for ambiguity. Why does paying attention have to be such an unreasonable expectation in a good movie?
StGabe, you’re absolutely right that many interpretations are possible. That’s true of pretty much anything. But not all interpretations are equal. Some interpretations have to ignore things like evidence, authorial intent, or facts. Some interpretations are weaker than others. They’re like theories that way.
-Tom
I think you’d have to ask the guy who got his eyes thumbed out.
I seem to recall there are other slightly confused bits of Blade Runner lore. Does M. Emmett Walsh egregiously miscount the number of replicants at one point? There’s an unanswered question for you: “Who taught him math?”
-Tom
Look. The movie that is Blade Runner is ambiguous – the first released cut very much so and later cuts still so albeit with stronger hinting. If it isn’t clear I don’t really care about authorial intent nor do I think that a few hints makes it “not ambiguous at all”. I also thing you guys are giving Scott way too much credit as many people were involved in the movie and many had other interpretations. But get in your parting shot as I’m pretty sure we’ve said all there is to say about 5 times each and I’m over it. :-)
So if in ten years, Chris Nolan comes out and gives his version of what happens after the end of Inception, will what was on the screen be any less ambiguous?
No one disagrees that Scott intended from the outset to build in hints that Deckard is a replicant. There is a considerable about of material in the movie that obfuscates and directly contradicts on film that as well, which is why a number of people here take issue with the ambiguity of it. In fact, large chucks of what we see on screen doesn’t make sense with Deckard as a replicant; at very least, off-screen alternate explanations could be developed for all of the contested plot points.
Coming from the story and the original theatrical release, I really don’t like “Deckard is a Replicant”; it significantly disrupts (I would say ruins) the wonderful narrative about the “cold fish” desensitized Blade Runner and the growing ever-so-more-human robotic replicants and how their arcs cross. That moment on the rooftop is one of the most powerful scenes in cinema and to have Roy save another robot who doesn’t know he’s a robot tarnishes its luster for me. It’s certainly a twist worthy of M. Night., and I mean that in the worst way possible.
Inception is ambiguous because Nolan copped out. There is no answer. It’s a zen koan puzzle movie that you can pretty much make of it what you will.
Okay, I’ll bite. What in the movie contradicts the idea that Deckard is a replicant? And I don’t mean uncertain bits like “What’s the deal with Sean Young?” What are the “considerable [amounts] of material” you’re talking about? Or what “large chunks” don’t make sense? I’m genuinely curious, because it seems to me the movie is pretty meticulous.
-Tom
Those of you who don’t want Deckard to be a replicant can always just read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, wherein he isn’t. (At least, I don’t remember it being that way, and my memory places this among several major differences between the book & the film.)
But you may as well accept the reality of the film. To deny the Deckard is a replicant in Blade Runner is like denying that Stanley Kowalski rapes Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire.
Oh fuck it, you sucked me in for one last post.
At this point, co-screenwriter Hampton Fancher, who has always staunchly denied that Deckard was anything other than human, shook his head and blurted out, “Ridley’s off, he’s totally wrong!” The audience burst out laughing, after which Fancher continued. “His idea is too complex. I think there is a metaphor in the film that works – for me anyway – and it’s about how we aspire to be something and we fall short of it; we always do. And we’re not sure if we’re being authentic. I don’t feel authentic – maybe Ridley does [Scott enthusiastically nods]. “So that question [is Deckard a Replicant] has to be an eternal question,” the writer concluded. “It doesn’t have an answer, and what I alway say about that is what Pound says: ‘Art that remains news is art in which the question ‘what does it mean’ has no correct answer.” I like asking the question [about Deckard] and I like it to be asked but I think it’s nonsense to answer it… that’s not interesting to me.”
(link)
If the fucking screenwriter of the movie can disagree with Scott and think the movie is ambiguous than so can I.
You’re on the right track, StGabe! Most of Hampton Fancher’s script was thrown out in favor of David Webb Peoples’ script. Or didn’t you read the article you linked?
-TomActually, it’s not completely impossible to have a director change his opinion - and then act as if that opinion was static all along. Try following Lucas from the 70s to the present about what the “masterplan” of the original SW vision was all along.
Any artist will want to experiment, and any artist will invariably change his mind when working on something.
It’s only natural.
Now, not all artists are fully honest with themselves or with their audience. Furthermore, it’s 100% fully human to believe that a currently held position was always so - regardless of it having been very different at the onset. It can be about vanity or simply a hazy memory that one conveniently takes advantage of.
I’m not saying Ridley Scott is a liar. I’m saying we can’t actually know if he’s telling the truth when he’s saying Deckard was always supposed to be a replicant. Maybe that was his final decision during editing - and the movie would still be largely ambigious as a result. It’s not a one-man vision either way.
If you’re into the human psyche - then it’s pretty obvious that Mr. Scott is very happy about his own ability to craft a movie - even when going for fake modesty. I wouldn’t put it past him to suggest cerebral subtlety when it wasn’t really intended.
About Deckard being a replicant: If I’m not mistaken, Harrison Ford was under a very different impression during the making of the film - and there must have been a reason for that misunderstanding.
This from IMDB:
At some point of the movie, each replicant has a red brightness in their eyes (Rachael in Deckard’s home, Pris in Sebastian’s). Deckard also has the shining in his eyes while talking to Rachael in his house. In July 2000, director Ridley Scott said that Deckard is, in fact, a replicant. Harrison Ford takes issue with this, however. “We had agreed that he definitely was not a replicant,” Ford said. Rutger Hauer’s autobiography expressed some disappointment with the same, because it reduced the final clash between Deckard and Batty from a symbolic “man vs. machine” battle to two replicants fighting.
Scott was never a master of subtlety. It’s just not his style, if you ask me. I have a hard time accepting that Scott intended for people to realise Deckard was a replicant - or he would have made the hints less subtle, if not blatantly obvious. I think it’s more likely he just didn’t take a firm stance - and made it ambigious on purpose.
At least, I can see that being the case with relative ease.
If only there was some way to verify this, such as a finished product we could view that would address the question!
I can think of a couple. One of them is weed. The other is that he’s just an actor. I’m sure you can also find him saying very fond things about Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, that buddy cop movie he made with Josh Hartnett, and what a thrill it is to work with Diane Keaton.
Wait, have you even seen Blade Runner? Because it’s not at all ambiguous. And while I agree that the Ridley Scott who made Robin Hood is about as ham-fistedly unsubtle as they come, Blade Runner is clearly the product of the Ridley Scott who muted all the dialogue in Alien a few years earlier.
-Tom
The finished product as in how many versions of the film released?
The point is that movie-making is a process - and because Ridley Scott says “he was always meant to be a replicant” - it does not mean it was a shared vision from the onset of the movie, and it doesn’t even mean Ridley Scott felt that way when filming it.
I can think of a couple. One of them is weed. The other is that he’s just an actor. I’m sure you can also find him saying very fond things about Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, that buddy cop movie he made with Josh Hartnett, and what a thrill it is to work with Diane Keaton.
Oh, so an actor saying something about the director is smoking weed - and is “just an actor” - and the director (AFAIK just another human being) is always speaking the truth as far as the movie is concerned?
So, when Ford is saying Scott and he agreed on him definitely not being a replicant - he’s lying? Scott is telling the truth because he’s a director?
Wait, have you even seen Blade Runner? Because it’s not at all ambiguous. And while I agree that the Ridley Scott who made Robin Hood is about as ham-fistedly unsubtle as they come, Blade Runner is clearly the product of the Ridley Scott who muted all the dialogue in Alien a few years earlier.
Yes, I’ve seen all versions - and I’ve never seen a movie from Ridley Scott that I would describe as subtle.
Yes, I think the movie is ambiguous (Final Cut less so) - and I don’t consider a revised version from the director the ultimate truth of the matter. Lots of people are involved.
Appropriately, does “Han shot first” ring a bell? Are we to let Lucas define that character for us?
Welcome to Hollywood, Mr. Artagnan!
Your post is retreading stuff we’ve already gone over. If you’re interested, you can read the last couple of pages, where pretty much everything you’re saying has already been addressed, including the Lucas comparison. Which is just dirty pool.
-Tom
“Do you like our owl?”
The question of Scott’s directorial ‘subtlety’ is completely irrelevant. It neither supports nor dismisses the issue of whether or not Scott intended Deckard to be a replicant from the outset.
We know one thing about Scott for sure, and it’s as true when he made The Duellists as I’m sure it was for Prometheus - he’s a total, maniacal control freak. Nothing makes it into a Scott film without his express permission. That in and of itself is neither proof in favor of Deckard’s replicant status.
But when you look at the footage shot, and this is as true for the Theatrical Cut as it is for the Final Cut, Scott planted numerous obvious clues. These were not done in service of ambiguity. Scott didn’t make Ford wear reflective contacts so that he could retroactively change his stance 25 years later, nor did he film the unicorn stuff, or plant the origami unicorn as artsy obfuscation.
That stuff is in there for a reason. Scott’s intentions were clear from the outset. It may not jibe with your personal interpretation of the film, but facts are facts. You can cast aspersions on Scott’s statements all you want. But his intentions are clear in the film’s production. David People’s and Hampton Fancher’s opinions on the matter are null and void. It’s Scott’s film. It’s his vision that made it to screen.
Hey. I’m always somewhat hesitant to do this, but I would want to know, so please take it in the spirit it is given. The word you meant is “jibe”. link
I only skimmed them, but I seem to recall you claiming for a fact that Blade Runner was filmed in a specific way regarding the Ford as a replicant thing - and I’m trying to demonstrate why we can’t know - and how there’s significant doubt as to the validity of that statement.
But if you can point out where you’ve given a better reason why Ford is a liar and Scott is not - then I’ll be glad to read it instead of expecting a refresh of that answer. Also, isn’t it strange that it came as such a big surprise to Rutger Hauer as well? I mean, why would both actors have a completely different perception if Scott was doing something opposite with a clear vision?
I suppose it was subtle trickery and Scott was playing masterful mindgames with his actors?
Is there an answer to this earlier in the thread you could point out?
You are using your personal interpretation of what he put in the movie as some kind of irrefutable proof.
It’s as if you’re not aware that the unicorn and the eyes could indeed be WANTING the film to be ambiguous. They’re not proof of anything at all - they’re simply unexplained stuff - just like it’s unexplained that Ford gets his ass kicked by everyone - despite supposedly being a replicant.
That Scott now says those things are there for this specific reason, is still not proof of them being there for that specific reason when filming. You can either take his word for that, or you can take the word of Ford who says the complete opposite, or that script writer - OR the statement from Hauer who was very surprised to hear Ford’s character was a replicant.
Scott might be a control freak - but he’s not infallible or necessarily rational in every tiny detail. Judging by most of his movies since Blade Runner - I’d say the amount of cerebral energy put into plot structures with strong underpinning is modest, at best.