r/bladerunner • u/tannu28 • May 01 '26
Video Harrison Ford on why he disagrees with Ridley Scott about Deckard being a Replicant.
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u/Mobile_Falcon_8532 May 01 '26
I think the film loses a lot if it turns out that "haha! Deckard is a replicant too, you fool!"
If he was human then what it means is that human, replicant, that at a fundamental level they are the same, and it goes further to show the cruelty of the 4-year lifespan.
It makes Batty's saving of Deckard even more wonderful - Batty is running out of life but life is so precious, and he recognises it as so precious, that he saves a human - unfairly with a lifespan not limited to 4 years! - just because it's precious and not to be wasted, even if till that point they were enemies! Deckard killed two of his friends! He knew he was dying, there's no way to fix the lifespan limit, so there's no point Deckard die as well - so, he saves him.
Make Deckard a replicant and you lose all that.
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u/MartyEBoarder May 01 '26
Exactly this. Deckard is a human.
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u/trimetric May 01 '26
The magic of storytelling is that you don't get to know - and the proof that it works is that we're having this conversation right now.
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u/SuperNoise5209 May 01 '26
And, deckard's doubt and uncertainty is part of the philosophical fun. We are, after all, organic machines, programmed by DNA, our environment, and the society around us. So, how much control and freedom do any of us have as living things?
The question is more interesting than the answer.
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u/OddEfficiency8917 May 01 '26
Exactly. We don’t know, could be either way. That’s the point:)
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u/thommonator May 01 '26
The way I always put it is, the film is asking us not if he’s a replicant or a human, but whether it matters - that’s a FAR more interesting question
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u/Positive-Beautiful55 May 02 '26
Exactly. This is such an important point, even if left unthought or unvocalized is part of why the movie is so powerful. Ford's disagreement clearly impacted the film and ultimately made things somewhat ambiguous for the audience. Regardless of what the director might claim in post movie interviews, it's with each viewer that the decision as to whether Deckard is a replicant is ultimately made. It's a sublime example of the beauty and power of post modern art. Half made by the creator, half made by the observer. It is possible that 2 different people could have 2 different opinions on whether he is a replicant and ultimately both be right: enjoying the movie more and getting more out of it as a result. We are lucky that Ford has so much passion and turned what could have be a very route, sterile, and less meaningful experience into something that is now more up to the audience to define.
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u/NoSplit4185 May 01 '26
No, that’s wrong, cause I know. We are having this discussion because the director had a stupid idea / misconception about the leading role halfway the process of discussing the script with Fancher/Peoples. He can’t admit it was a stupid idea, so he keeps on defending it.
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u/orpheuselectron May 01 '26
In another interview I recall him saying something to the effect of, if Deckard is a replicant then he and the other replicants are boring, just elaborate computer programs playing out with nothing at stake, kind of like watching a video game on demo mode. Plus I love the dead inside, wooden cynical human contrasted with the passionate chaos of the replicants trying to live longer. I'm on team Harrison
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u/Inf229 May 01 '26
So I see it very differently: they're artificial but they have genuine emotions, fears and inner worlds. Not just programs but actually alive. Which makes their exploitation and fate so much worse. If Deckard is a replicant, but the audience forms an emotional connection and emphasises with him then it's even more profound.
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u/dogscatsnscience May 01 '26
But Batty thinks Deckard is human.
Whether he is or not does not change Batty's choices.
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u/Mobile_Falcon_8532 May 01 '26
"I don't know why but there's something special about this human, it's almost like I feel a closeness to him, like he's not like other humans"
If Deckard is not a human then you could argue that Batty "instinctively" could recognise it etc.
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u/dogscatsnscience May 01 '26 edited May 01 '26
"I don't know why but there's something special about this human, it's almost like I feel a closeness to him, like he's not like other humans"
I don't know what this is from?
But you're adding an assumption to reverse justify him being human. From the film, I don't have any reason to believe Batty could identify if Deckard was a replicant.
We don't know what model Deckard or Rachel are, there's no reason to assume they have limited lifespans (that was imposed on the Nexus's 6's, which implies prior models don't necessarily have lifespans, or certainly not 4 years). We don't know how much Batty could even know about a prior model, or how to identify them.
He plays what he sees in front of him. Deckard thinks he's human, and he acts human. Batty's mercy is towards someone he thinks is human.
I see a complex cast of replicants who are able to reflect on humanity or their own humanity to differing degrees:
- Batty knows he's different, and he's even got a different sense of mortality than almost anyone (someone on death row or with a terminal illness could related)
- Rachel knows she's a replicant but is pretty determined to not be limited by it. She might be immortal for all we know, she's Tyrell's prototype. So she can view humanity through the loss of her prior feeling of self, her new ambition to carve her own life, but she's also different in that she could have 5 years or 500 left (we don't know, and in fact she may have no way of finding out now either). The OG voiceover says she has no expiry.
- Deckard is the one who demonstrates a lot of human emotions without knowing he's a replicant. It's up to the audience if they choose to view his replicant status as a deterministic machine and he has no agency, or whether his humanity is inherent in his nature of whatever model he is. He isn't exactly the model of empathy, but he also makes some pretty humane decisions at the very end vis-a-vis Rachel.
So I guess I come back to: how can we diminish Batty's actions, because they're just based on what he believed?
What the audience knows does not change the profundity of his decision.
It's ironic that he saved another replicant, but for all we know he wouldn't change his decision: his sense of empathy might not care about drawing distinctions between humans and replicants.
Not for nothing the only person he saves is a/are replicant(s, the humans he interacts with don't make it (maybe Sebastien is allowed to live. But I'm not going to read into that.
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u/deadwizards May 02 '26
Everyone in the replicant camp always adds in quotes and in universe shadow conspiracies to reconcile all the evidence against a replicant Deckard. It’s a really strange phenomenon. A lot of people can’t just say “oh I guess I interpreted it wrong” and instead make up stuff that didn’t happen.
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u/joseph4th May 01 '26
I think it also really serves the story to show a human who’s so rundown on life compared to these replicants that are striving so hard for just a little more of it.
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u/My_friends_are_toys May 01 '26
I don't believe that. The film has always pushed that Replicants were "more human, than human".
It was pointed out that when Deckard lets go of the beam he spits at Batty and Batty saves him, not because Batty treasured all life, but because he admired Deckard's fighting spirit.
Deckard being a replicant doesn't change that at all. Neither does it change it if you chose to believe Batty saved him because all life is precious to him.
But think about that for a second. You say "Batty is running out of life but life is so precious, and he recognises it as so precious" that he saves Deckard. That doesn't change, but actually enhances it if Deckard is a replicant. We assume Batty knows he's human, but does he really know? Batty saved Deckard. He did it regardless of if he as human or replicant, because life is precious. Something the replicants have been fighting for.
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u/tasteMyRottenHoop May 01 '26
The point of leaving it ambiguous is that he could be either and that possibility makes you see replicants as the sentient beings that they are and that using them for disposable slave labour is as abhorrent as doing the same with a human.
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u/OhMyGoshBigfoot May 03 '26
Well said, you explained how I felt about it. Batty’s last-second act of compassion and epic speech about his experiences and fading memories would all be cheapened if he’d been monologuing to a replicant.
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u/Mobile_Falcon_8532 May 03 '26
thank you
and yes! That's the word - cheapened!
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u/OhMyGoshBigfoot May 03 '26
It’s like the ending to *The Thing* (1982) where it’s still debated on Childs or Macready being the Thing. While it’s interesting to wonder, neither is the only answer imo. What lends to the *horror* element is 2 desperate humans willing to freeze to death in the dark together, to ensure neither will ever be.
Deckard was stunned and captivated by Batty’s speech—just like the rest of us. Batty had traveled far and wide, saw and did more than most ordinary people. That he shared it imo is an implication that “though you and I are different, we’re not much different.” War heroes and crazy humans exist; how different from that was Batty, really?
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u/HamSoloTheSpaceMan May 01 '26
It’s why the movie is so powerful all these years later. It would always be relevant regardless how many years have passed. Deckard lives life as a monotone robot and the Replicant actually enjoy their lives but seen as beasts.
The sequel is great where Ridley could get a version of what he wanted but better.
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u/blue-marmot May 02 '26
I think the ambiguity of "it doesn't matter" is what makes it great. Blade Runner is an empathy test. The audience who is being tested to see if they can empathize with replicants.
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u/cow-lumbus May 03 '26
meh...look, he's clearly a different kind of replicate then Batty, Joe and the several other variations over the two movies just like Racheal was something different. It's clearly all part of the mystic since Ridley likes it this way but the cat was out of the bag by 2049. It was just not ad defined in the original.
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u/CrucialElement May 03 '26
I thought Ridley said batty saved him because he spat and was still feisty
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u/SamwisePotatoMan May 04 '26
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u/Mobile_Falcon_8532 May 05 '26
(1) yeah I saw this when it was posted; it also kinda cheapens the thing. Given Ridley also wants him to be a replican...
(2) Ridley made Prometheus, so I wouldn't categorise his judgment as always good
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u/Elrason May 01 '26
I prefer Deckard being a human and not a replicant ...film works better for me...
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u/ArthurDigbySellersJr May 01 '26
Agree with this 100%. It makes the ending where Batty saves Deckard so much more profound.
Deckard is a human with free will, but doing what he is told without question. Batty is supposedly a killing machine but decides to save him. It's a total role reversal at the end and Batty proves he is a real person with that final act. 'more human than human'. Sublime.
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u/Mobile_Falcon_8532 May 01 '26
100%.
He knew that it was pointless adding to the deaths - they'd found out from Tyrell that there was no way to "fix" the limited lifespan, all his friends were gone, he was himself doomed - why add another death to it, when life is so precious? He rose above anger and vengeance (he could easily have decided "a life for a life", Deckard literally shot dead two of his friends, and the third while technically shot by Rachael you could say Deckard was responsible for it too), and saved Deckard. And then sat back and died. If anything, Roy Batty was the true hero of the movie
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u/CosmicBonobo May 01 '26
It's simplistic, but my take has always been what does it tell Deckard when a walking toaster shows more compassion and humanity than he does.
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u/zparks May 01 '26 edited May 01 '26
Deckard’s humanity is central.
Batty does more than save Deckard. Batty demonstrates self recognition in spite of and in front of Deckard.
In so doing, he provides Deckard the opportunity to recognize himself in Batty. Batty creates space in which Deckard recognizes and is recognized.
Which in turn, makes Deckard’s recognition of Rachael (his ultimate embrace of his own love for her) all the more radical.
Replicants aren’t more human than human. Replicants aren’t simulations of human that ought to have justice. Replicants and humans are coequally situated.
A replicant with memories and an unknowable expiration date, like Rachael, is a human.
Deckard and Rachael are humans in the sense that both are the types of entities that confront all that it means to be human. There is no “other” category. Batty proves that.
There is no replicant / human distinction in the sense that there can be no replicant / human distinction that would be ethically meaningful or ontologically distinguishable. The category of a philosophical zombie is morally and politically problematic. Voight Kampff is a shyte Dasein detector.
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u/MikeDPhilly May 01 '26
Yes, I like that. Deckart and Batty are inverse mirror images of each other; like how a King of Hearts has a copy upside down under him. Batty is the non-human who ends up being more compassionate and understanding than the human sent to kill him.
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u/AdministrativeEase71 May 01 '26
And somehow Ridley Scott just... missed this idea lol. At least, I've never seen him address the fact that making Deckard a replicant ruins the ending thematically.
50 more alternative cuts though, that'll fix it.
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u/dogscatsnscience May 01 '26
But how does Deckard being a replicant change that?
Batty think he's human, and that's what he bases his choices on. It doesn't change anything about the significance of his choice, for his own journey.
It adds a second layer of dramatic irony for the audience, but that doesn't chance Batty's choice.
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u/Probablyhalfpast11 May 01 '26
Me too - and I think Deckard was meant to be human in the book as well.
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u/Klutzy_Order_9559 May 01 '26
The character also makes no sense as a replicant. Ridley Scott just pulled it out of his drunk ass in an interview and won't back down. I love Ridley Scott by the way but the replicant shit irritates me.
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u/tannu28 May 01 '26
First clip is from 2003 Ridley Scott AFI documentary.
Second clip is from 2007 Blade Runner The Final Cut special features.
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u/schizopolis23 May 01 '26 edited May 01 '26
I think Villeneuve lowkey confirmed that Deckard was human. Wallace could’ve tortured and dissected Deckard immediately after they captured him, if he was a replicant. They could do whatever they want with his body on earth. But since he was human with rights, they had to ship him off world to torture and interrogate him.
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u/Klutzy_Order_9559 May 01 '26
Do replicants even age?
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u/purple-discharge May 01 '26
The culmination of the story is Batty having more appreciation for human life than actual humans.
More human than human.
To have Deckard be a replicant is just an ugly notion to throw out there.
Pretty much everyone involved in the movie agrees that he’s human. Except Scott. Who has always been 50% genius and 50% A-hole.
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u/MrWendal May 02 '26
I'd argue the culmination of the story happens not to the characters of the film but to the audience.
If he is a replicant, it forces the audience to ask themselves if they can identify with a replicant. If they can, they see replicants as as human as us - they recognise the humanity in the "other" - which is the entire point of the film (in my opinion).
If he's human, Deckard himself has had an epiphany with Rachel, but the audience remains unconfronted and unchallenged.
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u/BobbyBobRoberts May 01 '26
What's funny is that Ford's desire for someone the audience can identify with and feel an affinity for still works with Ridley's twist. The whole point is that you don't know. You do empathize with him, you do feel for his character as a person, because the story's whole point is that the replicants are people.
What's more, the ambiguity means it works both ways. And even when Roy Batty saves him at the end, there's no reason to think that Roy knows one way or the other whether Deckard is human or replicant. Again, the not knowing is what gives it the emotional weight.
The smartest thing the 2049 sequel does is leave this question unanswered.
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May 01 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Emergency_Tour_7997 May 02 '26
How would it remove all poignancy? There’s no evidence that Batty was aware that Deckard was a replicant. Whether or not Deckard is a replicant has no bearing on Batty’s actions because there’s no suggestion that Batty thought that Deckard was anything but organic. As far as we know, Batty saved Deckard assuming that he was human even if Scott intended for him to be a replicant. In fact, if Deckard was a replicant and Batty knew about it, Batty would have certainly made some statement about it during their final confrontation.
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u/blue-marmot May 02 '26
I think the ambiguity of "it doesn't matter" is what makes it great. Blade Runner is an empathy test. The audience who is being tested to see if they can empathize with replicants.
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u/701921225 May 01 '26
I agree with him. I've never liked or bought into the idea that Deckard is a replicant, regardless of how many times Ridley Scott says it. For me, Deckard is human, end of story.
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u/wills_b May 01 '26
I don’t buy into either story, I personally love the ambiguity. For me the fact that he might be is what makes the movie, not that he is or isn’t.
So what pisses me off most is anyone, most of all Ridley Scott, saying “yeah he’s definitely blah blah blah”
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u/Deep_Space52 May 01 '26
One of the best things about Blade Runner 2049 was that Villeneuve left the Deckard replicant question completely ambiguous where it belongs.
Personally I've always come down on the same perspective as Ford.
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u/_Shorty May 12 '26
But he didn't. Wallace talks very directly about how he hasn't been able to get replicant reproduction to work, but Tyrell did. He's talking about replicants reproducing with each other. That way he won't have to waste time producing every one of them the way he has been. Instead, he can just have them reproduce with each other. Something he says Tyrell already cracked. He's talking about Deckard and Rachael, two replicants, having successfully produced offspring.
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u/Mippippippi3rd May 01 '26
Answering whether Deckard is a replicant or not is dumb.
It is the question itself that is interesting.
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u/Difficultsleeper May 02 '26
He saved both Star wars and Blade runner from dumb decisions by their directors. He's an absolute legend for it.
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u/Empyrealist More human than human May 01 '26
Or, how everyone involved in the production knows that the script was written for Deckard to be human - regardless of how Ridley Scott has been trying to change that over the years.
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u/Equivalent-Hair-961 May 01 '26
It’s funny because 2049 gives us a replicant main character who is a third class citizen, murdering his own kind.
There’s no need for Deckard to be a replicant anymore since 2049 came out. Sometimes I wish Ridley Scott would just stop talking about his past films and revising them to his whim.
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u/TheGreatRao May 01 '26
Harrison Ford is 100% right. If Deckard is a replicant, then we've spent two hours watching a bunch of robots fighting each other. Who cares? If Deckard is not human, then we have no connection with his character; it's like seeing a demolition derby. We may want one car to win but in the end, they're just cars. The final scene between Harrison and Rutger loses all sense of danger, risk, and tragedy. It's two cellphones where one runs out of battery before the other.
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u/Nottodayreddit1949 May 01 '26
I mean, if you think that replicants are lesser. Sure that's what you can take away from it.
But no one thinks the same about Ryan Gosling.
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u/VanityOfEliCLee May 01 '26
Exactly. This idea that the story means nothing if Deckard is a replicant is so shallow and stupid.
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u/lala__ May 02 '26
Right. The point Ripley’s telling provides is that life is precious—not just human life. It’s saying, “see you can’t tell the difference between human and android either.” The line is arbitrary. We’re hunting each other for no reason. In a way it’s an allegory about racial relations in our current age.
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u/MrWendal May 02 '26
The fact that you don't care and can't connect with a replicant shows you missed the entire point of the film.
The point isn't that Deckard finally sees the humanity of artificial life. The one who is supposed to recognise the humanity in the "other" .. it's you. It's us, the audience.
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u/TheGreatRao May 02 '26
I guess Harrison and I are wrong in our opinions. I never said what you allege, I said that I personally don't like the fact that Decker is a replicant because it invalidates the humanity of Batty's mercy contrasted with the relentless nihilism of Deckard. If Rutger and Harrison are both replicants, then their final battle loses a lot of its impact. Your opinion is different than mine, and that's your prerogative, but if an iphone and an android phone fought each other on a rooftop, and the android survives to fall in love with a Huawei, I'm not so emotionally invested. Whereas if a human falls in love with a replicant, we get to see that love and humanity is not defined by DNA or biology.
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u/MrWendal May 02 '26
I never said what you allege
You said:
Who cares? If Deckard is not human, then we have no connection with his character
I said:
The fact that you don't care and can't connect with a replicant shows you missed the entire point of the film.
I mean, you explicitly stated what I was responding to.
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u/Alone-Ad6020 May 01 '26
It doesn't make sense hes a replicant
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u/mackerelscalemask May 02 '26
What else is the placing of the origami unicorn meant to mean, then?
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u/NoSplit4185 May 01 '26
That, that and that for all eternity. That’s the essence of it, giving the film meaning and significance. Everything else doesn’t make sense.
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u/galentravis May 01 '26
The questions are what make Blade Runner so special, not the answers.
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u/DeviousMrBlonde May 01 '26
This is it exactly as I’ve always taken it. We don’t know. It’s not answered. I like the ambiguity.
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u/galentravis May 01 '26
I enjoy aspects of the narrative from both perspectives. The fact that we are still talking about it 40+ years later is a testament to that ambiguity.
Full disclosure, I am also a fan of the voiceover.
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u/BodheeNYC May 01 '26
There is a fantastic book called Future Noir that gets into this and other issues between Ridley Scott and Harrison Ford. Ridley Scott wasn’t well liked because he kept the set on edge with countless shoots and they were constantly drenched from the rain. They even hint that HF purposely botched the narration because he hates the idea (you can hear it in his voice during the movie).
Ford also hated Sean Young and during the controversial scene when he forces himself upon her by throwing her into the wall she was actually crying from the pain because he threw her so hard.
Whatever the issues they ended up making one of the greatest movies of all time.
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u/wills_b May 01 '26
Ignore anything else, and watch the clip at 1:12. Watch how much uncertainty and emotion Harrison Ford expresses without words. Then watch it again but imagine that it’s Indiana Jones or Han Solo - it’s nearly impossible to see either of those characters in that performance.
God damn Harrison Ford is brilliant - in general and here.
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u/nomwounom May 01 '26
I’m sure others have said this here (and yes, I know that films are often different from the books/stories they are based on, but…) but in “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep”, Deckard is NOT a replicant, while a different police officer IS. An important part of PKD playing with a the perception and reality of both the characters in his world and the reader. Harrison’s reasoning is supported by the original text.
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u/MrWendal May 02 '26
The original text Deckard is a man emasculated by his wife who dreams of a pet sheep ownership to improve his societal standing at dinner parties. Does that sound like film Deckard to you?
Also in the book the replicants represent the inhuman morality of the SS soldiers of WW2 while in the film they are oozing humanity.
You can't compare the two, they are completely different stories.
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u/nomwounom May 02 '26
Dinner parties in the original? You might need a re-read. The humans in the original mostly serve to be inhumane, and until the spider’s legs being cutoff, the reader is led to feel the andys are the persecuted ones. Classic PKD mindfucking. Good luck with your dreams of emasculation.
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u/KonamiKing May 02 '26 edited Aug 31 '26
Shelter growth bright glove merciful spotted
This post was anonymized with Redact
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u/THRDStooge May 01 '26
I kind of prefer Scott's interpretation. Deckard being a replicant raises a lot more questions then had he been human. Did Holden's accident spark a partnership between the Police department and Tyrell? Was this field testing of this new model and both Bryant and Gaff were well aware? Was Gaff assigned to observe Deckard and held a bit of resentment knowing he'll be replaced?
To me, it made sense to have replicant hunt replicant rather then endanger (human) Bladerunners, officers and the public. Not to mention Ford's misunderstanding of replicant by assuming they're beep bop boop robots who have a mere "representation" of human feelings.
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u/rofloctopuss May 02 '26
I really like this interpretation. Gaff was there to make sure Deckard didn't go rogue, and got the job done.
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u/LegitMeatPuppet May 02 '26
I prefer that that Deckard is a replicant but that you simply can no longer see the line between replicants vs humans. I think this is more powerful.
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u/Charlooos May 02 '26
Empathasing with a person that ends up being a replicant shows the themes of the movie way better in my opinion.
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u/VanityOfEliCLee May 01 '26
I think Ridley's whole point in making Deckard a replicant was missed by Ford.
Ridley wanted Deckard to be relatable, understood and liked by the audience, so that when he was eventually revealed as a replicant it would for the audience to reconcile the fact that they were relating to something inhuman. The point is the questions it makes you ask later. Having a human on screen specifically so people can relate to him and care, is contradictory to the entire theme of the film as a whole, the question of whether being human is determined by birth, and the idea that we should be able to empathize with and care for something regardless of it being born human.
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u/MrWendal May 02 '26
100%, unfortunately it requires people to overcome their inbuilt biases... Which was the point of the film but also quite difficult for much of the audience, sadly even 40 years later.
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u/lairdsville May 01 '26
Well, he still thinks he is a human, but we all know he is a replicant, so Ford is still in character 😄
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u/TanukiCookie May 01 '26 edited May 02 '26
I think Ford is very clear in that he wants the audience to think of Deckard as a human and be the audience analog into the world.
But I think what's getting lost here is that you see Deckard shift slightly throughout the film. When confronted with the end of life, he seems to really cling to life and living and find an emotional throughline to his own humanity. Up until then he kind of feels very robotic to me, no pun intended.
I don't think it pulls away from the film at all for Deckard to also be a Replicant, and in fact I feel it makes the film more poetic that the audience could identify with someone who turned out to be a Replicant, because the audience would recognize the inherent humanity in the character that way, whether they are human or Replicant.
Edit: After rewatching the film tonight for the first time in a minute, it works really well either way of Deckard is a human or a Replicant, but now my personal view is that he is human, and learning to appreciate life more as a human by having artificial humans show him what it means to be human. Rutger Hauer at the end is absolutely legendary.
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u/captain5260 May 01 '26
I agree, bestie. I think the audience still feels an affinity for Deckard even if he is a replicant.
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u/RealAramis May 01 '26
He is not a replicant. This whole unending debate is like watching The Walking Dead and discussing if the core cast are actually zombies. No, but they discover they have some things in common with zombies, they doubt themselves. The source material makes it very clear Deckard is human. That is the only way there can be the powerful effect of seeing the similarities between him and the replicants. The debate about what it is to be human (or not).
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u/MrWendal May 02 '26
Um, the director of the source material is Ridley Scott. And he was pretty clear about it even during production. Read Future Noir.
Unless you're talking about the book as the source material, but they are so different it doesn't apply. Film Deckard doesn't dream of electric sheep and is not emasculated by his overbearing wife, for example.
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u/Nottodayreddit1949 May 01 '26
You've done a man's job.
I feel nothing is lost with Deckard as a replicant. They aren't lesser than humans. If we can connect with Roy, we can connect with Deckard.
Humanity is simply offloading the hunting of replicants, to more replicants. We are just as horrible as if we were sending humans to do the same thing, perhaps worse.
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u/g_salazar Within cells interlinked May 01 '26
Hang on a second. What scene is this that clip from?
I’m referring to that footage that’s sandwiched between the two interviews.
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u/smartbart80 May 02 '26
Leave story telling to the writers, you actor :)
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u/deadwizards May 02 '26
You’re really going to hate learning that the writers made him human. Phillip K dick in the original book and the writers for the first movie. Ridley wanted to him a replicant but they said no and wrote it as he is human. They had limited Ridley’s creative input after the replicant suggestion. This is why Ridley later released Final Cut because he felt besmirched.
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u/wildvision May 02 '26
The first movie absolutely posits that he's a replicant. The unicorn origami placed before him - a sign that they know what he is dreaming, because they places the unicorn dream in his memory. You don't put two unicorns in a movie for no reason
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u/Latter_Age_2586 May 02 '26
I've always thought about the post-Rachel VK discussion with Tyrell where Deckard has a very strong realization about memories. Next scene is discovering Leon's pictures (memory reinforcement - even tho Leon knows it is fake). Deckard then proceeds to tear down Rachel's fake mother memories. Later Deckard takes a long look at HIS old photos...
Maybe he is or isn't, but he sure is wondering about the authenticity of his own memories. I think it all points to him being a replicant.
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u/Bobby_Globule May 03 '26
Our empathy can truly grow if we can empathize with any suffering being. That would push our evolution farther than anything.
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u/caseygwenstacy May 03 '26
Harrison Ford has always been one of those people I would want to meet because I know he is passionate and involved in his work. It’s not a paycheck, he has deep thoughts about it all, even in his later years today. I found that when he became friends with John Boyega on set of the Star Wars sequels, he showed how he can be an amazing person to be around if you give him the emotional space to connect. I think he’s not much of a fan of stardom, but a fan of people and passion.
I think he’s right about Deckard because I came to that conclusion separately. I felt that Deckard being the human we follow to teach us the difference between replicants and people makes the movie better. I also think it makes 2049 better by showing that stark contrast.
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u/AlternativeDouble459 May 03 '26
Deckard revealed as a replicant was a Sixth Sense-level twist ending, unsure why it was so wrong to him that the audence gets the rug pulled out?
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u/Competitive_Maybe306 May 03 '26
Harrison Ford gets it. Deckard wasn’t written in the novel to be a replicant, and the tension between the ability to distinguish between the two was the focus. Who cares who the winners are if they’re all just robots? Nobody.
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u/GeronimoBondi May 04 '26
the whole point is that him being a replicant shows both humans and replicants are the same on some fundamental level
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u/Lost-Birthday-1478 May 04 '26
Deckard being a replicant or not is the whole point of the film. You're supposed to engage in the debate.
I think even if Ridley Scott 100% confirmed Deckard as a replicant, Harrison Ford's perspective on him being not, only adds to the weight of his performance.
After all, Deckard is supposed to deny he is a replicant... that's how good of a job they did when manufacturing him.
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u/greemmako May 04 '26
if deckard is a replicant how is he legal on earth and who else would know about it? in the replicant scenario is he another experiment only a few people know about?
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u/Sparts171 May 05 '26
Isn’t that the point of the entire story though? That Replicants are so advanced that they have become indistinguishable from humans, and that Deckard is just a Replicant plant being used by the police department to hunt other Replicants just like Roy is being used by Tyrell Corp? Isn’t he activated with the Bladerunners’ memories implanted in him because other human cops have gone after Roy and are now “on ice”? I think Ford completely missed the point. You ARE supposed to connect with Deckard as if he IS the human connection in a world of Replicant madness, and then you’re supposed to question that by the end, making you consider what DOES it mean to be human? Is Roy…human? Is Tyrell, human?
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u/Cruzer-1 May 06 '26
It didn't matter to Scott if Ford wanted his character to be human. After all, Deckard doesn't know that he is one.
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u/Jedzelex May 10 '26
Asked to explain why Ridley Scott thinks Deckard is a replicant and he disagrees, Ford replied “I always knew I was a replicant, but I just wanted to push back against it.”
Yeah, Ford knowing that Deckard was a Replicant is known. But he also replied to that question with: "It doesn't matter what I think."
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u/Hyphen99 Jun 30 '26
I agree with Ford, Hampton Fancher and even Philip K. Dick regarding Deckard being human. While I have great respect for Ridley Scott’s directing talent, films (unlike novels) are highly collaborative efforts. Scott was not the only person telling the story of “Blade Runner.”
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u/Embarrassed_Bid779 Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
Every discussion about Harrison Ford's work on Blade Runner was generally negative. From the 80s forward, Ford expressed his disappointment with the overall filming experience from set conditions, tedious reshoots, and final outcome. Blade Runner soon became a SciFi cult classic, but Ridley Scott has screwed with the original theatrical release with so many "director's cut" editions that he has ruined the film. Scott's response to the critics is, "It's my movie. I'll re-release as many new cuts as I please." The truly legendary performances from the movie were from Rutger Hauer and Darryl Hannah. Hauer stole every scene. The depth and complexity of Roy Batty was the best work of Hauer's career. The original movie soundtrack written, composed, conducted, and performed by Vangelis wasn't released until 12 years after the movie. Apparently, there were conflicts between Ridley Scott and Vangelis that halted the release of the music. The original theatrical release with Ford's narration is still the best cut....🎬✌️👍
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u/Accomplished-Bus1555 Aug 04 '26
Tough shit, you're not the creative head of the project son. And that fella was pretty clear on the issue. Why you picking up that unicorn then acknowledging it during a voiceover bish? What was your motivation bish? Talk about that day of filming bish
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u/Lisapu Sep 04 '26
This is such a vexing point for me. Harrison Ford insisting Deckard isn't a replicant is unfortunate. His actor's ego seems to be preventing him from fully appreciating Ridley Scott's philosophical throughline within the film: We might need to think twice about who or what is identified as human, as an equal being.
Scott brings this question to the heart of the viewer: Throughout the film, have we learned to identify with Deckard so deeply that if/when we discover he is actually a replicant, our feelings towards him can remain unchanged? Or were we just kidding ourselves when we felt for the persecuted replicants in the course of the story, or when we grieved for Roy in his tragic final scene? After all that, will we still compulsively otherize Deckard if at the end we learn he was also a replicant?
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u/simiomalo May 01 '26
It's like Ford is still in character. "Look, there's no strings on me. I'm a real boy!"
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u/Constant-Pianist6747 May 01 '26
I like either answer. I’m curious, though, if Ridley still sees the character as a replicant, when does he think Deckard was manufactured?
Like — when we first meet Deckard, was that possibly the day he walked out of the lab? And his prior history as a Blade Runner are implanted memories? Or has he been around for years, decades, somehow more advanced than the others… 🤔
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u/Djinn-Rummy May 01 '26
For a replicant that hunts replicants, he sure got his ass kicked by Roy Batty. In BR2, Ryan Gosling kicked the shit out of Dave Bautista, which shows a replicant hunter model can take a combat model, & then some. It makes more sense that Deckard was human.
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u/Salty_Information882 May 01 '26
Eh, tbh Scott’s adaptation isn’t half as good as the source material. Deckard is human. Read the book
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u/JWarblerMadman May 01 '26
I think Ridley had a point. If we identify with Deckard as Harrison wants us to and we later suss out that Deckard might be a replicant and the audience realizes they have been sympathizing with a replicant this entire time, well that's the whole point of the movie.
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u/NoSplit4185 May 01 '26
You don’t need Deckard to be a replicant to recognize how deeply flawed the master–servant ideology really is.
Plenty of exempels around. You don’t even need to look very far.2
u/tasteMyRottenHoop May 01 '26
There are a lot of real people in the world today who either don’t or point blank refuse to recognise the inherent negativity of such a thing.
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u/Demerzel69 May 01 '26
He admitted a few years ago that Ridley was right the whole time.
Also I disagree that Deckard needs to be a human to be relatable. That's like a huge point of the movie. The replicants are relatable.
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u/drhuggables May 01 '26
I always find it interesting how much more passionate Ford is when discussing his role as Deckard (or Indiana Jones) than he is discussing his role as Han Solo lol.