Blade Runner Explained

With the sequel 2049 finally here, let's take a look at the origins, characters, setting and more of the original noir sci-fi film.

By Arnold T. Blumberg

With early buzz suggesting that Denis Villeneuve’s follow-up to the legendary 1982 sci-fi noir Blade Runner is itself set to become a well-regarded classic of the genre, it’s a good time to remind everyone just why the original carries so much weight in the world of speculative storytelling. The sequel, Blade Runner 2049, builds on an established foundation with the first film, expanding a detailed dystopian world of the future in which humans and Replicants try to make their way through a rain-swept urban environment filled with dangers and delights.

Let’s take a look at where it all began… (Spoilers obviously follow for the original film.)

It starts with Philip K. Dick, a science fiction author whose deeply philosophical ruminations on identity and human nature have made his work a wellspring of inspiration for countless media adaptations and homages. Blade Runner is a loose adaptation of his 1968 novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, with a screenplay by Hampton Fancher (returning for the sequel alongside co-writer Michael Green) and David Peoples. The title of the story has itself passed into our pop culture lexicon; if you ask Siri, she’ll tell you that she does dream of electric sheep, but only sometimes.

Multiple Versions

The film, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford at a time in his career when he was burning himself into the collective brains of all of us growing up in the 1970s and ’80s via characters like Han Solo and Indiana Jones, has since been released in no fewer than seven different versions! Fans have argued for decades about which is the definitive version, with some absolutely championing Ford’s legendarily lazy reading of the voiceover narration he disliked that distinguishes the original theatrical cut in particular, while others appreciate Scott’s later alterations on The Final Cut for the 25th anniversary.

It’s the Los Angeles of the future – that far-flung year of 2019 (2049 in the sequel, obviously) – and the rain pours down on teeming throngs threading their way through the wet streets as we hear the stunning strains of the Vangelis musical score. Who are those people? Well…

Characters

The titular Blade Runner is Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), jaded detective and Replicant retirer. He’s a bounty hunter for Replicants, hunting down fugitive faux humans and executing (or “retiring”) them at the behest of the police department. But Deckard wants something more out of life, which may be romance with a Replicant known as…

Rachael (Sean Young), a unique creation that may or may not have an expiration date like all the other Replicants. She’s seeking something too – a life with meaning and memory, and perhaps joy with a lover like Deckard, but that was never part of the plan for her creator…

Dr. Eldon Tyrell (Joe Turkel), head of a corporation built on Replicant manufacturing. He’s the genius that made the Replicants possible, but he has a bit of a God complex that might come back to bite him when one of his favorite “sons” finds his way home, a platinum blond Replicant with a chip on his shoulder called…

Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer), one of a handful of Replicants that have escaped into LA determined to find answers about their limited existence and perhaps a way to live longer. Their quest will put Batty and his cohorts on a collision course with that aforementioned Deckard, or “cold fish” as his ex-wife called him.

Besides these folks, the movie also featured J.F. Sebastian (William Sanderson), a young man with a progressive disease that aged him beyond his years, Batty’s Replicant pals Pris (Daryl Hannah), Leon (Brion James), and Zhora (Joanna Cassidy), police Captain Bryant (M. Emmet Walsh), Replicant eye maker Hannibal Chew (prolific character actor James Hong), and to the possible delight of 21st century Battlestar Galactica fans, a much younger Adama, Edward James Olmos, as the enigmatic Gaff.

Technology

In future LA (designed by Scott and Syd Mead with nods to the silent classic Metropolis), folks travel to and fro in flying “Spinner” cars, passing enormous animated billboards that hawk brand-name products while motorized advertising drones blare announcements about the off-world colonies. Clearly, Mankind has made it off the Earth, and not a moment too soon since the climate seems decidedly broken. That progress was clearly aided by what may be this world’s biggest technological advancement – the creation of actual artificial humanoids, dubbed “Replicants.” These creatures are as human as can be in some respects, and treated like slaves and playthings by their creators. But amid all the flashy cars and high-powered pistols and desktop scanning devices and Voight-Kampff machines, this 2019 is definitely lacking in some of the tech we have at our disposal, like cell phones, laptops, and the Internet.

There are a number of themes explored in the film, from the clear environmental impact that industrialization has had on 2019 LA to issues of slavery concerning the use of the Replicants in unsavory jobs, but certainly the most important theme is the same one Dick himself spent most of his work exploring: The nature of human identity. What makes us human? Is there a soul? Are we the sum of our memories, or perhaps even moreso? And can love truly transcend all, even if one or both are but facsimiles of a human form? There are profound discussions to be had from this deceptively simple neo-noir sci-fi thriller, and over 30 years later, we’re still having them. The sequel looks set to extend that discussion for at least another 30 years, with no definitive answers in sight.

The Speech

If there’s one scene in the film that has earned it a place in the annals of cinematic history, it’s the sublime sequence in which a dying Roy Batty (come on, spoilerphobes, it’s been 30 years!) tells Deckard of his experiences as he cradles a dove on a rain-drenched rooftop. His speech sums up some of the film’s themes of mortality and humanity without being preachy, and it’s glorious. One thing is certain: You’ll never look at the Tannhauser Gate the same way again.

Is He Or Isn’t He?

The big question that remains – fueled in part by all those different cuts of the film and some of Ridley Scott’s latter-day commentary, and also inspired by what seemed at first a minor but annoying continuity error in the number of Replicants Deckard was originally assigned to hunt down – is this: Is Deckard himself a Replicant? Could all those pictures in his apartment be his attempt to build a human cocoon of memories around him? Could that fleeting glimpse of red eye reflection be a clue? Could Gaff be tipping off that he knows with the origami unicorn that refers to the one in Deckard’s dream? Or is it all bull? Scott says yes, Ford says “whatever,” and fans debate. As we began to suggest above, the new film seems set not only to keep the answer murky but to call into question the larger issue of identity over all – how do any of us know who or what we are? And in the end…does it even matter?

Now pardon me, I have to go dream of some sheep with a strangely metallic sheen…

Find Arnold T. Blumberg on Twitter at @DoctoroftheDead.

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