by HerBrain-i8;
"Another is a big BR fan, Frank Darabont ... He says that ... the unicorn memory/dream is Rachel's not Deckard's. Deckard knew all of Rachel's memories so he would have known about that one too. In the scene at the piano, Deckard is thinking about Rachel's Unicorn memory."
Interesting idea. And Darabont has the right to his interpretation of course.
- But that view of the unicorn dream doesn't work for me.
Right before Deckard has the unicorn dream he bluntly tells her that her memories are implants.
Rachael: I don't know why he told you what he did.
Deckard: Talk to him...
Rachael: You think I'm a replicant, don't you?
Deckard: Hah.
Rachael: Look, it's me with my mother.
Deckard: Yeah. -- Remember when you were six? You and your brother snuck into an empty building... You ever tell anybody that? Your mother, Tyrell, anybody huh? You remember the spider that lived in a bush outside your window? Orange body, green legs. Watched her build a web all summer. Then one day there was a big egg in it. The egg hatched--
Rachael: The egg hatched...
Deckard: And?
Rachael: And a hundred baby spiders came out. And they ate her.
Deckard: Implants! Those aren't your memories. They're somebody else's. They're Tyrell's niece's -- Okay, bad joke. I made a bad joke. You're not a replicant. Go home, okay? No really, I'm sorry. Go home -- Want a drink? I'll get you a drink. I'll get a glass.
This is a heartbreaking moment for Rachel and at this point Deckard doesn't care much.
- There is no evidence in this scene that Deckard has a passion about Rache where he is obsessed with her so much that he dreams about her.
- As for the idea that Deckard was simply fascinated by Rachel's implant memories that he dreamt about them, why doesn't Deckard dream about spiders?
That's what Rachel dreamt about when Deckard brought up her memories.
- Answer; the unicorn was not Rachel's dream.
It is Deckard's dream.
- Another thing; the unicorn dream was Ridley Scott's idea. The writers or producers didn't understand it.
And it is known that for Ridley, the unicorn is evidence that Deckard is a replicant.
* But I want to say something very Important for all the folks on this Board, I'm not trying to say that it's wrong for people (including Darabont or Harrison Ford) to believe that Deckard was a naturally born human. That's fine.
I just don't think that the unicorn dream is the slam dunk proof that Deckard was not a replicant which Darabont seems to claim.
"Darabont also said that If Deck is a Rep the whole structure and point of the film falls apart."
I guess it does for him and that's why he goes through all the mental gymnastics of trying to state that the unicorn dream is not unique and personal to Deckard.
- But for me the point of the film remains. Deckard does not know he is a replicant. So, all the themes remain with Deckard as a naturally born human saving a genetically engineered clone (Rachel).
Deckard believes he is that naturally born human savior of a replicant.
- Ridley has just added another level of meaning to the film at the end.
"BTW.... When I saw Blade Runner for the first time at the theater in the 80's; Even without the added Unicorn scene, I felt Deck was a Rep."
Interesting. For me I thought that Deckard was a naturally born human in the theatrical cut and with the director's cut all the way to the end of the 90s when I read the book "Future Noir". That's what converted me to the Deckard = a replicant idea.
Imo at least, BB ;-)
it is just in my opinion - imo - ๐
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laplante-co-672-297856
8 years ago
I could be wrong -- I haven't seen this interview by Darabont -- but I don't think he's (via HerBrain-i8) suggesting that Deckard is so caught up with Rachel that HE dreams about the unicorn. My interpretation is that the unicorn scenes are Rachel's actual dreams.
Deckard just happens to know about it from reading her file.
(And Gaff would too, based on my pet theory that he also had access to Rachel's file and, hence, leaves his origami for Deckard as a way to say "I know WHAT she is. Take her and go.")
If I can draw an analogy to The Matrix... The Matrix is about a guy who finds that his belief in a certain reality isn't real. As the audience, he is our stand-in -- our representative -- for the movie. What if, at the end of the movie, we discovered that he wasn't real but was, in fact, just another bit of computer code a la Agent Smith? His experiences, his revelations, would then amount to nothing as far as we are concerned. He's just a bit of code interacting with another bit of code with nothing to say about the human experience and how we define our reality.
Similarly, if Deckard is just a Replicant, he has learned nothing that we, as the audience, can relate to. His belief that Replicants have feelings can be just written off as the wishful musings of an android/robot/artificial lifeform (whatever term you want to use) as a result of sophisticated programming.
That's the purpose and power of Batty's final scene... convincing a HUMAN that, "I am not a machine. I am just like YOU with all the emotions, dreams, hopes and fears that you have." Like Deckard, we come to realize that everything we thought we knew about Replicants was wrong
But if Deckard turns out to be just a machine like Batty, then why would we -- as REAL humans -- care about his eventual fate?
Hope that makes sense...
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BB-15
8 years ago
by laplante-co-672-297856;
"I could be wrong -- I haven't seen this interview by Darabont -- but I don't think he's (via HerBrain-i8) suggesting that Deckard is so caught up with Rachel that HE dreams about the unicorn. My interpretation is that the unicorn scenes are Rachel's actual dreams.
Deckard just happens to know about it from reading her file."
I also haven't seen the Darabont interview.
But if you are correct about what he said, that makes his interpretation even more strange.
- In the many dreams dramatized in movies that I have seen, there is a common sequence; static shot of the face of someone in the place shown previously in the film - dream sequence - back to the face of the same person in the location where the character acts while awake.
- The dream sequence in the "Blade Runner' DC / FC has this pattern.
Deckard in his apartment is at the piano, he is not moving his face - then the unicorn dream - then back to Deckard in the apartment.
That sequence imo always indicates that the person in the closeup prior / after the dream, had the dream.
On top of this, for years Ridley Scott has said that Deckard had that unicorn dream.
"Similarly, if Deckard is just a Replicant,"
Here imo is missing information.
A replicant is a human being. it is just that the sperm and egg are combined in a lab and that some organs are produced separately and are implanted in the replicant's body.
- In our world a baby can be produced by combining the sperm and egg in a lab. Then a baby grows in a woman. But some newborn babies need transplants. It could be for a heart or a kidney.
- In our non fiction world, is a test tube baby (who had transplants at birth) who grows up and can't have children; is this person considered subhuman? No.
- In non fiction a person conceived in a test tube with transplants at birth (who can't have children) has all the rights of any naturally born human in our world.
* What Ridley and the writers would like the viewer to understand is that Rachel, Roy, Pris and Leon are people.
They are human beings who were conceived in artificial ways (with some genetic engineering) but they are still human.
"he has learned nothing that we, as the audience, can relate to."
What a viewer can relate to comes down to personal taste.
Still, Deckard believes he is a naturally born human being in the film until the end.
I therefore can relate to what he experiences.
Him learning at the end that he is a replicant makes no difference to me.
- Everything in the movie up to the final scene would have been the same if Deckard was not a replicant.
The theatrical cut doesn't have the unicorn dream and he acts the same way. It makes no difference imo.
"His belief that Replicants have feelings can be just written off as the wishful musings of an android/robot/artificial lifeform (whatever term you want to use) as a result of sophisticated programming."
Sorry can't agree. The feelings of replicants, as stated by Bryant and Tyrell, cannot be controlled because replicant feelings happen naturally. That is why there is a 4 year life span for the Nexus 6, to limit the growth of replicant feelings.
- If all replicant feelings happened due to programming, than there would by no concern by Tyrell and the 4 year lifespan.
Roy, Pris, Zhora and Leon have the desire to be free. Tyrell does not want that. He died because a replicant felt that.
- Also, Roy tells Sebastian that he and Pris are not computers.
- "Blade Runner" is telling the viewer multiple times that the feelings of the replicants are not due to the programming of the creators.
Which of course imo makes sense because the replicants are human beings that were created in a lab.
And human beings naturally have feelings.
"That's the purpose and power of Batty's final scene... convincing a HUMAN that, "I am not a machine."
By this time I knew that Batty was not a machine. It was obvious by the end that replicants were human beings.
And by this time Deckard knew that replicants were not machines.
Remember prior to this, Deckard had already fallen in love with a replicant, Rachel. She was hiding in his apartment.
- The message that replicants are not machines has been made clear to the viewer long before the end imo.
* The power of Batty's speech is that he should not be a slave.
His message is that he has seen amazing things but because of the slave system in the world of "Blade Runner", no one will hear his stories.
The slave society loses the social contribution from the slaves.
Roy's message therefore is that he and his people should be free.
- And I agree with that message.
Imo at least, BB ;-)
it is just in my opinion - imo - ๐
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edisonnosidE
8 years ago
A replicant is a human being. it is just that the sperm and egg are combined in a lab and that some organs are produced separately and are implanted in the replicant's body.
- In our world a baby can be produced by combining the sperm and egg in a lab. Then a baby grows in a woman. But some newborn babies need transplants. It could be for a heart or a kidney.
- In our non fiction world, is a test tube baby (who had transplants at birth) who grows up and can't have children; is this person considered subhuman? No.
- In non fiction a person conceived in a test tube with transplants at birth (who can't have children) has all the rights of any naturally born human in our world.
Exactly the point I've been trying to make. Glad someone else finally gets it. ๐
Impossible is illogical.
Lack of evidence is not proof.
๎ + ๎ = ๎
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BB-15
8 years ago
๎
BB ;-)
it is just in my opinion - imo - ๐
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laplante-co-672-297856
8 years ago
Here imo is missing information.
A replicant is a human being. it is just that the sperm and egg are combined in a lab and that some organs are produced separately and are implanted in the replicant's body.
I get what you're saying here. I think Scott muddied the waters with this approach though.
The question that the novel and the movie are supposed to ask is: "What does it mean to be human?" In other words, is humanity defined by our 'soul' or by our biology?
If the Replicants are biologically the sames as humans, then you're left with a movie that never addresses the question. To make the movie 'work' as Scott and Dick meant, you have to assume that -- that however they are made -- Replicants are alien enough that they aren't considered human in a biological sense. (I hope that makes sense to read...)
Scott would have been better to make the Replicants straight-up androids a la Data of Star Trek... That series constantly challenged viewers to consider whether Data could be 'human' in some sense. He was a distinctly different life-form (positronic something or other IIRC), but he exhibited human traits. So the question became a sort of 'nature vs nurture' argument.
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criztu
8 years ago
My interpretation is that the unicorn scenes are Rachel's actual dreams.
The unicorn dream is
The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz
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