YMMV / Blade Runner

For the Blade Runner 2049 YMMV page, see here.

For the Blade Runner video game YMMV page see here

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Blade Runner (1982)

• Accidental Innuendo: A couple from Batty near the end.
  • "I'm gonna give you a few seconds before I come."
  • "You better get it up, or I'm gonna have to kill ya."
  • The fact that Roy ends up stripping down to his underwear makes these undertones even more palpable.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Does Rachael actually fall in love with Deckard or does she become his mistress because she knows it's the only way she can avoid being retired by other Blade Runners?
  • Does Gaff let Rachael go because he has a moment of compassion, because he wants Deckard's job as suggested in the deleted voiceover, or because a Blade Runner having a Replicant mistress is just part of the Dirty Cop nature of the work?
  • Why does Roy Batty save Deckard at the end? Is it empathy, recognizing that Deckard's plight is similar to his own? Or is it a (very understandable) fear of Dying Alone, even if the person about to witness your final moments was your bitter enemy mere minutes ago?
• Applicability: The struggles of replicants have been compared to escaped African slaves, Neurodivergent people and Fallen Angels over the years.
• Award Snub: Yes, it got Academy Award nominations for Visual Effects and Production design. No, Ridley Scott didn't get nominated for Best Director, Rutger Hauer didn't get up for Best Supporting Actor, Vangelis didn't get nominated for Best Score and the film's Costume Design was overlooked.
• Broken Base:
  • Is the theatrical cut's voice-over narration an unnecessary addition, or does it add to the Film Noir atmosphere of the film?
  • Deckard's true nature is probably the fanbase's biggest debate.
    • A camp considers the "Deckard is a Replicant" theory to be an Ass Pull that is not even properly foreshadowed beyond the unicorn dream/origami. They often point out that, as the film establishes, the Replicants of the Nexus-7 differ from humans by being stronger and more durable than them, just the opposite of Deckard, who clearly doesn't match the Replicants in skills and only wins any fight scene by scraping by, receiving external help or fighting dirty. Moreover, if Deckard is an older Replicant model or a later up-to-date model, it makes no sense why he should be designated for a job that involves fighting down models far more advanced than he is, or what corporate interest could have an experiment based on pitting an unaware, weaker Replicant against stronger and better trained ones. Then again, "more human than human" is Tyrell's goal, and his ultimate goal is to create artificial humans, not soldiers — and not knowing they're artificial.
      
      There's also a thematic argument: one of the major themes of the movie is the rise of the replicants vs. the decline of the mankind. The colonies are thriving while the Earth is decaying. The Replicants are gaining their humanity, while the mankind is losing its humanity. Roy and Deckard embody this conflict, but the juxtaposition falls apart if both Roy and Deckard were Replicants. Plus, there's already a story of a person discovering they're not human but actually a machine: Rachel. It removes the entire point of her role in the story other than as a LI if Deckard's also a Replicant.
    • On the other hand, defenders of the theory such as Mark Kermode point out that Deckard in the film is often cold, distant, and a little boring, and that it could be explained by Deckard being a Replicant (particularly one less emotionally experienced that Batty and company, who are war veterans, sexbots and assassins instead of grey city cops like him - as well as one whose implanted, default memories are less emotionally rich than Rachael's). This side of the Broken Base usually theorizes that Deckard is certainly being part of an experiment, in the same way Rachael was implanted fake memories and emotions to test if it would make Replicants more stable, only that in this case we are not told what is being measured. The sequel's villain references this theory by speculating Deckard might have been a Replicant programmed to fall in love with Rachael, which suggests love and human relationships would have been the theme of this possible experiment.
• Common Knowledge:
  • Common Knowledge says the Voight-Kampff test measures how much empathy a person has. Actually, it doesn't. In the future, most animals (other than humans) have been driven to the brink of extinction, causing humanity to fetishize them to the point they have more cultural value than actual artificial people, the replicants.^note The book is more explicit about the cultural symbolism behind animals in 21 century LA, whereas it's mostly just for flavor in the film. The Voight-Kampff test measures how well a person has been indoctrinated with the animal-deification ideology that dominates the future society. A person is only deemed human if they have the appropriate cultural response to the sanctity of animal life. In keeping with the book's more explicit Nazi allegory, half the name is literally taken from Adolf Hitler's manifesto, who—as we all know—loved animals but accused the subhumans of trying to infiltrate and destroy German civilization.
  • Everybody "knows" that Rutger Hauer came up himself with at least most of Batty's final monologue because he found the original unsatisfactory. In reality, this is a half truth. He did come up with the metaphor of tears in rain and the bit about time to die, but the rest of his monologue is almost identical to the one in the script he was given. He did leave out a few details mentioned in the original version to simplify it too.
• Cult Classic: Has since become so ubiquitous in pop culture that it's hard to picture now, but at one time the film was very much this. It's also the very reason it got a sequel 35 years after it came out.
• Death of the Author: One of the reasons Deckard's being a replicant or not is still hotly debated is because no definite answer was given in the film, and the filmmakers give contradictory answers when asked. Fans who feel that Deckard is a human point out that the theme of the film, and the tragedy of Roy Batty, i.e. the Replicant who is more human than human, who risks his life to save Deckard despite having every reason to let him die, loses much of its impact if Deckard is a Replicant unaware of his true nature, since it doesn't definitively vindicate the humanity of androids over humans if the Anti-Hero human we follow around was a robot. Incidentally this is why Harrison Ford and Rutger Hauer insist that Deckard is a human and not a replicant because the dynamic between Deckard and Batty in that climax loses most of its impact if it was the other way.
• Designated Hero: One of Philip K. Dick's recurring themes was human society unintentionally drifting towards Nazi ideology without being explicitly Nazis. In the original novel, even though Deckard isn't a card-carrying National Socialist, his internal monologue is full of paranoia and fear about the Untermenschen "replacing" authentic humanity. This was toned down in the film, but even so he's still a low-rent cop who hunts down and murders humanoid robots for a living. He forces himself on Rachael, and his killing of Replicants is often quite dishonorable (shooting Zhora in the back) and others when they are injured and weak. Likewise the end of the film has Roy Batty saving his life, not because he respects Deckard but precisely because he has contempt for him and his kind, and his act of rescue is meant to spite Deckard and taunt him about his lack of worth.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Roy Batty is an Anti-Villain with sympathetic motivations, but he's still a ruthless murderer who's willing to resort to Cold-Blooded Torture. His villainous traits tend to get overlooked by fans, but his moving Final Speech doesn’t bring back the people he’s killed.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Gaff for a variety of reasons. His unique style, his origami, his use of cityspeak, and his Hidden Depths, hinting that he’s both a better cop and better man than he may initially appear to be. In the Westwood Studio's video game, he's something of a Stealth Mentor.
  • Taffey Lewis, as played by the hammy Hy Pyke.
• Evil Is Cool: Despite being an unrepentant serial murderer, Roy Batty has a love of poetry, genuine affection for his team of fellow Replicants, and sympathetic motivation of wanting to extend his artificially shortened lifespan. Combine this with Rutger Hauer's layered and haunting performance, and Batty remains one of science fiction's most complex and intriguing villains.
• Fan-Disliked Explanation: The notion of Deckard being another Replicant, which director Scott seems to favor. Detractors typically consider that Deckard being a cold, unemotional human against an expressive android who quotes Blake and Milton is a much better illustration of the Replicant-Human philosophical conflict than Deckard being merely a blander robot.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Toward the theatrical version due to the Executive Meddling. Only the Director's Cut and Final Cut are considered the "real" versions of the film by fans.
• Genre Turning Point: Blade Runner is the Trope Maker and Trope Codifier for the futuristic dystopian science-fiction film:
  • Before Blade Runner, the only film to conjure a vision on its scale was Metropolis by Fritz Lang (which did inspire Scott) but Lang's film, owing to its premise and the limitations of the silent film, created a simplistic world lacking in realistic details and references, where Scott made a future version of a real-life Los Angeles come alive in colour, sound, and set-design. Earlier science fiction films did raise the issue of the humanity of artificial intelligence and robots, but Blade Runner took it to the next level by making the line between robots and humans far more blurred, and interchangeable.
  • It was the first Philip K. Dick adaptation in motion pictures and, as Alan Moore noted in an essay on science-fiction, it marked a more post-modern approach to movie science-fiction compared to earlier films, openly making dystopias an allegory for contemporary concerns, issues of identity, and urbanization, with set-design, costumes, and other props visually communicating its aesthetic via Worldbuilding, an aspect that many later science-fiction films, such as Total Recall (1990), Minority Report (both are PKD adaptations), A.I.: Artificial Intelligence and The Matrix would incorporate.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: While not a success on its original North American release, the movie proved to be popular overseas, particularly in Japan. While the film went to influence the whole cyberpunk genre in general, few cyberpunk animes from The '80s don't reference the film's plot, characters or visuals in very clear fashion.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • The "Blade Runner Curse" is a bit of folklore developed around the film centered on how many of the companies with prominent Product Placement in the film would go bankrupt or go through disastrous setbacks in the following decade:
    • Atari was hammered by The Great Video Game Crash of 1983, barely survived because of its computer business, and is now a shadow of its former self.
    • Pan-Am is long extinct.
    • Zig-Zagged with Coca-Cola: They launched the infamous New Coke a few years after the movie was released, although managed to bounce back stronger than ever. However, the same year Blade Runner came out, they released the more successful Diet Coke.
    • Bell (or AT&T) was broken up for monopolistic practices. Most of the subsidiaries that were broken off of it have come back together as either Verizon or the new AT&T.
    • Cuisinart went bankrupt and was bought out by a rival company, living on only as a brand name (and a joke on Spaceballs).
    • RCA (big neon sign out Deckard's apartment window), as a company, bit the dust in '86 after being acquired by General Electric, which in turn bought NBC. (The name is still trademarked by Technicolor, however, and sometimes used on products that come from its licensees, as well as the venerable record label.)
    • Polaroid photos are seen in the movie — the Polaroid company still exists today but has ceased making cameras and film.
    • TDK, whose sign appears on the building opposite the Bradbury near the end, seems to have made it through more or less OK—although its sign is partially obscured.
  • Gaff's last words to Deckard are "It's too bad [Rachael] won't live, but then again who does? In Blade Runner 2049, we find out she doesn't.
  • The whole Deckard and Rachael relationship becomes this come the sequel. The Big Bad all but states outright that Tyrell set the whole thing up just to test his theory that Replicants could reproduce. Given Tyrell's resources, Rachael being a Replicant, Deckard possibly being a Replicant, and the plans for Replicant offspring...
  • The movie is set in the then-future of the 2010s and has a scene where a policeman (Deckard) shoots an unarmed replicant in the back. Fast forward three decades later and coincidentally, there have been several controversies in the U.S. in the 2010s where policeman have shot unarmed people in the back.
    • Unfortunately emphasized by the concept that Replicants are often referred to as "skin jobs," a term stated to be analogous to the N-word. The most controversial of the murder-by-cop cases have been against African Americans.
  • While this is inevitable whenever an actor dies, the famous "Tears in Rain" speech now becomes more poignant after Rutger Hauer passed away in July 2019, especially since the movie is set in 2019, making this an eerie coincidence (though Roy dies in November).
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Bryant referring to Replicants as "skin jobs."
  • In one of the interviews recorded for the Five-Disc Collector's Edition Blu-Ray set, Edward James Olmos slips up and calls the Replicants "Cylons" before correcting himself.
  • Some elements of the film's setting have come true, such as how many cities have begun installing talking crosswalk signs to accommodate people with vision disabilities.
  • Viewers today may notice that many elements of Replicant behavior (unusual and robotic body motions, socially awkward behavior, emotional immaturity to where they sometimes come across as child-like) align with that of people on the autism spectrum. It ends up making sense that Ridley Scott would inadvertently cast an actress with High-Functioning Autism (Daryl Hannah, of which it was not yet known) to play one of them. Especially as even by Replicant standards, Pris is unusually quirky and childish.
  • Harrison Ford and Rutger Hauer would go on to play the same character in different adaptations of The Call of the Wild.
  • Deckard has dreams of a unicorn, and Gadd leaves an origami Unicorn at his apartment. The sequel Blade Runner 2049 and My Little Pony: The Movie (2017) were released the same day (October 6 2017).
• Hype Backlash: With a movie being hailed as a masterpiece of sci-fi, a good many people might walk away feeling disappointed, praising the visuals and some of the acting, but feeling that Blade Runner's story is hollow and pretentious. Its alleged philosophical value can also easily fall into this, as the plot neither opens so many questions that weren't addressed by earlier, more known sci-fi works (like Isaac Asimov's work and other Philip K. Dick stories) nor presents them in a more overtly applicable way (the theory that Deckard is a replicant is the only major second lecture of the film, and is still a farfetched one as shown in Broken Base above). Consequently, the viewer might go watch the film expecting to see a straight Mind Screw fest and leave dissappointed that it was just a slightly contemplative noir film in a cyberpunk setting.
• Improved by the Re-Cut: Both the 1992 Director's Cut and the 2007 Final Cut are considered better than the theatrical cut for remastering several scenes that more effectively push the film's Film Noir atmosphere, removing the theatrical's divisive voice-over narration, and replacing the studio-mandated happy ending with a more ambiguous one. Which of the two cuts is better is up for debate.
• It Was His Sled:
  • The Replicants can't have their lives extended, and Roy dies of old age at the end. Given the fact that one of the most quoted scenes in the movie and what is often considered one of the greatest soliloquies in cinema history also happens to be his last words, it's understandable.
  • Deckard might be a Replicant.
• Jerkass Woobie: All of the Replicants. They’re escaped slaves who want to live in peace, but Roy and Leon are ruthless killers, and Pris is a callous manipulator. How sympathetic they are varies from scene to scene.
• Magnificent Bastard: Roy Batty is a Replicant and former soldier model who is driven to gain more life for himself and his partners from his "father", Dr. Eldon Tyrell. Stealing to Earth while eluding all pursuers, Roy has his lover Pris seduce the Tyrell Corporation engineer Sebastian to provide access to Tyrell, whereupon Roy learns his wish is impossible. Killing Tyrell and Sebastian, Roy engages the Blade Runner cop Rick Deckard in battle, but ends up saving and sparing Deckard despite having the cop dead to rights. Using his last moments to impart a few of his memories to Deckard, Roy ensures he will not be forgotten even as he notes his own memories shall be gone "like tears in rain", proving himself one of the most complex, charismatic and dynamic antagonists in sci-fi cinema.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Roy Batty's "tears in rain" monologue, to the point where it has its own article on The Other Wiki.
  • The Voight-Kampff empathy test also qualifies, often being quoted at length on various websites. One website gave the test to every politician in San Francisco's mayoral race, including eventual victor and current California governor Gavin Newsom. Most, including Newsom, didn't pass; only one, Tom Ammiano, recognised the test. A particularly esoteric application also combines it with the meme comparing American politician Mitch McConnell's appearance to that of a turtle, since one of the questions in the test concerns a tortoise:
    "You’re in a desert walking along in the sand when all of a sudden, you look down and you see a tortoise crawling toward you. You reach down; you flip the tortoise over on its back. The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can’t, not without your help. But you’re not helping. Why is that?"
• Narm:
  • "Memories! You're talkin' about memories!"
  • The unicorn from Deckard's dream sequence.
  • It was supposed to be terrifying, but Roy Batty chasing after Deckard, howling like a wolf, and smashing his head through walls like a cartoon character? Amusing.
  • Roy biting his own fist.
  • The dying Pris thrashing on her back as if she's throwing a temper tantrum. Even between viewings, this scene doesn't necessarily age well. It does not help that the female stunt actress was too exhausted to do the preceding scenes and they had to get a man in poor makeup to do it. As noted on the Nightmare Fuel page, though, many people find that scene disturbing because of how unnatural and jerky her movements are. That is, she really does look like a robot shorting out or something.
  • From the same scene, Roy kissing the dead Pris would be a lot more tragic and moving if her tongue wasn't sticking out slightly while he does it.
• Narm Charm:
  • Pris thrashing around wildly as she dies is, to a lot of people, far more disturbing than goofy, thanks to the violently jerky, inhuman movements.
  • Roy stripping down to a pair of boxer shorts and howling like a wolf as he hunts Deckard in the climax, on paper, sounds incredibly goofy. It's not.
  • Hy Pike hamming it up as Taffy Lewis with his New York accent.
• No Problem with Licensed Games:
  • Westwood Studios released a lovingly faithful Adventure Game based on this movie in 1997. The game featured randomized plot points and the player's actions could lead the game towards thirteen different alternate endings. There's even a remastered version for PS4, Xbox One, Windows, and Switch in the works.
  • The 1985 game for the 8-bit home computers, on the other hand, was nothing special. Though, for rights reasons, that's technically an adaptation of the Vangelis soundtrack.
• Older Than They Think:
  • The title originated from the 1974 novel by Alan E. Nourse called The Bladerunner which was given a screenplay treatment by William S. Burroughs himself. The screenwriters adapted the title Blade Runner for their film because Ridley Scott wanted a new take on science fiction lore (hence renaming androids as replicants). In the original context, blade runner meant a black market guy who smuggled medical equipment (e.g., scalpels) in a futuristic dystopia where medical care had become expensive, and was entirely different from cop who retires replicants.
  • Also, Cracked claimed in its article that the film is a Spiritual Adaptation of the 1962 film The Creation of the Humanoids.
  • Many people, such as Roger Ebert, have pointed out the film's potential Nazi implications. In fact, a talk show host in the book says that human society is ripe for an "ambitious politically minded would-be Hitler". Dick stated the novel was inspired by reading Gestapo diaries while researching The Man in the High Castle. Large swathes of it are paranoid, hypocritical rants by Deckard rationalizing away all the things he sees into "They don't share our values, so they must not be human" just to make his job of killing them (and buying a living animal as a status symbol) easier.
• Once Original, Now Common: Giant buildings, neon lights, multicultural cities, film noir aesthetics, and lots and lots of rain? Meh, we've seen it all before. The film's visuals and themes proved to be such an influence on Cyberpunk and grittier science fiction works that it's virtually impossible for them not to reference the film in some form or another, and as a consequence, the impact can be somewhat lost on audiences who have already seen the many imitators and their intellectual androids, ugly dystopias, and drunken future cops.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Pretty much everything about Tyrell is so memorable, it's impressive to remember and easy to forget that he only appears twice in the film proper, and the second time is his death scene.
  • Taffy Lewis. Despite having three small lines, he's easily memorable.
  • Edward James Olmos says very little as Detective Gaff, but goddamn, he leaves an impression with his eccentric style of dress and his origami.
  • James Hong as Chew, the creator of the genetic eyes for replicants. You can feel the cold room they're in, along with his fear of Roy.
• The Red Stapler:
  • Sales of Tsingtao beer increased after being featured in the film.
  • One of the many reasons why the Yamaha CS80 is so expensive is that it's the key element in Vangelis' trademark sound, and many musicians want to sound like this. Just listen to the soundtrack.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Wondering what happened to J.F. Sebastian? He moved to rural Vermont to run a cafe and do "Anything For a Buck".
  • Discussed by RedLetterMedia. After watching Hy Pike's...memorable turn in Hack-O-Lantern, they wrote him off as a kooky local actor who makes one movie and then disappears forever. They're then astonished when they research him and find out he has a bit part as Taffy Lewis in this, one of the most influential sci-fi movies ever.
• Rooting for the Empire: Roy is an Anti-Villain, but a villain nonetheless. His quest to stave off an early death is so compelling, and Roy makes for such an interesting, charismatic figure (helped along by Rutger Hauer's inimitable performance), that many viewers can't help but want him to succeed. In many ways, Roy comes off as a more sympathetic and engaging character than Deckard. (Then again, that's the point. The robots struggle to be more human while the humans become more unfeeling, with Deckard slowly trying to regain his empathy and humanity.)
• Signature Line: "It's too bad she won't live! But then again, who does?"
  • The entirety of Roy Barry’s soliloquy is iconic, but especially the line "All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain."
• Signature Scene:
  • The shots of Los Angeles' cityscape at the start of the film. It was already special during production since it converted Philip K. Dick from a skeptic to a supporter of the film.
  • The giant geisha advertisement.
  • Zhora's death scene.
  • Roy's soliloquy in the rain, often listed as one of the finest moments of the science fiction genre and cinema in general. It even has its own page on Wikipedia.
    Roy: I've seen things you people wouldn't believe...
• Song Association: In Argentina, Torneos y Competencias used "End Titles" for their programs, especially the early years of Fútbol de Primera, so it became synonymous with Association Football programs there.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • The skies above Batty when he releases the dove were supposed to be grimly grey, causing an unintended Cue the Sun moment. This was changed in the 2007 "Final Cut" to reinstate the dark clouds and rain as originally intended. Crew members stated in a behind-the-scenes documentary that this error occurred because they couldn't get the dove to fly in the rain. The water soaked the bird's feathers and made it too heavy to take off, so they eventually had to resort to filming the scene without the rain.
  • During the chase scene between Deckard and Zhora includes shots where an obvious stunt double can be seen in place of Joanna Cassidy. This too was fixed in the Final Cut, with Cassidy's head superimposed onto the stunt double's body. A documentary on the five-disc 2007 set called "All Our Variant Futures" shows the making of the re-shot sequence.
  • In many scenes featuring a Spinner (flying car), the cables lifting the car up are clearly visible. Like the dove, these are fixed in the Final Cut.
  • The opening shot at the plant with the flames shooting out of the towers were similarly retouched in "The Final Cut" to fix the timing errors the scene originally contained.
• Spiritual Successor: To the 1920s silent film Metropolis, in the minds of most critics.
• Strangled by the Red String: Deckard's love story with Rachael comes off as highly stiff and unconvincing. It's meant to evoke a classic Film Noir doomed romance but the chemistry between the two leads doesn't work, and the genre it's meant to evoke has several examples that merely show how it falls short. The fact that, at the very least, one of them is definitely a Replicant either explains or Lampshades this for some, but undercuts it for others^note since it makes a love story with a replicant unconvincing in a movie that advocates for their individuality. Rachael is likewise a Satellite Love Interest and among the Replicants far less interesting than Roy, Priss, Zhora, and ultimately the Replicant who truly triggers Deckard's Character Development is Roy Batty.
• Too Cool to Live: Roy Batty.
  Tyrell: You were made as well as we could make you.
  Roy: But not to last.
  Tyrell: The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long. And you have burned so very, very brightly, Roy.
• Unintentional Period Piece: The synth-heavy soundtrack, treasure trove of Product Placement for defunct or dethroned companies, analog monitors, primitive computer displays, and heavy use of Miniature Effects all date this film to the early 80s. The soundtrack in particular is representative of synthesizer-driven music in a pre-Synth-Pop era; even though the latter genre emerged around 1977 and became the dominant form of music by the time of the film's release, Vangelis' much more ambient-oriented score is very much tethered to an era in which synths were utilized in a more experimental and/or musically progressive context.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley: Sebastian's toys are played by little people in prosthetics, and make some very inhuman, jerky movements. The replicants avert this trope as they are so human, physically and emotionally, but the scene where Pris disguises herself as one of the toys has her wearing some pretty Uncanny Valley Makeup.
• Values Dissonance:
  • The whole initial meeting with Zhora reeks of this, as it's treated as an I Know You Know I Know, with Deckard asking if she was asked to do anything unsavory to get her job as a stripper, and the unsavory nature of her job in general making such questions a joke. In the 21st century the view of sex workers has changed enough that such questions would actually be quite normal, making sure her consent was never violated.
  • To a modern audience, the Forceful Kiss from Deckard to Rachael has overtones of Date Rape, but at the time apparently nobody complained. Ultimately there is still the context of Rachael not being an actual human and thus having zero knowledge of how to be physically intimate with someone, so Deckard has to teach her as they go along.
• Vindicated by History: Upon its initial release, the film was advertised as an action movie, met with mixed reviews and an underwhelming box office performance (it did decently and made back its budget, but it was in no way the hit that The Ladd Company assumed it would be. It also had the bad luck of coming out the week after the much anticipated and more successful E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial hit theaters). In the ensuing years it became a Cult Classic in its director's cut, and is now generally considered one of the greatest science fiction films of all time.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The designs and the city will still blow you away, they literally changed sci-fi films.
• The Woobie: Rachael, whose entire world starts falling apart once she realises that she's a Replicant, and Sebastian, a kindly, lonely man who is manipulated and murdered by the villains.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Roy and Pris. Roy is a violent killer and Pris callously manipulates Sebastian, but all they want is freedom and a normal lifespan, which they are denied at every turn.
• Writer-Induced Fanon: Ridley Scott is quite keen on the idea that Deckard is a Replicant over the objections of the screenwriters and Harrison Ford himself. Scott got the idea mid-production. It wasn't originally in the original novel nor was it planned at pre-production. Ford feels that Deckard has to be the main human being the audiences can relate to and properly be an Audience Surrogate and he was openly angry when Scott tried to insert the Unicorn origami scene since he caught on what he was trying to do. Hampton Fancher in any case feels that Deckard's humanity or lack thereof should never be openly addressed and become part of the surface experience of the film, and remain an issue of speculation, while David Peoples has described Scott's change as Scott misunderstanding some themes. Fancher initially came to calling it a "total accident" but has lately come to seeing it as a valid interpretation on Scott's part (if one he disagrees with).

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