love between Deckard and Rachael

First post.
Long time fan of blade runner, yet to do much about it. Until beginning my final year dissertation at uni. The theme is love, the protagonist...technology.

I'm discussing the relationships between the emotion of love, the memories of it and the proof we have of those memories. In relation to Blade Runner, this manifests in Rachael's photograph of her and her mother. That becomes her proof that she has been loved and loved in return. When Deckard reveals to her that she is a replicant and her memories are those of Tyrell's neice, understandably, her concept of love has to become compromised, right?
So, when Deckard and Rachael acknowledge their feelings for each other, she is uncertain what it means. She has to tell him that she cannot rely on her memories, so he almost has to instruct her what to do. This abandon of all that has gone before, and concentration on the present also presents itself when Deckard tells Rachael that she plays the piano beautifully. It doesn't matter how she knows to play (or to love), she can do it and he likes it.

Technology is the protagonist in my essay because its introduction to this love story (and others, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind for example) complicates it, but also dissolves what we know to be a human condition. Deckard (possibly) and Rachael are both replicants, machines, but with emotions. No longer are memories and emotions the domain of the mind, they become part of our postmodern condition. We try and decypher their codes, find their meaning. In doing so we can translate them into a technology. Something that helps us bridge the gap between our material body and our immaterial mind.

I'm interested in any opinions that you (as fans of the film) have on this topic. I have searched through the board and have found little discussion on the love between Deckard and Rachael. But the final scene as they escape together to an ambiguous future has (with its various versions) some interesting takes on love.

Discuss.....!

Rob

how would your theories pan out if one of the initial drafts was used, whereby deckard does indeed flee into the sunset with racheal, only to parkup, let her expeience nature (birds and ee`s etc) and then shoot her?

that was a concept for the ending? i guess it makes more of Deckard's need to complete his job. That way his job would be more important than his love for Rachael. Does that make him more a human than a replicant?
It kinda sounds like the story they tell of the spider at Deckard's appartment. There is a strong link between sex, reproduction and death in a lot of stories. It's interesting to think of love being an emotional responce to someone, rather than a desire to have sex with them.
I'm thinking they ditched that ending because its kinda accepted that the replicants can't reproduce, as discussed on brmovie.com.

[Kipple]

I should know better by now!!! AAARRGHH!!!!!!!!!

I just typed out a well thought out response to this topic and hit the wrong bloody buttom by accident and deleted the ukwhsfsfkf!@!!!!!!

AAGH!!!!!!!

(sorry folks...just very frustrated).

Basically...photographs are used in a variety of clever ways in Blade Runner. They serve as mementos, family rememberance, proof, and as part of an investigation. Photographs are a "human" trait.

It is my feeling that Rachael presented the photgraph of her and her mother to Deckard as proof that she was human.

The relationship of love in connection to the photographs makes for an interesting interpretative proposition. I hope you share your writing here at the forum when it is completed. I'm sorry I didn't provide any rationale for my statemnets above (for they were recklessly deleted). Hopefully others who share my views and/or relate to what I've written will further elaborate on them.

Cheers.