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I hate Deckard as a Replicant

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starramus

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Post Sat Sep 29, 2007 9:29 am

I am going to have to make time to reread DADoES. From my hazy memory I tend to agree with Kipple on this. But I read the novel in 1969.
My naivete and unsophistication were paramount at that time. :lol: Even moreso than now.
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ridleynoir

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Post Sat Sep 29, 2007 12:02 pm

It has been a long time since I read it too. closer to like 7 years. I do know that when I have looked back at passages recently that I had a different idea about them, and remembered them differently. His book is almost schizophrenic, and even when I was reading it fresh I had to read parts again because he changed gears so fast that I didn't know where he was going. I do recall that everybodies humaness was questioned at one point or more, where in the end you couldn't be sure what the final answers were. Reading it again might be a fine idea.
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starramus

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Post Sat Oct 13, 2007 10:55 am

I picked up Hauer's book "All Those Moments" at the library. He is most definitely in the Deckard is a human camp. Now this is from a man who had a lot of creative intput into the making of BR. I was surprised to learn that he actually added the "All those moments" line. This is his take on it. " I never really understood this change- mostly because i didn't want to. (He is referring of course to the addition of the unicorn scene) I didn't really like it because if Deckard himself is a machine , then the whole story of a battle of wits and wills between man and machine dies for me. It is such a classic story to tell, and it is told here in a way that is compelling. To me, "Blade Runner" investigates what life and what being human are about- and the investigation is done by Roy rather than Deckard."
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Post Sat Oct 20, 2007 11:06 am

I have been thinking about a possible alternate explanation of the "evidence" that Deckard is a replicant.

I have been working on a paper about Blade Runner for a class I'm taking on Film Noir at Woodbury University in Burbank, CA. While working on this paper, I had a flash realization: what if the reason why Deckard's eyes glow is not that Deckard is a replicant, but that they glow because they are biological prosthetics...replacements for his real eyes that were lost in an accident sometime during his police career? :shock:

It doesn't explain the unicorn dream, unless maybe Gaff got surreptitious access to Deckard's psychological file and notes by perhaps an LAPD psychologist or psychiatrist that might reveal his recurring unicorn dream.

However, this is just an acknowledgement that maybe there might be an alternate hypothesis to Deck-a-rep. I'm still firmly in the Deck-a-rep camp because this alternate hypothesis makes a lot of assumptions about what is going on between the lines of the script, and sort of fails the Occam's Razor test. However, for those who still don't think he's a replicant, maybe there are alternate explanations of the evidence.

(Yeah, I posted this to the Official Board too.)
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ridleynoir

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Post Sat Oct 20, 2007 12:21 pm

I can tell you about the Unicorn :) I will pm you.
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maledoro

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Post Sat Oct 20, 2007 5:14 pm

The way I see it, Ridley Scott is nuts. Really.

As much as I want to avoid an ad hominem argument, I do feel that Scott's character should be called into question. When he was working on Alien, one of the things he had proposed is that Ash should be a Martian. Two of the producers who own the franchise took Scott aside and clued him in on just what kind of universe Alien was set in. Another daffy notion Scott had was that the film should end with the alien biting off Ripley's head and speaking with her voice. He also made some other weird assertions about Alien which are best left in another discussion.

Scott not only admitted to not knowing that much about science fiction (one of the main reasons why they kept Dan O'Bannon around even after his screenplay was rewritten), but he had also admitted to disliking the genre.

Fast forward to the production of Blade Runner. Harrison Ford had gone on record as being puzzled over Scott's declaration that Deckard was a replicant: "We had agreed that he definitely was not a replicant," Ford said.

So, to summarize: we have a guy who doesn't understand nor like science fiction who waffles on the humanity of Deckard. Yeah. I'm really going to listen to him.

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Last edited by maledoro on Sun Oct 21, 2007 5:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Kipple

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Post Sun Oct 21, 2007 12:51 pm

maledoro wrote:The way I see it, Ridley Scott is nuts. Really... So, to summarize: we have a guy who doesn't understand nor like science fiction who waffles on the humanity of Deckard. Yeah. I'm really going to listen to him.



Bravo!
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Post Sun Oct 21, 2007 7:04 pm

maledoro wrote:The way I see it, Ridley Scott is nuts. Really.

As much as I want to avoid an ad hominem argument, I do feel that Scott's character should be called into question. When he was working on Alien, one of the things he had proposed is that Ash should be a Martian. Two of the producers who own the franchise took Scott aside an clued him in on just what kind of universe Alien was set in. Another daffy notion Scott had was that the film should end with the alien biting off Ripley's head and speaking with her voice. He also made some other weird assertions about Alien which are best left in another discussion.


In my opinion, that is what makes Scott such a great director. If he isn't coming up with these unconventional ideas, would he be the same artist? Perhaps he was simply bouncing odd-ball ideas off of people to gauge their reactions on concepts he was never realistically going to do. He was testing the boundaries to see how far this B movie concept in Alien could be taken before the audience was past the point of accepting the film as frightening and entertaining and only ludicrous. There is a certain strangeness to Alien, that is what makes it the classic it is today. Obviously Ridley had found the limits of the genre and pushed the envelope as close to that limit as possible.


maledoro wrote:Fast forward to the production of Blade Runner. Harrison Ford had gone on record as being puzzled over Scott's declaration that Deckard was a replicant: "We had agreed that he definitely was not a replicant," Ford said.
So, to summarize: we have a guy who doesn't understand nor like science fiction who waffles on the humanity of Deckard. Yeah. I'm really going to listen to him


Hard to believe Ridley Scott does not understand or like Science Fiction when he walks away with two classic films, one of which launches a commercially successful franchise.
And If there were any waffling, Ridley most likely wanted to avoid arguing with Ford over the issue because he lacked the time and agreed with his opinion anyway, like he would with any audience member who considered Deckard to be human. Because the film does not force you to accept a certain point of view on that issue.
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maledoro

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Post Mon Oct 22, 2007 6:14 am

Noneoftheabove wrote:In my opinion, that is what makes Scott such a great director. If he isn't coming up with these unconventional ideas, would he be the same artist? Perhaps he was simply bouncing odd-ball ideas off of people to gauge their reactions on concepts he was never realistically going to do. He was testing the boundaries to see how far this B movie concept in Alien could be taken before the audience was past the point of accepting the film as frightening and entertaining and only ludicrous. There is a certain strangeness to Alien, that is what makes it the classic it is today. Obviously Ridley had found the limits of the genre and pushed the envelope as close to that limit as possible.

That has nothing to do with his changing his mind over Deckard's humanity.

Noneoftheabove wrote:Hard to believe Ridley Scott does not understand or like Science Fiction when he walks away with two classic films, one of which launches a commercially successful franchise.

You know the old saying, "A broken clock is right twice a day." There are a lot of things in this universe that are hard to believe, but that doesn't mean that they aren't so. Scott had gone on record as saying that he he didn't like the sci-fi genre (this is recorded on some of the documentary videos on the Quadrilogy box set). Also, David Giler and Scott both have admitted to not fully understanding the genre as well in the same collection of documentaries.

Noneoftheabove wrote:And If there were any waffling, Ridley most likely wanted to avoid arguing with Ford over the issue because he lacked the time and agreed with his opinion anyway, like he would with any audience member who considered Deckard to be human. Because the film does not force you to accept a certain point of view on that issue.

Put that way, the film doesn't force you to accept anything. Let's just say that every (assumed) human in Blade Runner is a replicant while we're at it.
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Post Tue Oct 23, 2007 8:12 pm

maledoro wrote:That has nothing to do with his changing his mind over Deckard's humanity.

Yes it does not directly relate. But your comments about Ridley's strange ideas for Alien give evidence why he would make the unusual decision to suggest his main character the audience relates to, is a Replicant. Even if Ford and Ridley had an agreement about it not being the case.

maledoro wrote:Put that way, the film doesn't force you to accept anything. Let's just say that every (assumed) human in Blade Runner is a replicant while we're at it.

Sure why not? The film does support a paranoid view of things.
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Post Tue Oct 23, 2007 8:48 pm

maledoro wrote:
Noneoftheabove wrote:Hard to believe Ridley Scott does not understand or like Science Fiction when he walks away with two classic films, one of which launches a commercially successful franchise.

You know the old saying, "A broken clock is right twice a day." There are a lot of things in this universe that are hard to believe, but that doesn't mean that they aren't so. Scott had gone on record as saying that he he didn't like the sci-fi genre (this is recorded on some of the documentary videos on the Quadrilogy box set). Also, David Giler and Scott both have admitted to not fully understanding the genre as well in the same collection of documentaries.

Scott is NOT a broken clock. If he found the right idea, I have no doubt he could make another excellent sci-fi film.

And please find me ANYone who can honestly claim to fully understand the ENTIRE sci-fi genre.
[In reference to A Good Year] "So anyway, fuck 'em. It was a good film."
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Post Tue Oct 23, 2007 9:37 pm

Scott said (paraphrased to say the least) he did not understand the usual science fiction, but he understood 2001, and Star Wars. He also Understood Heavy Metal magazine. He is an artist. Most Science Fiction movies are cheesy and juvinile. I once heard him Quoted as saying, he wanted to be the "John Ford of Sci-Fi" (starlog I believe). I think he was hoping to take it to another level, and he did. I think he just realized that the money wasn't always there for the style of sci-fi he wanted to do. With the money also comes way too many other chefs to tell him what to do.

He also seems to want to make a movie that stands alone as a one time complete project and not a long time afair, that needs to be fleshed out over time. He underestimated his audience for BR at the time, and has now become more mainstream as a result. I believe in the axim that a picture tells a 1,000 words, and his movies have some great pictures. It took many of us years to realize this with BR. I wished he had the opportunitiy to be as uncompromising as Stanley Kubrick. He still can to some degree, that is what he tried with BR, to not compramise, but he was mugged.

His vision still got through and it was what makes BR for me. Rather than any mistake he made. His vision is still alive after 25 years in BR and longer with his other work. He is in no way perfect, but nobody is, and perfection isn't what I want, but vision and integrity.
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Post Wed Oct 24, 2007 2:45 am

deleted wrote:Scott is NOT a broken clock. If he found the right idea, I have no doubt he could make another excellent sci-fi film.


I totally agree. Although some of Scott?s throw-away remarks that I?ve read recently paint him as a rather eccentric character, his ability to make the most of a script make him one of the best directors around.

If he?s given a great script, we will be given a great film.

ridleynoir wrote:I believe in the axim that a picture tells a 1,000 words, and his movies have some great pictures.


The first scene of his first film is an excellent example.

ridleynoir wrote:He is in no way perfect, but nobody is, and perfection isn't what I want, but vision and integrity.


I am in no way an out-and-out Ridley fan, as I seem to much prefer his non-contemporary films, but if you want a director to take you to an unfamiliar place, Ridley?s your man, or should I say yer man.
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Post Wed Oct 24, 2007 6:00 am

Noneoftheabove wrote:Yes it does not directly relate. But your comments about Ridley's strange ideas for Alien give evidence why he would make the unusual decision to suggest his main character the audience relates to, is a Replicant. Even if Ford and Ridley had an agreement about it not being the case.

You're mistaking befuddlement with brilliance.

Noneoftheabove wrote:Sure why not? The film does support a paranoid view of things.

Sorry, but I have a difficult time in accepting the Everything Is Possible outlook, even in sci-fi movies. Let's just add deus ex machina to everything we see and be over with it.

deleted wrote:Scott is NOT a broken clock. If he found the right idea, I have no doubt he could make another excellent sci-fi film.

He hasn't been doing too well with the other genres. Sure, he's a good director, but his choice of projects haven't been that great.

deleted wrote:And please find me ANYone who can honestly claim to fully understand the ENTIRE sci-fi genre.

NOBODY had made the claim that they knew EVERYTHING about the sci-fi genre. Scott admitted to not liking nor knowing the least bit of sci-fi. A totally different argument.
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Post Wed Oct 24, 2007 9:55 am

maledoro wrote:
deleted wrote:Scott is NOT a broken clock. If he found the right idea, I have no doubt he could make another excellent sci-fi film.

He hasn't been doing too well with the other genres. Sure, he's a good director, but his choice of projects haven't been that great.

No, his body of work isn't perfect. But what he HAS done that works, tends to work brilliantly. And even in his mediocre projects, his visual style is unparalleled.

maledoro wrote:
deleted wrote:And please find me ANYone who can honestly claim to fully understand the ENTIRE sci-fi genre.

NOBODY had made the claim that they knew EVERYTHING about the sci-fi genre. Scott admitted to not liking nor knowing the least bit of sci-fi. A totally different argument.

Scott is not entirely correct then, because regardless of either of those claims of his, I would rather have him direct a sci-fi film these days than most other directors. His previous work is a good enough resume to prove that he can handle the genre as well as, or better than, most of his contemporaries.
[In reference to A Good Year] "So anyway, fuck 'em. It was a good film."
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