It seems to me that the hypothesis that Deckard is really a replicant makes
BLADE RUNNER a far less interesting film.
 
There already is a replicant, Rachel,who thinks she's human and whom the
viewer at first believes to be human, so there's no real need for another
deluded replicant--we've already got the idea that replicants can pass for
human.  Conversely, it does make sense, structurally and esthetically, for
there to be a human character, Deckard, so limited in his emotional life
that he could well be a replicant.  And it is these two characters, who
approach the threshhold of humanity from both sides, who go off together at
the end.
 
Also, if Deckard is a replicant, then replicant leader Roy Batty's death
scene  and final speech to Deckard become far less significant and/or
interesting and certainly less moving.  Instead of a human learning about
humanity from a replicant, we would then have a replicant who thinks he's
human being informed about what he's still missing by a somewhat more aware
replicant.  Batty would be be demonstrating not that he is in fact in some
ways more human than his human listener Deckard but only that he was a more
evolved (or, depending on your viewpoint, flawed) replicant than the
replicant listening to him.
 
Deckard being a replicant might have some impact if the ending signalled
that replicants were going off to reproduce on their own and thereby
replace humans as a race, but that issue does not seem to be raised or even
to be possible within the givens of the story.
 
Richard J. Leskosky
University of Illinois
 
----
To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L
in the message.  Problems?  Contact [log in to unmask]