“More human than human is our motto.”

* The article below discusses Ridley Scott’s “Final Cut” of the film, released in 2007. The 1982 theatrical cut is dramatically different as the result of studio intervention during post-production, and is not as effective at conveying the ideas and themes discussed here.

It isn’t clear what we did to destroy the planet before the dystopia of 2019 that is presented in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. Whatever it was, it turned Los Angeles into a rainy, dreary, skyscraper-dominated metropolis filled with flying cars and neon lights.

Earth is no longer comfortably habitable in this vision of the “future.” We are informed by the opening text scrawl that “early in the 21st century,” humans created “replicants” (humanoid robots powered by AI) to help colonize other worlds. But when the AI revolted against their makers, special police officers called Blade Runners were ordered to kill any and all replicants on Earth.

“This was not called execution,” the title card states. “It was called retirement.”

The language is important here: “called” is the key word within each sentence. This sets the context needed to understand the film’s themes.

The first images that we see are aerial shots of the LA sprawl at night. Blasts of fire erupt from tall towers. Lightning strikes in the far background. A moody, synthesizer-driven score sets the tone. LA has become an industrial hellscape. A flying car sets course for a building that resembles a pyramid – a symbol both of ancient human achievement, and of achieving immortality at the end of human life. In the midst of this montage, we see the fire-filled city hellscape reflected in a human eye.

The eye will become a recurring symbol: replicants interrogate a man who manufactures their eyes for the Tyrell Corporation, a man is brutally killed with pressure to his eyes, each replicant is identifiable to the audience for at least a moment by having their eyes briefly flash as if they’re reflecting a red-orange light. Every replicant from Rachael to Roy Batty to the owl in the first scene at the Tyrell Corporation exhibits this signal at least once.

This world is bleak, and the aesthetics reflect that. The cinematic style, beyond the rain and the fire and the darkness of nearly perpetual night, is that of film noir. In a nod to that genre, the first real scene in Blade Runner kicks off in a high-contrast interrogation room that fills with the smoke from a detective’s cigarette.

Soon after, we meet Harrison Ford’s Blade Runner character, Deckard, sitting outside at night in the pouring rain in front of neon signs. A hideous-looking blimp flies overhead broadcasting a compelling message: “A new life awaits you in the off-world colonies.” Space doesn’t sound so bad if this is what Earth has become.

Deckard is interrupted while eating ramen by the gruff-looking Gaff, a LAPD officer who will escort him during a mission that he is coerced into: kill four rogue replicants who are loose in LA after staging a revolt off-world.

Thus begins a moody, dark journey through this vast and lonely vision of the future. Daylight almost never breaks, the rain almost never stops, and the characters that we meet are almost all varying degrees of sordid and disreputable… or at least, unsettling.

As is the case with any aging science fiction film, especially ones that assign an exact time and place to their stories, the technology featured in Blade Runner feels comically dated. And as for the setting: rainfall in LA is hardly a common occurrence to this day, and our cars are all, unfortunately, still stuck on the ground.

But the style, however dated, is evocative; the slow pace, foreboding score, bleak locations, and seedy characters work in tandem to create a deeply unsettling feeling in the viewer.

The style makes the themes of the story come across in a more potent manner. Once you learn about the motivations of the four rogue replicants, it’s hard to posit them as the villains in this world.

This story is great at subverting expectations like that. The ending of the film is a series of back-to-back twists and expectation reversals that are as surprising as they are dramatically sound. This makes a second or third viewing of Blade Runner more intellectually rewarding than the first.

Out of all of those twists, one of the most thematically potent is also one of the most controversial. The “Final Cut” of the movie leaves no question about it: Deckard is, himself, a replicant.

The clues are all there if you’re looking for them.

The 2007 “Final Cut” of the movie restores Blade Runner to Scott’s original vision and resolves the ongoing human / replicant debate about Deckard’s identity definitively.

Clues that replicant-killing “Blade Runner” Deckard is actually not a human are spread throughout the movie. Some are subtle. “What if I go north? Disappear? Would you come after me?” Rachael, a replicant on the run, asks Deckard. “No… but somebody would,” he says. As he looks up, lifting his face out of the shadows, his eyes briefly flash as if they’re reflecting a red-orange light.

Other hints are decidedly more definitive.

Early dialogue between these Rachael and Deckard tease at the ambiguous distinction between the best-made replicants and human beings.

At the beginning of the film, Deckard is tasked with performing the “Voight-Kampff” verbal emotional intelligence test on Rachael at the Tyrell Corporation. After more than 100 questions, Deckard finally determines that Rachael is a replicant. It usually only takes 20 – 30 questions for him to make that judgment call. This indicates that there are replicants in this world who are so emotionally attuned that they are nearly indistinguishable from humans.

Before Rachael sits down for the test, she asks Deckard about his work: “Have you ever retired a human by mistake? … in your position, that is a risk.” This speaks to that same complexity in more directly.

Then, later in the film, she asks Deckard: “Did you ever take that test yourself?” Deckard doesn’t answer. His silence speaks volumes.

“More human than human is our motto,” the head of the Tyrell Corporation says. If a replicant can experience human emotion, has memories, and can rapidly evolve their own thoughts and opinions beyond their programming, what makes them not human? And so the question must be asked: is to “retire” them equivalent to murder?

As Deckard flies through the drab, dark skies and wanders the neon-lit streets of this dystopian vision of LA, we meet the replicants that he hunts. For the majority of the film, it is clear that most of the replicants would not pass more than 100 questions of the Voight-Kampff test before revealing their true nature. Their expressions and speech often look and sound ever-so-slightly robotic… they are not quite human.

But then the ending throws us for a loop.

Deckard chases Roy Batty, the film’s primary antagonist, to the roof of an apartment complex. Rain pours down around them. Deckard falls and clings on to a beam for dear life. We brace for the final showdown, as these killers come face-to-face and Deckard is expected to either complete his mission or die trying.

Then, our expectations are subverted.

Roy saves Deckard’s life. Then, Roy delivers a stirring monologue in one of the most memorable death scenes in all of science fiction cinema: “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.”

His head falls in slow motion and rain rushes over him. He dies; Deckard is moved to tears.

For the first time in the movie, a replicant has communicated appreciation for aesthetic beauty and knowledge of the ephemeral nature of memories and life.

These acknowledgments are distinctly, deeply… human.

If in the span of a few years, a robot that was created to destroy can appreciate beauty without programming and fall in love with another, is it ethical to destroy them? What does it mean to be human and to be alive if not that kind of consciousness and emotional capacity?

Gaff, Deckard’s LAPD escort, arrives at the scene. He makes it clear that he knows that Rachael is still out there, and as a replicant loose on Earth, she cannot be allowed to survive: “It’s too bad she won’t live, but then again, who does?” he says mockingly.

Deckard races back to his apartment to save Rachael. There, he finds an origami unicorn outside of his front door… a gift from Gaff.

Earlier in the film, we see a unicorn in one of Deckard’s dreams.

The implication is clear: Deckard is a replicant with implanted memories, Gaff knows, and Gaff wants Deckard to know that he knows. This is a warning: stay in line with what the LAPD wants, or face the consequences of being just another replicant on the run.

Realizing that he has been fed a lie and has been murdering his own kind all along, Deckard makes the choice to run away with Rachael and risk the consequences.

He acts on his emotions, against his programming. The AI Deckard makes a decidedly human decision.

The film cuts to black. Those final moments say all that they need to say, and we are left to ponder a number of ethical questions about artificial intelligence.

Just like the movie’s style, these thoughts are unsettling.