My take (long, SPOILERS) (Off-Topic)

by narcogen , Andover, Massachusetts, Tuesday, October 17, 2017, 17:25 (2435 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Where I differ is that I think this interpretation works just as well if Deckard isn't actually human, right up until past the Batty fight, where the human audience just presumes Deckard is human-- despite no one ever actually saying so.

That's true, but it'd be a boring movie if to satisfy the theme you just watch a guy doing normal stuff for two hours, then say see! He's actually a replicant and not a human. Shame on you audience for thinking so!

True, but I'm not sure why you're saying it? I'm not saying that everything up to that point is meaningless or unnecessary, or that the revelation undermines anything else. It's more that knowing about it in advance would undermine the revelation in the end.

So the first portion of the film sets up what everybody believes-- that there are humans and there are replicants, and that the distinction is real and meaningful even if making the distinction is arbitrarily difficult. It's the perfect setup allowing a society to dehumanize any groups or individuals it wants for any reason

Let's look at the sequel and see how a replicant Deckard ruins that theme as well.

Already addressed that. Ford is known to adamantly support the "Deckard is human" interpretation and likely his involvement was contingent on supporting this idea in the sequel. There's also the practical matter of whether or not replicants age. So for this purpose I'm considering only the original.

If he's a replicant, that means replicants and humans cannot reproduce together. Only within their own.

That's faulty logic. Just because replicants CAN reproduce doesn't mean they can't interbreed. Frankly, the new film's focus on this I find to be deeply stupid, and it barely makes sense with what we do know about replicants.

Replicants aren't robots or cyborgs. They aren't crude facsimiles of humans fashioned by advanced materials science. They are genetically engineered beings. Their DNA is human DNA-- modified to allow for the desired characteristics. They're more like modified clones than anything else, then speed-grown in an artificial womb. (Also interesting to note that DV wants to do Dune next, although I doubt he'll be able to get near the parts of the story that relate to this topic.)

It seems to be a popular myth that clones are sterile, and now they've made this part of the distinction between replicants and humans, just in time to make it a big issue that it's not a distinction anymore. In reality, the bigger challenge would probably be a Monsanto-like decision to attempt to PREVENT replicants from reproducing. Think about it. If Tyrell was selling docile, sexually mature, reproductivity-capable adult replicants, everybody would buy 2 and just order them to make more. It honestly makes you wonder why the bowels of the company isn't filled with Axlotl tanks instead of plastic bags... if you get my drift. THAT would be a real and brave investigation of a horrific possible future.

Anyway. The idea that the company WANTS this capability and has been trying and failing to recreate it doesn't make much sense. It'd be more sensible for them to want the opposite, because free range replicants hurt their profits. This would also give the rebels and the company guys conflicting purposes-- instead I was wondering at the end why they didn't just join forces, because apparently they want the same thing. The substance of their conflict is over control, not the actual goal.

>This gives a pretty bright line as to their status as 'human', and provides a perfect justification to seeing them as the 'other'. But if they can interbreed? Now that throws a wrench into things.

Only if you have a really stupid and twisted idea of what "human" is. There don't happen to be any extant intelligent humanoid species on Earth (at least, not one roughly equivalent to homo sapiens) but I often wonder what the world would be like if there was. What you're saying is that people wouldn't recognize their "humanity" because they are a distinct species. That's pretty terrifying and worthy of its own dystopian film, but I don't think it's the point being made in either the sequel or the original.

I also don't think that Deckard and Rachel escape society in the end of the first one in order to reproduce. That's a new theme, I think mistakenly introduced in the sequel that either should have been avoided or handled differently. The ability to control reproduction would certainly be of political importance to an oppressed group-- fer crissakes THAT IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW-- but it's not a necessity to either earn or prove "humanity".

I don't just think that it's being questioned that Deckard is human or not. I think it's being questioned whether he would pass the VK test whether he was biologically human or not.

How do you find Nazi replicants? Run the Mein-Kampff test on them.

Ugh.