Deckard only retires two replicants, both women.
All replicants are referred to by first name, all humans by last name.
Pris' incept date is Valentine's Day.
The lamp on Bryant's desk has a translucent shade depicting a hunter standing beside a
fallen cape buffalo.
Each replicant's serial number summarizes their characteristics:
for example, Leon's "N6MAC41717" stands for Nexus-6, Male, A-Physical,
C-Mental, and incept date 4/17/17.
Leon's eyes glow faintly for a moment during the VK test but this is very hard to
discern.
The major characters have either green or blue eyes.
Gaff's origami taunts Deckard: when Deckard tries to leave Bryant's office without
taking the job, Gaff makes a chicken. Gaff makes a man with a huge erection to tease
Deckard about either being attracted to Rachael, or getting so involved/excited by the job
(when he didn't want it in the first place).
Gaff might have felt that Deckard searching Leon's room was just "jacking
off".
The origami unicorn is a reminder to Deckard of either Rachael's
or his own mortality, or infact that it is a memory implanted
into his mind. Gaff knows about it becuase Deckard is actually
a replicant - how else would he know of what Deckard dreams
of?.
During the scene where Deckard VK's Rachael, there is a dissolve to
indicate the passage
of time. During the dissolve, Deckard can be heard mentioning "orange body, green
legs", the same description of the spider that Rachael later describes. This may have
been added as a form of pseudo-subliminal message, so that later when Rachael mentions the
same thing, the viewer's memory is sparked in a subtle way.
This is much the same as when Deckard is traveling through the tunnel and
"incorrectly" remembers what Leon said just before shooting Holden.
The newspaper which lines the drawers in Leon's apartment is the same edition as the
one that Deckard reads at the beginning of the movie.
The Japanese characters for "police" ("kei-satu") are written on
the police spinner.
The music sitting on Deckard's piano is: Concerto in D major for Guitar, Strings and
Continuo (Orig.Concerto con 2 violini, leuto e basso, RV 93) by Antonio Vivaldi Second
movement : Largo heading : Largo (Streicher "Sordine")
The notes of the guitar part are the German or English edition from : Publisher : Karl
Scheit GKM Nr.41 arranging by Karl Scheit (c) Copyright 1978 by Ludwig Doblinger (Bernhard
Herzmansky) K.G., Wien - Muenchen D.15.896a
Eye symbolism is rampant:
- The eye in the opening shots
- Replicants' eyes glow
- Tyrell has huge glasses to make his eyes bigger
- glasses like Tyrell's were used in DADoES for fallout protection
- Eyes are used in the VK test
- Chew's Eye World where Chew and Leon both handle the eyes
- "Eyes, eyes... I do only eyes"
- "Chew, if only you could see what I've seen with your eyes!"
- Leon tries to stick his fingers in Deckard's eyes
- The lights behind Pris when she enters Sebastian's apartment
- Batty plays with the glass-encased eyes in Sebastian's apartment
- Batty sticks his thumbs in Tyrell's eyes
- Pris rolls her eyes to show only the whites - The owl's large eyes are shown
frequently
- surrounding the top of the Bradbury building are large, bright blue, lighted
half-orbs, which resemble eyes.
- "I've SEEN things you people wouldn't believe"
- "Not an easy man to SEE, I guess"
- "I wanted to SEE you"
- "He wouldn't SEE me"
Rachael's picture comes to life momentarily, and the soundtrack has the sound of
children playing.
Rachael's hairstyle: as a replicant, it is perfect, rigid, machine like, and cold. As a
human, it's soft, curly, and messed up.
The theatre across from Sebastian's apartment shows films by Ridley Scott's wife.
Roy Batty's soliloquy was ad-libbed by Rutger Hauer - he thought
of it before shooting the scens, and Scott said it was ok to
do in his dying scene..
Blade Runner won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation in 1983 (beating out
E.T.). In a poll of members of the 1992 World Science Fiction Convention, Blade Runner was
named as the third most favorite SF film of all time (behind Star Wars and 2001: A Space
Odyssey).
Deckard drives through a landmark tunnel featured in many Hollywood films.
Sebastian's apartment is full of bastardised creatures, part man, part machine, and
part animal.
There is a stuffed unicorn on Sebastian's work table (screen right, as the mice scurry
over scattered paraphernalia while Sebastian sleeps).
Each character is associated with an animal:
Leon = Turtle
Roy = Wolf, Dove
Zhora = Snake
Rachael = Spider
Tyrell = Owl
Sebastian = Mouse
Pris = Raccoon
Deckard = Sushi (raw fish), unicorn
"Ethyl methanesulfonate as an alkylating agent" is a mutagen, and the
subsequent debate between Batty and Tyrell correctly explores the problems associated with
changing a cell's DNA.
When Gaff picks up Deckard, the launch sequence on the computer is the same one used in
Scott's "Alien", where the escape pod separates from the Mother ship.
The black-and-white display of the VK machine was also used as a wall display in
"Alien".
When Deckard enters his apartment at the end, the background hum is the same
distinctive hum as in parts of "Alien".
The cigarettes smoke in BR are the same yellow color as the ones in "Alien".
Notice that both "Alien" and BR have "artificial persons", and
there is ambiguity as to who is/was a real human.
The difference is that Ash is a robot with mechanical insides.
E.T.A. Hoffman, a 19th century German writer, wrote "The Automata", which
featured a man who fell in love with a female piano-playing automaton.
When he discovers that she is an automaton, he goes insane. He regains his
sanity, only
to fall from a tall building calling "beautiful eyes".
It was her eyes that convinced him that she must be an automaton. |