CS Weekly Archive > Weekend Read > 11/30/07

More Human Than Human

By david michael wharton

As Blade Runner: The Final Cut continues its theatrical run leading up to the December 18 DVD release, CS Weekly's managing editor seizes the chance to see it on the big screen for the first time, and finds a film that has only gotten better with time.

Blade Runner: The Final Cut

Hampton Fancher and David Peoples
Based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

In a bleak 2019 Los Angeles, retired cop Deckard (Harrison Ford) reluctantly returns to duty after the murder of a fellow Blade Runner—elite officers tasked with hunting down and killing biologically engineered androids called replicants. The replicants are programmed with a four-year life-span to prevent them from developing emotions, and Deckard's four targets, lead by the charismatic and deadly Roy Batty (Rutget Hauer) have managed to kill and sneak their way back to earth in search of their creator, Tyrell Corporation head Dr. Eldon Tyrell (Joe Turkel). Deckard's hunt leads him into the arms of unknowing replicant Rachael (Sean Young), and forces him to question not just the morality of a career spent "retiring" replicants, but his own identity, and just what comprises the nature of humanity.

Based on Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Blade Runner is a noir dystopian nightmare world wrapped in the trappings of hard-boiled detective fiction. As with the burgeoning literary "cyberpunk" movement that was in full swing at the time of the film's 1982 release, it shares many of its basic tropes and icons with the gritty, corrupt worlds of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett (one of my college professors will be happy to see that I've finally put that semester of "Literature and Cyberspace" to good use). Deckard wouldn't be out of place at a poker table with Philip Marlowe or Jake Gittes, a bitter and cynical sort who's particularly gifted at a profession he doesn't particularly enjoy. As with any good bit of hard-boiled fiction, the cops often seem more corrupt and unseemly than the criminals they pursue (M. Emmet Walsh as Bryant, Deckard's boss, deserves some sort of special recognition for the sleaziness of his performance), and the moral landscape is painted entirely in shades of gray.

At the center of the proceedings is Roy Batty, perhaps one of the most intriguing villains ever put to screen. Alternately vicious, charming, childlike, and cold, Batty was designed as a soldier, and like far too many soldiers returning home, he finds a world that has no use for him once the battle is done. He knows that he and his three companions are nearing the end of their pre-programmed lifespans, though he doesn't know exactly how long they've got. Now they face an imminent death just as they have begun to become something more than the sum of their programming, and that terrible realization leads him home to his maker, seeking salvation, redemption, forgiveness…and failing those, just some good old-fashioned revenge. The motto of the Tyrell Corporation, from which this review gets its title, is "More Human Than Human," and the replicants, whatever their artificial origins, are all too human. Rather than 70 years with which to grapple the questions of existence, the replicants get four years. That same feeling we all experience, that just when you start figuring things out, you're too old to do anything about it, is magnified through the ephemeral existences of Batty, Leon (Brion James), Zhora (Joanna Cassidy), and Pris (Daryl Hannah). As a result, the replicants' characterizations are a fascinating mixture of childlike innocence, adolescent angst, and fear of their impending mortality. They are the span of our lives, writ small.

Rachael represents the next generation of replicant: "gifted" with memories of a childhood that never happened, she believes herself to be human. When Deckard yanks the carpet out from under her by revealing that her childhood memories actually belong to Tyrell's niece, her plight highlights the film's paramount question: what does it mean to be human? Is our humanity defined by our emotions? By where we've come from? Or by our choices and actions in the present? The director's cut and this new final cut of the film prevent us from keeping those questions at arm's length by suggesting that our viewpoint character, Deckard, may himself be "more human than human." While Blade Runner has been hailed for its ground-breaking vision of the not-too-distant future, it is this focus on timeless issues of memory, humanity, and mortality that keeps the film, if anything, more timely now than it was 20 years ago. While we may be no closer to having flying cars now than we were in 1982, the question of what constitutes life is one that creeps into newscasts every day, in discussions of everything from abortion to cloning to religion to stem cell research. The debates at the heart of Blade Runner are the same debates unfolding on CNN and in our homes and in our hearts, and while we may be no closer to solving them, we can't help but believe that the answer lies somewhere in Batty's final choice, when he—a cold-blooded killer many times over—chooses to save the life of his enemy, even if only to be remembered after he's gone.

For this "Final Cut," the changes for the most part seem to be small and cosmetic, operating from the justified belief that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Aside from cleaning up the film (the new version looks as good on screen as anything I've seen in the past decade, if not better), some of the more violent footage that was deleted from the U.S. theatrical and director's cuts has been restored, a verbal gaff has been tweaked to remove mention of the non-existent "sixth replicant," and actress Joanna Cassidy was called in to reshoot some of her death scene so that a bit of digital polishing could make her stunt double less noticeable. The infamous "unicorn" scene has been tweaked slightly, strengthening the closing moments' implication that Deckard is a replicant. And perhaps the most noticeable change, at least for me, is that the shot of blue sky into which Batty's dove flies after his death—the only blue sky witnessed in the entire film—has been replaced with a properly murky skyline. It might be less poetic, but at least it's consistent, and the beauty of the "Tears in rain" sequence isn't diminished for its loss. (Check back with CS Weekly in upcoming weeks for Jason Davis' feature article tracking the various different versions of Blade Runner over the years.)

Its vision of the future has influenced damn near every science fiction film that's come since, but Blade Runner's greatest strengths lie in its fundamental humanity, and in its dogged questioning of just what precisely that means.

Blade Runner: The Final Cut
Warner Bros.
Rated R; 117 min. 

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David Michael Wharton is the managing editor of CS Weekly and a contributing editor for Creative Screenwriting. He is neither more nor less human than human.

Blade Runner courtesy Warner Bros.

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