"Break the Fourth Wall" Nit: How is there not already a "Blade Runner" thread in this section?

Other nits:

1. The Voight-Kampf test. This question-answer test in which the questioner (typically a blade runner) simultaneously observes a magnified view of the questionee's eye seems at first glance like a cool way for the movie to show the audience that it's really hard to tell a replicant from a human (20 to 30 questions are typical to make the distinction, although Rachel takes nearly 100 questions from Deckard before he figures out she's a replicant). My problem is not so much with the test, but with the fact that, in the movie, the test seems like an unnecessarily complex primary test, when it should be a secondary test, particularly as it applies to the replicant Leon near the beginning of the movie. Leon is one of six replicants being sought after by government authorities at the beginning of the movie, based on the fact that the six replicants hijacked a ship, killed 23 humans, and landed on Earth in violation of anti-replicant trespassing law (we later learn that two of the six replicants were "fried" trying to break into the Tyrell Corporation). The authorities have Leon's photograph, and presumably all of his specifications from information supplied by the Tyrell Corporation, Leon's maker. But instead of first feeding Leon's photograph or fingerprints into a searchable database of known or wanted replicants to see if Leon is a replicant, the blade runner at the beginning of the movie apparently goes directly to administration of the Voight-Kampf test to Leon. It seems to me that the Voight-Kampf test should only be necessary if the replicant is unregistered, and that replicants other than black market replicants should be registered, given the potential hazards they present should they develop aspirations.

2. The four-year replicant lifespan. Seems like an inadequate stopgap against dangerous replicants. What if a replicant goes nuts in year one? I guess that's where blade runners come in. But...

3. Blade runners. Why are there police officer's (called blade runners) who specialize in "retiring" replicants? We are told that replicants are just as smart as humans, but not smarter. We are also told that replicants are much stronger than humans, but human weaponry is plenty strong enough to kill replicants, and it seems like ordinary law enforcement could get the job done by putting a task force together to hunt down replicants as necessary. Why is it that in the movie, one blade runner, Deckard, is tasked with hunting down four replicants, when there is a good chance that unless he manages to kill all four at once, he could spook one or all of them and put the human population in greater danger?

There are other nits/issues (e.g. the issue of Deckard's status as a human or replicant), but I'll get to those another time.

My wife and I caught a special screening of Blade Runner last weekend. I haven't seen this film in many, many years. It was great to see a young Harrison Ford, Edward James Olmos, Rutger Hauer and Sean Young. Not so much to see the young Darryl Hannah, but dang if she ain't hot when she does her cartwheels...

Interesting continuity point I picked up. The police call the replicants "skin jobs". In the revamped Sci-Fi channel's Battlestar Galactica, the humans call the human-looking cylons "skin jobs". Edward James Olmos has parts in both this movie and the TV show.

The authorities have Leon's photograph, and presumably all of his specifications from information supplied by the Tyrell Corporation, Leon's maker. - Ryan
I hear that there are multiple versions of the movie at this time, so I am speaking only of the director's cut. But the police had Leon's photograph only after he assaulted the blade runner. It's possible that the authorities didn't know which models of replicants they were seeking to that point, likely because they'd left no witnesses.

The four-year replicant lifespan. Seems like an inadequate stopgap against dangerous replicants. - Ryan
Again, in the director's cut, the scientist who created the replicants says that the limited lifespan was the result of the limits of their scientific ability to stabilize the biological part of the replicants, and not a deliberate limitation imposed by the creators.

Why are there police officer's (called blade runners) who specialize in "retiring" replicants? - Ryan
For the same reasons that contemporary law enforcement agencies employ homicide detectives, vice units, and other specialties. Patrol officers have general knowledge of the law and policing tactics and policies. For specialized situations, experts who have studied those situations and are trained to handle them are brought in to make sure that the situation is handled in accordance with the law. Granted, you have an excellent point that it's silly to assign one retired blade runner to take out 4 replicants, but Deckard has likely studied replicants extensively and is more likely able to predict their actions, given his expertise in their abilities, than a squad of patrolment who are thrown together and told to go find the replicant.

The authorities have Leon's photograph, and presumably all of his specifications from information supplied by the Tyrell Corporation, Leon's maker. - Ryan
I hear that there are multiple versions of the movie at this time, so I am speaking only of the director's cut. But the police had Leon's photograph only after he assaulted the blade runner. It's possible that the authorities didn't know which models of replicants they were seeking to that point, likely because they'd left no witnesses. - Obi-Juan

If the police only had Leon's photograph after he killed Holden, the blade runner at the beginning of the movie, that seems like a nit. When Deckard went to see Bryant near the beginning of the movie, Bryant told Deckard that "two weeks ago", six replicants (of which Leon is one) jumped a shuttle from one of the off-world colonies, killed the crew and passengers (23 people), and that an aerial patrol found the shuttle floating off the coast the same two weeks ago, which is why Bryant (and others presumably in the know) knew that the replicants were still on Earth in the area. Bryant then told Deckard that "three nights ago" the replicants tried to break into the Tyrell Corporation, and two got "fried" running through an electrical field, while the other replicants were lost to authorities. Bryant then told Deckard that on the off chance that any of the remaining replicants might try to infiltrate the Tyrell Corporation as employees, Bryant had the blade runner Holden go over to the Tyrell Corporation and run the Voight-Kampf test on new workers. The intercom voice we heard identifying Holden's next interviewee as Holden looked out the window just before Leon entered the Voight-Kampf interview room announced that "Leon Kowalski" (Leon) was a new employee in waste disposal and implied that he had been on the job six days. Holden had to have been killed within the 3 days prior to Deckard's initial meeting with Bryant.

Before Holden was sent over to the Tyrell Corporation to run Voight-Kampf on new workers, it doesn't make sense to me that the Tyrell Corporation wouldn't have already provided law enforcement with a photographic or video database of head shots for all of its replicant models, for comparison reference, with the kinds of images seen of Roy Batty, Zhora, and Pris on the monitor in Bryant's office. Incidently, the only image of Leon shown to Deckard in Bryant's office came from Leon's Voight-Kampf test with Holden, which only makes sense if Leon wasn't created by the Tyrell Corporation, or there was no similar video of Leon from another source, or Bryant just didn't feel like showing Deckard the video of Leon's rotating head with the opaque skull cap, because the Voight-Kampf video was better. It's possible that, when Leon had his Voight-Kampf test, law enforcement didn't know what the remaining four replicants looked like. However, it would have been much easier to first get photographs of Leon's face (stealthily if necessary), and do a high-speed comparison with a database of known replicant models, than to start by asking Leon questions about overturned tortoises and his mother.

The four-year replicant lifespan. Seems like an inadequate stopgap against dangerous replicants. - Ryan
Again, in the director's cut, the scientist who created the replicants says that the limited lifespan was the result of the limits of their scientific ability to stabilize the biological part of the replicants, and not a deliberate limitation imposed by the creators. - Obi-Juan

Bryant tells Deckard in their initial meeting that the designers built-in the 4-year replicant lifespan as a failsafe device to handle the potential problem of replicants developing their own emotional responses (love, hate, fear, anger, envy, etc.), which were the only thing left out by the designers in making replicants copy human beings in "every way". Later, in Tyrell's home, Tyrell tells Roy Batty that Roy's lifespan cannot be increased, because the genetic coding sequencing is pretty much locked in once incubation has entered the second day, that various attempts at genetic code alterations after the second day have been unsuccesful to fatal, and that Roy was made as well as Tyrell Corp. could make him (in response to Roy musing to Tyrell that he was apparently made "not to last"). Here, I think Bryant is telling the truth, and Tyrell is lying to Batty with respect to why there is the 4-year lifespan. I think Tyrell knew he was in a tight spot with Roy right there in his bedroom, and Tyrell was just trying to avoid Roy going ballistic on him, which is why he told Roy that even though there wasn't anything Tyrell could do for him, Roy should essentially look on the bright side and keep his chin up. Also, Tyrell never tells Roy, or Deckard earlier, that the 4-year replicant lifespan is not intentional on the part of the designers (i.e. that the genetic coding sequence could not be set initially for lifespans of longer than 4 years, before the incubation period begins).

Why are there police officer's (called blade runners) who specialize in "retiring" replicants? - Ryan
For the same reasons that contemporary law enforcement agencies employ homicide detectives, vice units, and other specialties. Patrol officers have general knowledge of the law and policing tactics and policies. For specialized situations, experts who have studied those situations and are trained to handle them are brought in to make sure that the situation is handled in accordance with the law. Granted, you have an excellent point that it's silly to assign one retired blade runner to take out 4 replicants, but Deckard has likely studied replicants extensively and is more likely able to predict their actions, given his expertise in their abilities, than a squad of patrolment who are thrown together and told to go find the replicant. - Obi-Juan

It wasn't my intent to imply that what I meant by "ordinary law enforcement" was "patrol officers" in a municipal police department. By "ordinary law enforcement", I meant law enforcement as we know it today, which encompasses the various units within munipical police agencies, as well as law enforcement in state and federal agencies, each of which have their own specialized units. There are various specialized units within various law enforcement agencies, because the things those units deal with are large or significant areas of criminal activity with unique investigatory issues (e.g. homicide, narcotics, gangs, financial crimes, etc.). However, with "blade runners", the rogue replicant problem in the movie world doesn't seem big enough or unique enough to have guys on police payrolls as blade runners (Bryant tells Deckard that there are "four skin jobs walking the streets", implying that that's it, at least in Los Angeles, other than the supposed Nexus 6 at the Tyrell Corp. on which Bryant wants Deckard to run Voight-Kampf). Essentially, to catch these replicants, you just need good detective work, good weapons, and man-power (or woman-power). A replicant is supposed to copy human in every way, except for being stronger, less emotionally experienced, and lacking memories of a lifetime commensurate with their physical age appearance (except for Rachel). And there doesn't appear to be anything about the Voight-Kampf test that requires years of study to master. Why couldn't the F.B.I., in coordination with state and local law enforcement, handle the occasional rogue replicant problem?

I get the impression that there used to be a Blade Runner section that got lost at some point, so this probably isn't new but anyways, there are a few nits early on. I haven't seen the final cut yet so it's possible that these were edited there.

1) Bryant brings Deckard in and tells him there are four Replicants running loose and mentions how they stole a shuttle. After Deckard asks why they're interested in the Tyrell Corp., Bryant tells him 'You're the expert, you tell me'. Next scene, he's in another room showing Deckard information on the Replicants and repeats some of the basic information he just told Deckard a minute ago. Methinks these two scenes weren't originally intended to be shown together since they're somewhat redundant.

2) Bryant explains how Tyrell was worried about Replicants developing their own emotions and mentions the safeguard built in to prevent it. Deckard, supposedly the expert former Blade Runner, has to ask what this is. Cabbageism at its finest, since Deckard should know as much as Bryant when it comes to Replicants, if not more.

I'm ignoring the question of whether Deckard is or isn't a Replicant himself since even if he is, he should have an appropriate set of memories reflecting his 'past' and should still know that information.

3) Bryant says there were six Replicants, yet we only see four. He mentions that one was fried by a security field. I've heard that in interviews it was said that the line was supposed to mention two originally and there's no missing Replicant but nitpickers don't have to deal in reality.

>3) Bryant says there were six
>Replicants, yet we only see four.
>He mentions that one was fried
>by a security field. I've heard
>that in interviews it was said
>that the line was supposed to
>mention two originally and there's
>no missing Replicant but nitpickers
>don't have to deal in reality.

The "missing Replicant" was named Mary and written out of the script before filming began.

As far as how many replicants got fried, there are two versions of that scene. The version with only one being fried was probably a continuity gaffe caused by writing out Mary.

The version with two being fried was in the workprint version of the film, but aparently the wrong version ended up getting put in the final film when it was released theatrically. The "two fried" version has been restored in the Final Cut version of the film.