[edit] Was Deckard a replicant?
Main article: Themes in Blade Runner
Blade Runner's dark paranoid atmosphere – and multiple versions of the film – adds fuel to the speculation and debate over this issue.
In the book, Rick Deckard (the main character) is at one point tricked into following an andy, who believes himself to be a police officer, to a faked police station. Deckard then escapes and "retires" some andys there before returning to his own police station. However, Deckard takes the Voigt-Kampff (different spelling) test and it fails to indicate that he is an android.
Harrison Ford, who played Deckard in the film, has said that he did not think Deckard was a replicant, and also states he and the director had discussions that ended in the agreement that the character was human. However, according to director Ridley Scott, Deckard is indeed a replicant.[2] He collects photographs, seen crowding over his piano, yet has no obvious family, beyond a reference to his ex-wife (who called him cold fish). Furthermore in the Director's Cut police officer Gaff (played by Edward James Olmos) leaves Rick Deckard an origami Unicorn a day after Rick dreamed of one. Just before Deckard finds the unicorn, Gaff says to him in passing, "It's too bad she [Rachael] won't live...then again, who does?". A unicorn can also be seen briefly in a scene in J. F. Sebastian's home, amongst scattered toys (to the right of a sleeping Sebastian, while Pris snoops around his equipment).
Paul Sammon, author of Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner, has suggested in interviews that Deckard may be a Nexus-7, a next-generation replicant who possesses no superhuman strength or intelligence, but brain implants that complete the human illusion. This view is shared by Ridley Scott. [3] Sammon also suggests that Nexus-7 replicants may not have a preset lifespan (i.e., they could be immortal).[4]
