The possibility that Deckard is a replicant always struck me as one of the weakest parts of the movie, especially when compared to the much more elegant way it was handled in the book. The continued insistence of Scott to make it less and less of a possibility (and more and more of a certainty) through successive cuts always really irritated me.

I can always take refuge in death of the author, though... and if that's not enough, I can go the other way remember that PKD has stated he's fully human.

And the simple fact that the final confrontation makes little sense (or, at least, way less than if the was a replicant) if Deckard isn't human, as Ford put it back when he still fought about it with Scott. (Honestly, I don't blame him for backing off -- prolonged arguments like this are one of the most tiresome things I know)

Could you just imagine the nerd rage that would come frothing out over a game like that. It would be so delicious to see...

Almost delicious enough to let it happen? Nononono...

How does that scene make less sense if he was a robot?

I should have explained it there, but I did quess someone would ask, sorry 'bout that...

Well, the way I see it, the whole final confrontation is a showdown between a man (Deckard) and an Android (Batty). In the process, Deckard, for a moment, sees the world through an android's eyes, learns how it is to live knowing you could die at any moment, and that that moment is very near.

Were he a replicant all along, this would all lose it's significance, it would just be a weaker robot against a stronger robot, with the stronger robot eventually pitying the weaker one because he knows he is going to die. The tension, in my opinion, would not be anything comparable.

As it is, I think Batty would have killed Deckard had he caught up with him earlier. Since Deckard managed to avoid him until Batty's moment of death, Batty, being vastly intelligent and experienced for his short life span saw the only way he could "win" was letting Deckard live. Live knowing replicants were capable of all the emotions humans are, so that he would never be able to retire another replicant in his lifetime. Compared, the tension is enormous. There is a subtle twist to the end, and there are two distinct worlds colliding.

This is the way I see it. And the way I see, making Deckard a replicant would be a cheap kind of twist, tantamount to a cliche -- something I wouldn't accuse Blade Runner of.

No offense, of course. I realize there are two distinct schools of seeing this. In retrospect, I must say calling it a "simple fact" is downright wrong, and I apologize for that.

I don't know, but there is something charming about the Infinity Engine. Maybe it's just nostalgia.

Absolutely true, there was a ton missing, a lot of which I found central to the story. I settled for calling it "most accurate" as I've found others to stray even further from the stories they were based on. I haven't, however, seen A Scanner Darkly, so this is exciting to read. I'll have to check it out really soon. :)

Scott needs to quit making films

So, when people make a sequel/prequel/reboot to a movie, that same movie ceases to exist for you?

P.S: And for those who don't know, you actually have the option to ignore them. Weird, right?

Me neither.

Can someone enlighten us? I hope it's more complicated than simple nostalgia shattering truth that one's old favourite maybe wasn't as epic as you want it to be..

Didn't we already have this discussion little time age ?

Sequels often redefine the events of the previous movies, their characters, and their implied endings. They fill blanks which emptiness were a part of the first story's quality. When they do it badly, the response is to "ignore" the sequel. But this is a bit artificial, and fake, like ignoring the following chapter in a book, or the following volume, or the following episode in a series. The character's general, collective, consensual definition, is shaped by the whole series, so, you end up alone on you little island of denial, instead of sharing a story with the rest of its public.

You can choose -if it bothers you- to imagine that Holmes died for real in the Reichenbach falls, or that Ian Malcolm died in the Jurassic Park, or that James Bond lived forever married with Stacy, or whatever, if you decide to interrupt a story at the point where you want it. But it's a divorce from the biography of the characters as the authors resumed it, and as the public then knows it. If you discuss Holmes, you're just "wrong" claiming that he ended his life with Moriarty. It's not (collectively) true anymore. You can just go "for me, he did", ti which people can answer that yeah whatever, and go discuss Conan Doyle's work elsewhere.

Of course, this depends a bit on the legitimacy of the sequel (for instance, I think most people simply ignore "Casablanca 2", some works keep consensual unicity). But generally, the relation to the story is changed, as some specific "personal interpretation" is suddenly required. It's not nothing, it is an annoyance.

I guess I have too much of a ego to bother to care what others think of when a fiction should or shouldn't stop. After all, if a sequel or prequel is a good enough to enjoy, I enjoy it. Simple as that. I also think that I'm a bit of a cynic so I always expect a sequel or prequel to something that was well written (especially at that time it was both original and had its own way) to not live up to expectations.

yeah! I was gonna post pretty much the same. As long as they get a good writer (bonus points if there's no producer pushing for dumb action in favor of characters) I think Ridley can pull a good sequel. In fact as little as I know it's more of a new movie taking place in the same universe than a "sequel".