Rick Deckard

Film	Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?	Jeter books

Rick Deckard
Biographical information
Alias	Mr. Niemand
Family	Ex-wife Rachael - Lover; deceased
Occupation	Blade Runner
Affiliations	LAPD
Physical description
Gender	Male
Hair color	Brown
Eye color	Hazel
Behind the scenes
Portrayed by	Harrison Ford

Rick M. Deckard was a Blade Runner of the Los Angeles Police Department who was assigned in 2019 to retire four replicants who stole a ship and illegally landed on Earth to find their creator, Dr. Eldon Tyrell.

After finishing his assignment, he left Los Angeles for a cabin in Oregon with the replicant, Rachael, who he kept stored in a transport sleep module in order to extend her life. Less than a year later, he was summoned by Rachael's templant, Sarah Tyrell, to retire the elusive sixth replicant.

Shortly thereafter, under the name Mr. Niemand, Deckard emigrated to the Off-world colonies with Sarah. He found work in Outer Hollywood as a consultant on a film about his Blade Runner career. At this time, a group of replicant sympathizers sought his help to foil the United Nations' plans to exterminate replicant life from the colonies.

He later took in Sarah's twin sister, the child Rachael Tyrell and continued living in the colonies, where he crossed paths with the Blade Runner Iris.

Biography

Prior to 2019, Deckard was divorced, and his father and mother had died. He had an aunt, who was religious, in contrast to his non-religious upbringing. He had retired from his job as a Blade Runner because he felt the Nexus-3 replicant was "too smooth, too human." During his time as a Blade Runner, he had been partners with Dave Holden.

2019

Coming out of retirement

In 2019, the LAPD sent out Blade Runner Gaff to pull Deckard out of his retirement in the light that six rogue Nexus-6 models had arrived on Earth for unknown purposes. Deckard, while seated at the White Dragon, eating noodles, was interrupted by Gaff who arrested Deckard and took him to his spinner and headed for LAPD headquarters.

Mission briefing

"I was quit when I came in here Bryant. I'm twice as quit now"

―Deckard to Bryant

Deckard met with his former boss, Harry Bryant, and was given an ultimatum - track down a rogue Nexus-6 or live the rest of his life as a "little person" and forever be harassed by the LAPD. Deckard questioned why Holden had not been given the task, only to find out that Holden tried and failed already. Concluding that he had no choice, Deckard sat down with Bryant to discuss the six renegade replicants.

Sitting in a dimly lit projector room, Bryant explained that out of the six replicants, one was fried in electrical traps after trying to infiltrate the Tyrell Corporation while the others escaped. Leon was shown first, whose encounter with Holden was documented during his Voight-Kampff test. Roy, the leader of the rogue group, Zhora, and Pris were shown to Deckard as well. Bryant also gave Deckard information on Nexus-6 models; namely, replicants that were dangerous because their emotions were childlike, given their raw strength and mental intelligence. A fail-safe was given to Nexus-6 that would only allow them to live for four years, negating any worry that they would be around to cause damage. Bryant ordered Deckard to go to the Tyrell Corporation and test a Nexus-6 model with a Voight-Kampff test that would allow the Blade Runner to understand how to spot them in the field.

Meeting Rachael and Eldon Tyrell

"She's a replicant isn't she... she doesn't know... how can it not know what it is?"

―Deckard to Tyrell about Rachael

Deckard and Gaff flew over to the immense Tyrell Corporation pyramid. Deckard held a brief conversation about the nature of the owl in Tyrell's meeting room with his secretary, Rachael. Their conversation was interrupted by Tyrell himself, who asked Deckard to demonstrate the Voight-Kampff test on a human, namely Rachael, before he provided him with a Nexus-6.

Deckard converses with Rachael about the risks of a Blade Runner

Rachael answered over one-hundred questions before being asked to step outside of the room by Tyrell. Deckard concluded that she was a replicant that did not know she was one. There, Deckard learned from Tyrell that Rachael was an experiment in providing replicants with memories to control them better. He left with Gaff to investigate Leon's apartment at the Yukon Hotel.

1187 Hunterwasser and Rachael's visit

"Okay. Bad joke. I made a bad joke. You're not a replicant... go home."

―Deckard to Rachael

After crossing the street in heavy rain, Deckard and Gaff were taken to Leon Kowalski's apartment by the owner of the Yukon. Deckard found a scale in the bathtub of the apartment while Gaff created an origami man with an erect penis. Deckard continued to search for anything useful and came across a handful of photos belonging to Leon.

Deckard returned to his apartment, only to find Rachael waiting for him in the elevator. He attempted to make her leave, but eventually gave in when Rachael told him that Tyrell wouldn't see her. After offering her a drink, Rachael attempted to convince Deckard that she wasn't a replicant by showing him a picture of herself as a child with her mother. Deckard brushed this off and explained specific memories that only she would know, telling her they were implants from Tyrell's niece. Seeing that she was visibly shaken, Deckard attempted to retract his statements and get her a drink but Rachael stormed out, leaving her photo behind.

The Dream, Esper Analysis, and Animoid Row

Sometime after Rachael left, Deckard played the piano and began to fall asleep, dreaming of a unicorn galloping through a forest. He grabbed Leon's photos from earlier and analyze them in his Esper machine. After perusing the photo, he came across a mirror and used it to find Zhora, with a snake tattoo and sleeping on a couch. He concluded that the scale belonged to her, and headed to Animoid Row to investigate the scale further.

Upon reaching Animoid Row, Deckard asked the fish vendor if the scale he found was from a fish. The woman informs him that it was not fish, but snake, and pointed him in the direction of Abdul Ben Hassan, the creator of the snake. Deckard made his way through Animoid Row and threatened Hassan to give up who he sold the snake to, learning that the snake belonged to someone working at Taffey Lewis' nightclub in First Sector, China Town.

Taffey Lewis' and Zhora

"I'd had people walk out on me before, but not when I was being... so charming."

―Deckard to Rachael

Deckard proceeded to Taffey Lewis', speaking with the owner personally about Zhora. Lewis merely dismissed Deckard and he was left with a drink on the house. Deckard attempted to call Rachael with the number on the back of her photo, but failed to get her down to Taffey Lewis'. Rachael told Deckard it was not her kind of place and hung up on him. Deckard was present for Miss Salome (Zhora) and her snake dance, visibly uncomfortable by the spectacle. He noticed, however, that she was the replicant he'd been looking for.

After the performance, Deckard hung around near the dressing rooms, waiting for Zhora. He found her and went into her dressing room under the guise of a member of the American Federation of Variety Artists. His attempt at hiding his identity only make Zhora more suspicious and, after her shower, she punched him after asking him to dry her. Zhora attempted to strangle Deckard but was interrupted by more performers coming into the room. Zhora fled, with Deckard following shortly after.

Deckard aiming at Zhora, about to kill her

Zhora nearly succeeded in losing Deckard among the crowded streets of Los Angeles, but was eventually hunted down and shot twice in the back. She crashed through several glass panes before succumbing to her injuries. Deckard, visibly shaken, showed his identity to the responding officers and looked on as Zhora is taken away. Moments later, Gaff took Deckard to Bryant's spinner to inform him that four replicants still remained; Rachael being included among them.

Confrontation with Leon

Leon confronting Deckard after Zhora's retirement

Deckard caught glimpses of Rachael in the crowd of onlookers, and attempted to find her. Before he could, Leon grabbed him and demanded to know how much life he had left. Deckard answered him honestly, and the two fought. Leon slapped Deckard's gun out of his hands and easily beat down Deckard. As he prepared to gouge Deckard's eyes out, Leon was shot in the head by Rachael with Deckard's gun, causing him to collapse, dead.

Rachael and Deckard

Deckard telling Rachael someone will eventually hunt her

Deckard and Rachael left the streets and returned to his apartment. There, Deckard told Rachael that he would not hunt her down, but that eventually, the LAPD would send another. Before falling asleep, Deckard was asked by Rachael if he had ever taken the Voight-Kampff test himself, but he fell asleep before he could answer. Rachael began to play the piano, and Deckard woke. He joined her at the piano, complimenting her that she played beautifully. Deckard attempted to kiss Rachael who, not yet understanding who or what she was, attempted to leave. Deckard forced Rachael to stay and the two shared an intimate moment together.

Hunting Pris and Roy

Learning of the death of Tyrell and J.F. Sebastian, Deckard called Sebastian's vidphone, only to encounter Pris as she answered the call. She immediately hung up and Deckard moved towards the Bradbury Apartments to retire her. Pris hid among all of Sebastian's creations, ambushing Deckard and nearly breaking his neck. As Pris prepared to attack him again, Deckard shot, but failed to kill Pris. As she writhed on the ground, it took one or two more shots to finally put her out of her misery. Deckard was visibly uncomfortable by this confrontation and moves to a location to ambush Roy Batty.

Meanwhile, Roy returned from his confrontation with Tyrell to find Sebastian's apartment broken into and Pris shot dead on the ground. After Deckard failed to ambush Roy, he got his fingers broken by the replicant leader and was told to run.

Rooftop finality

Roy, near the end of his life, chased Deckard throughout the Bradbury Apartments. Because of his broken fingers, Deckard dropped his gun and continued to head for the roof. Roy followed closely, counting up from one and becoming increasingly erratic and more animalistic. Deckard was eventually able to reach the roof, but was confronted by Roy as he attempted to flee. Deckard leapt from the Bradbury to a nearby rooftop, but failed to grab hold of anything stable and hangs hundreds of feet above the streets.

Roy, now with a dove in his hands, made the jump easily and turned to stand above Deckard. Before slipping, Deckard spat at Roy and was shockingly saved from his death by the replicant. Roy placed Deckard back onto the roof and gave one final speech about his life experiences before smiling at Deckard and dying peacefully. Deckard was left to contemplate the importance of life while Gaff arrived and gave Deckard his gun back, implying that Deckard's job was done and that it was too bad that Rachael would not live.

Fleeing Los Angeles

Deckard returned to his apartment, battered and broken. His door open and fearing the worst, Deckard was relieved to find Rachael alive and well in his bed. He asked her if she loved and trusted him, and prepared to leave Los Angeles. Before leaving, Deckard noticed that Rachael knocked something over in the hallway. Deckard picked up an origami unicorn, presumably left by Gaff. Deckard nodded in understanding and got in the elevator with Rachael, leaving Los Angeles behind for a new life. Deckard escaped to Oregon with Rachael.

Sixth replicant

Over the next several months, Deckard arranged to have a Tyrell transport sleep module stolen, storing Rachael inside it in an attempt to extend her lifespan. Initially, he would release Rachael from the module for twenty-four hours, once per month. But eventually, this would be reduced to twelve hours every two months, due to growing fear of Rachael's imminent expiration.

One day in August 2020, while Deckard gathered wood outside of the cabin he shared with Rachael, he noticed a spinner flying overhead. He shortly returned inside, starting a fire and tending to Rachael's sleep module. After going back outside, he was soon visited by Rachael's templant, Sarah Tyrell. Due to her resemblance to Rachael, he initially believed that she was a hallucination, brought on by his failing mental health.

After Deckard suggested ending his own life and hers, Sarah slapped his gun out of his hand and revealed that she was Eldon Tyrell's niece, a claim Deckard did not believe, as he knew Tyrell had no family. However, Sarah said she had been born on the Salander 3, thus her birth was not recorded in the files Deckard was familiar with. When Deckard asked Sarah why she was there, she knelt beside the sleep module and let her hair down, holding her face near Rachael's identical one. She said she had come out of curiosity of what love was like for Rachael and told Deckard he would learn many things he didn't already know. She then left in his spinner.

Immediately after Sarah left, a team of Tyrell agents took Deckard to the Tyrell headquarters. There, Sarah poured him a drink and offered a Blade Runner job to him, but before he could get any details, he suggested she go to Holden instead. This prompted her to reveal a recording of Deckard doing the same when he was offered his last assignment. She played the recording further, revealing that Bryant had indicated that only one of the replicants had died before he was given the assignment, meaning a sixth was still unaccounted for. Deckard reluctant to take the job, reasoning that Bryant must have been mistaken, but Sarah had a rebuttal ready for each of his arguments. She went on to describe the United Nations' intent to destroy the Tyrell Corporation if the Nexus-6 was proven to be dangerous enough to ban completely. As Deckard prepared to leave without taking the job, Sarah offered Rachael as a reward, using her own resemblance to Rachael to finally convince him to accept the job.

During his assignment, he was first sent to the Van Nuys Pet Hospital, where he spoke with its head, Isidore, who condemned Deckard's job as a Blade Runner, comparing it to a Third Reich Rassenprüfer. Isidore went on to state that the Voigt-Kampff test was flawed, and had caused human deaths, using the St. Paul incident as an example. Further, Isidore revealed to Deckard that the Pet Hospital serviced replicants so that they could pass the Voigt-Kampff test. Finally, Isidore told Deckard that Pris had actually been a human who suffered a psychotic break and lived as a replicant.

As he prepared to leave the Pet Hospital, Deckard noticed among photos of the hospital founder Hannibal Sloat a newspaper clipping of Anson and Ruth Tyrell – Sarah's parents – preparing to board the ill-fated Salander 3. Deckard asked Isidore why the Tyrells chose to return to Earth – a trip that caused their deaths – though he did not have the answer.

After witnessing the destruction of an Off-world colonies advertising blimp, Deckard incapacitated a police officer and stole his uniform. He made his way to the LAPD headquarters to speak to Bryant, instead finding a persynth of him. Deckard was ambushed by police personnel but managed to escape.

He made his way to an apartment that served as a safehouse to Blade Runners. Upon entering, he was spotted by Squeaker Hussar and was attacked by Pris until J.F. Sebastian intervened. Sebastian explained to Deckard that he had survived his encounter with Batty – contrary to initial reports – and had taken Pris' body from a morgue and revived her, utilizing spare replicant parts.

Holden soon came to the apartment, informing Deckard of an alleged conspiracy by the LAPD to eliminate the entire Blade Runner unit. Holden wished to have Deckard join him in investigating the conspiracy and retiring the sixth replicant, but Deckard refused, opting to continue on his own.

After Holden left, Sarah came to the apartment, having tracked Holden to its location. She coldly shot Pris and demanded that Deckard leave with her. She provided him with a spinner, which he used to later return to the safehouse.

There, he was attacked by Holden and the Roy Batty templant, who believed he was a replicant. Despite being outnumbered, Deckard managed to escape the pair, though Batty soon caught up with him on a section of freeway. Due to Batty's immense strength and agility, Deckard supposed that he was the sixth replicant. During a scuffle, Batty prepared to kill Deckard, but was shot in the head by Holden, who also now believed Batty being a replicant. Deckard and Holden then watched as Pris emerged and went to Batty's body. Holden readied himself to shoot Pris, but Deckard urged him not to, to just leave her be.

Deckard and Holden went to the Tyrell headquarters and Deckard entered Sarah's suite, finding Sarah – perhaps believing she was Rachael – asleep on the bed alongside his gun. A persynth of Sarah appeared on a nearby screen and spoke to him. Deckard resolved that there had actually been no sixth replicant and that the conspiracy had been created by Sarah based on a mistake Bryant had made when briefing Deckard the year prior. The persynth announced the destruction of the building, which Deckard escaped with Sarah and Holden.

Deckard and Sarah subsequently obtained false identifications as "Mr. and Mrs. Niemand" and emigrated Off-world. He eventually came to the realization that Sarah was not Rachael.

Film consultant

Deckard took a job as a consultant for a film chronicling his exploits as a Blade Runner. Upon filming the death of Leon, he realized that the replicant portraying him had actually been killed as part of the scene. Angered, as he had been told that nobody would be killed for the film's production, Deckard searched for the film's director, Urbenton, who had left the set.

He soon found the director locked inside of a room. Urbenton was not on set during the shooting and had been unaware of it occurring, to the point of being skeptical upon learning about it from Deckard. Deckard and Urbenton began to return to the set, but noticed that another scene was being filmed, despite nothing being scheduled. The scene, directed by a man named Marley, was of Leon shooting Holden and it was soon learned that the real Holden had somehow made it onto the set and was used in the scene, being killed in the process.

Deckard decided then to leave the film production. As he left, a production assistant gave him a briefcase displaying his initials, RMD. Contained within was a persynth of Roy Batty, which provided him the details of a mission for Deckard, orchestrated by replicant sympathizers. Also contained in the briefcase was a list of codes that would allow replicants to pass the Voight-Kampff test. The replicant sympathizers wished Deckard to take the package to replicants in the distant colonies.

Inside the suitcase, Deckard found a packet of powder, marked "Sebastian," the replicant sympathizers having transformed Sebastian into a dehydrated deity. By ingesting the capsules with proper preparation, Deckard could meet with Sebastian's personality, in an artificial world that Sebastian controlled. Deckard took the powder and found himself in a re-creation of the Bradbury Apartments, where Sebastian was. Sebastian told Deckard that the persynth of Batty inside the box was not lying, and that the U.N. would completely wipe out the replicants on the colonies unless the insurgency could stop them. Sebastian then admitted that there is some information that the rep-symps did not want him to give Deckard, but that he would do so anyway because Deckard had given him hope: he said that the mission was far more important that Deckard realized, as it had to do with humans as well, and the difference between humans and replicants. Sebastian gave Deckard a box, and then Deckard awakened from the artificial world. Examining the box, it appeared to be an ordinary, ancient first-aid kit. Deckard thought of throwing it away, but decided to keep it, since it was important enough that Sebastian gave it to him.

Deckard returned to the colony on Mars, where he met up with Sarah and a young girl called Rachael who Sarah found in the wreckage of the Salander 3. Sarah insisted that Rachael was a hallucination and when Deckard was able to converse with the girl, Sarah insisted that Deckard was in league with the Tyrell agents who had tasked her with finding information from the Salander 3 and was conspiring to drive her insane. When Deckard hears that the girl's name was Rachael, he asked her directly about Ruth Tyrell and the Salander 3 and she answered that Ruth was her mother and she had been aboard the ship. Sarah prepared to shoot Deckard, but Deckard managed to trick her and escape, taking Rachael with him.

Deckard goes with Rachael to a bar on the colony, where he was ambushed by Marley. Marley showed no desire to fight with Deckard, instead asking him to watch the bar's video screen. The film Deckard had consulted on, titled Blade Runner, appeared on the screen and Deckard realized he had been trapped. When his image was shown on the film, everyone on Earth and the colonies would know who he was, and any attempt at passing undercover with the suitcase would be impossible. However, when the film actually started, the face imaged onto the actor was not Deckard's (as he was told it would be), nor did it even resemble him. Deckard was amazed and Marley explained that this happened because the film had been edited by the cable company at the government's orders. The U.N. wanted Deckard to get through with the briefcase; it had not been sent by the rep-symps at all. The truth that the government was afraid of was that, out on the far colonies, replicants were able to live more than four years. Not only that, but they were able to breed and show clear empathy. Further, humans aged and deteriorated more quickly, and universally became sterile.

Marley explained to Deckard that when Eldon Tyrell designed the original replicants, he included a failsafe mechanism to prevent replicants from breeding: male replicants suffered from an amplified, modified version of "stepfather syndrome," the animal instinct to kill the children of other males. Male replicants, however, had an instinct to kill their own children. In most replicants, this instinct was suppressed unless activated; the information in the briefcase was the trigger signal that would activate this, wiping out the replicant families forming on the far colonies. Finally, Marley took out the first-aid kit that Sebastian gave Deckard, and revealed that a photograph was hidden in one of the compartments. Before Deckard could see the photograph, U.N. troopers burst in with guns. Deckard moved to shoot at them, but his gun was snatched by Marley, who used it to shoot at and destroy the briefcase before Marley himself was shot dead by the troopers. The troopers seized Rachael and took her away, leaving behind a business card for the film company.

In pursuit of Rachael, Deckard returned to the film studio, where the director had set up a series of scenes intended to climax with Sarah killing Deckard live on camera. Deckard found Rachael in a replica of the Bradbury building and he encountered Sarah on the roof. Sarah explained that this would be the final scene of a new version of the film, a version that would be shown on Earth as a documentary; a version where Deckard died at the end of the film, increasing the anti-replicant sentiment on Earth to fever pitch. Deckard challenged Sarah, showing her the photo from the first-aid kit. It showed Anson and Ruth Tyrell aboard the Salander 3 cradling two twin infants: Sarah and Rachael. Sarah protested that if they were sisters, they would be the same age now, but Deckard replied that Rachael's aging was slowed by being stored inside a transport sleep module by Ruth. He further explained to her that the purpose of the Salander 3 mission was not to visit the far colonies at all, but rather to fly towards the far colonies and then return, to see what effects occurred in their vicinity. Anson and Ruth Tyrell were replicants, specially engineered to be unaware of that fact; and when the ship got far enough away from Earth, they became able to breed, and gave birth to Rachael and Sarah. But then, as a male experimental replicant, the modified stepfather syndrome programmed into Anson activated: he was able to murder Ruth before his new-found empathy overrode his programming and he killed himself, and the two children returned to Earth. Rachael was hidden in a sleep module, but Sarah remained exposed. When the ship returned to Earth, Sarah stepped off it alone. Unwilling to destroy Sarah or let her become aware of her nature, Tyrell did the best he could to cover up the entire incident.

Sarah was shocked by the revelation, and finally admitted that she could only deny that Rachael truly existed because she had somehow known that Rachael was truly her sister. Distraught, she asked Deckard to kiss her the way he kissed Rachael, and shot herself while in Deckard's arms. Deckard and the child Rachael left the movie studio, unsure of where they were going.

Later life

Some time later, on a colony, he broke into the apartment belonging to the Blade Runner Iris, who had been assigned to find the owl Scrappy, which contained a backup of Eldon Tyrell's personality. He rigged Iris's animoid cat to disperse an overdose of relaxant, allowing him to take the owl from her, all in order to keep her out of danger.

In the desert, after the demise of a group that planned to revive Tyrell by using Scrappy, Deckard encountered Iris again and explained his earlier actions. She asked him if he would take her back to Los Angeles and he explained that she had never actually been there or Earth at all. Deckard, Rachael, and Iris boarded Deckard's spinner.

Behind the scenes

Deckard was portrayed by Harrison Ford. Upon his casting, Ford specifically requested that he not wear a hat in the film. This was due to his discomfort with having to wear a hat through the bulk of production on his previous film, Raiders of the Lost Ark. His hairstyle in the film was also chosen by himself.

In a draft of the original film's script, dated February 23, 1981, Gaff tells Deckard that others refer to him as "Mr. Nighttime" and "The Boogeyman."

Deckard's identity

Deckard as a replicant

Is Deckard a Replicant? The question has been asked since Blade Runner was first released in 1982. Many people, including the director Ridley Scott and writer Paul M. Sammon, regard Deckard is a replicant.

• With the 2007 release of Final Cut, some say the argument can be finally put to rest. Ridley Scott, with full control of the media, has put/left in the unicorn dream sequence as Deckard is sitting at the piano daydreaming. Thus, at the end of the movie, Deckard's knowing nod when he picks up Gaff's origami unicorn and recollection of Gaff's last comment concerning Rachael signifies Deckard's own realization of the facts.

• One interesting point that comes up is what Bryant really knows. Does Gaff know that Deckard is a replicant while Bryant does not? Or is it okay with Bryant that a replicant retirer is a replicant himself? As Deckard is looking over the Replicant profiles, the camera shows Bryant giving him strange looks as they discuss the four-year expiry of the Nexus-6.

Ridley Scott has mentioned this matter in several interviews. BBC News ran a story about this in 2000, where he concludes that Deckard is a replicant.

Also in an interview Ridley Scott did in Wired magazine in 2007, he explained this matter:

Wired: It was never on paper that Deckard is a replicant.
 

Scott: It was, actually. That's the whole point of Gaff, the guy who makes origami and leaves little matchstick figures around. He doesn't like Deckard, and we don't really know why. If you take for granted for a moment that, let's say, Deckard is a Nexus 7, he probably has an unknown life span and therefore is starting to get awfully human. Gaff, at the very end, leaves an origami, which is a piece of silver paper you might find in a cigarette packet, and it's a unicorn. Now, the unicorn in Deckard's daydream tells me that Deckard wouldn't normally talk about such a thing to anyone. If Gaff knew about that, it's Gaff's message to say, "I've read your file, mate." That relates to Deckard's first speech to Rachael when he says, "That's not your imagination, that's Tyrell's niece's daydream." And he describes a little spider on a bush outside the window. The spider is an implanted piece of imagination. And therefore Deckard, too, has imagination and even history implanted in his head.

Some of the deleted scenes that were never incorporated into either versions of the film seem to heavily support Deckard being a replicant. This included extended looks at Deckard looking over photos of his wife which seem to mirror the scenes where Rachael looks over a fake photo of her as a child. In an extended version of the theatrical ending, Rachael asks Deckard as they're driving off into the mountains, whether he knew his wife a long time, to which Deckard replies that although he once thought he did, he's not quite sure anymore, as he seems to be doubting his memory. Rachael then remarks that she thinks the two of them are 'made' for each other.

Although these deleted scenes seem to unequivocally prove that the filmmakers did indeed put a lot of thought and consideration into the possibility of strongly hinting that Deckard is a replicant, the fact that they were deleted from the film casts doubt on whether these scenes can still be taken as canon or merely a remnant of old plans by the filmmakers that were later discarded.

Deckard as a human

Many people involved in the original movie maintain that Deckard is human including Harrison Ford and the screenwriter Hampton Fancher. In the original Philip K. Dick novel, Deckard seems to be human and passes the Voight-Kampff test. Ford and Scott continue to argue about the issue to this day.

The original theatrical release did not include the unicorn daydream, so the evidence for Deckard as a replicant is weakest in this version. This version also had an extensive voice over by Harrison Ford, further adding to Deckard's character and history. With this, the original indicates he is a human.

Deckard has a history with the LAPD and he retired from the police force sometime before the events of 2019. This can be attributed as falsified memories as well and so can be counted as evidence for both.

Gallery

Deckard and Rachael before they flee LA

Deckard approached by Rachael outside of his apartment

Deckard and Rachael

Appearances

• Blade Runner
• Blade Runner 2: The Edge of Human
• Blade Runner 3: Replicant Night
• Blade Runner 4: Eye and Talon

External links

• The Blade Runner FAQ – Is Deckard a Replicant?
• BBC: Blade Runner riddle solved – Ridley Scott states his position