Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> JimT wrote:
> > to test the new Tyrell employees and get shot by Leon?
>
> Ah. Now it makes sense to me why they would even get a replicant in the
> first place. Because it's a dangerous job where you don't want to risk a human.
>
> On the other hand, I'm sure there are tons of people doing dangerous jobs in
> that world. And Decker's bosses all treat him like a person. If the idea was
> to hide the fact that replicants were being made on Earth, telling half the
> police department that they're working with a replicant sounds like a bad idea.
>
Deckard is brought in to the police station as an old experienced bladerunner -
whom half the police Department should have known but wouldn't unless he
replaced a real bladerunner who had retired and gone away. Again, I guess a
possibility.

To repeat myself, having seen the film again, the main reason I think Deckard
should be human is the rooftop scene. It screams out that killing replicants is
murder, not retirement, a message that is wasted if Roy's opponent is a
replicant. I really will have to stop getting exercised about this point.  It's
only a film.

> > DOESN'T have a sell by date, but has a gene cut that will allow her to grow old
> > and die like a human.
>
> It took it more to mean that we all have sell-by dates, and that you take
> what happiness you can while you live, because you never know when you'll
> die, and that Rachel would die in her own few years. (Otherwise, why work on
> a technology to make replicants think they're human, when you could just let
> them grow their own memories?)
>
The point about replicants is you don't produce babies and let them develop over
decades, but do produce adults within a short period that are useful as 'robots'
in dangerous or unpleasant jobs.

You have to be able to provide replicants with knowledge to do the jobs they are
built to do, so you have to be able to provide 'memories'. Tyrell hinted (or
maybe said) that if you don't provide them with personalities that let them
enjoy what they are made to do, they develop less helpful personalities, even in
4 years. This is clearly consistent with the 'mutiny' by the Nexus 6s who
probably had been provided with helpful personalities at 'birth'.

Speaking of 4 years, the 4 year sell by date is such an integral feature of the
film, it would be reasonable to expect the viewer to assume Rachel also had a 4
year sell by date - little of which would have yet expired - if not prompted
otherwise. So, the exchange (repeated on voiceover) with the JEO character is
redundant if Rachel does have the standard 4 year sell by date. I rest my case,
mainly because I have no more evidence..

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