Morgan Paull strongly resembles and sounds like Harrison Ford, and some might think he is Ford in the opening. Cloning is the reason for that.
When asked about his mother in the first scene, Leon replies "I'll tell you about my mother!" before pulling out a pistol and shooting the interrogator. He's a son of a gun.
In his first scene, Tyrell declines to take the VK test — partly to see if Rachel will pass it, but also because in earlier versions of the script he is a replicant himself.
Or possibly Tyrell is aware of his own selfishness and lack of empathy and suspects he'd fail the test even if he isn't a replicant.
For quite some time, the contrast between Zhora and Pris has intrigued and bothered me, specifically the way they seemed to exchange roles: Pris started as a "basic pleasure model" and develops into a combatant of sorts with her Ty Lee flips and Xenia Onatopp moves, while Zhora started as an assassin and became a stripper who barely puts up a fight against Deckard before fleeing. Except their divergent reactions to combat situations make perfect sense with their initial programming - Zhora was designed for political hits and stealth, so she'd not only be useless in a fair fight (especially against someone like Deckard), but know it. Pris, meanwhile, would have no experience accurately assessing the threat levels of other people, so she'd just overconfidently assume (much like Leon) that her advanced replicant capabilities would be more than enough advantage.
Yet another interpretation.... Zhora actually does a good job as an assassin: she sees through Deckard's nebbishy voice almost immediately, waits until Deckard lets his guard down a tiny bit, then attacks. She starts tightening Deckard's tie around his neck, but is interrupted when the other dancers start to come in. If Deckard hadn't been extremely lucky, Zhora would have killed him a few seconds later. Contrast this with Leon (who isn't very bright) and Pris (who was not trained as an assassin). Both of them become overconfident and toy with Deckard before trying to deliver the coup de grace. Also, Zhora is the breadwinner for the four Replicants. It makes more sense to put her in the field, since she's better at defending herself.
Zhora working as an exotic dancer makes pretty good sense if you consider that as a combat model, she might be designed with physical strength and agility in mind. There are no shortage of people who would mind seeing a very physically fit and coordinated woman perform nude. Combine this with a strip club being an easier place to get employment than anywhere she could directly employ her designed skillset as originally intended.
When J.F. Sebastian is introduced to Roy Batty and finds out that Roy and Pris are Nexus 6 models, Sebastian proudly says, "There's some of me in you!" Just in time for a cuckoo clock to go off...
Whether intentionally or not, Rachael was given a very Meaningful Name, coming from the Hebrew word for "ewe", or a female sheep. Like so many other replicants, she has as little control over her fate as a livestock animal would.
Gaff's addressing Deckard with the CitySpeak term for "Horse Dick" (see Bilingual Bonus) could rate as Foreshadowing. What's a unicorn? A horse with a phallic symbol on its forehead.
The whole Deckard and Rachel ship. Yes, it's creepy. Yes, it's emotionally stilted. But factor in that she's a Replicant with little to no lived experience, likely programmed for obedience. And then there's...well, he's either a skinjob himself or a deeply messed up human - either way, not really capable of a functioning relationship. Then the sequel implies that the whole "romance" may have been completely arranged by Tyrell from the get-go.
Deckard is somewhat notoriously a Defective Detective and mostly survives, let alone succeeds in his mission, through luck and the actions of others a trait which follows him right to the end of the sequel. Similarly, Holden gets shot by a Replicant multiple times before he has a chance to drop his cigarette. These Blade Runners seem to be rather outmatched in any confrontation with the Replicants, so just what makes them so special? It's not that they're good at fighting Replicants, just that they're specialized in finding Replicants. Once you've got one cornered, presumably any LAPD beat cop with a pistol (or preferably a group of them) can take a Replicant down, it's just that they're usually Hidden in Plain Sight and require special techniques to track down.
How does the Voight-Kampff test actually work? I've seen numerous articles and blog-posts deriding it as stupid and pointless, since it measures reactions yet most people who knew what the test is for would get stressed out anyway, since failing it could mean arrest and execution (sorry, 'retirement'). But I finally figured it out. The Voight-Kampff test isn't just measuring PHYSICAL reactions, it's measuring VERBAL reactions. Look at it this way, if you asked a computer what 2 plus 2 is, it'd tell you it's 4. If you asked a human what 2 plus 2 is, they'd probably say 4 as well. But if you asked a computer something complicated, bizarre, emotional and subjective, like that old chestnut about walking through a desert and finding a turtle, a computer would get confused. A computer would question the question, rather than simply answering, while a human, despite maybe some nervous laughter or confusion, would still attempt to answer the question. A computer, or in this case, a Replicant, would seek clarity and explanations. Leon demands to know what desert he's in, what a turtle is, etc... because he needs the information before he can answer. A human, as said, would still attempt to answer anyway, just with a casual shrug of 'I suppose it'd be this'. But a computer would INSIST on understanding the full story before it could give an explanation. THIS is how the Voight-Kampff test works, not by checking your answer, but by checking HOW you answer.
Deckard is not a Replicant:
Because, since his replacement at his old job has been shot, Deckard is being brought out of retirement to hunt the Batty-led replicants. This indicates that he has lived more than the mandatory four year lifespan of a replicant.
Deckard has no superhuman talents to match those of the Batty crew. Deckard's stalking methods on all of them aren't particularly brilliant or original. And Roy, Leon, Zhora, and Pris are all physically superior to him, plus Roy is a genius. The only reason Zhora didn't kill Deckard was because someone stumbled into the room as she was strangling him. Leon would have also killed him if Rachel hadn't shot Leon first. Deckard was no match against Pris in a hand to hand combat; he only won because he had a gun. Deckard survived against Roy because Roy had mercy on him. Why then would the police send an older model to hunt down four better and extremely murderous replicants?
Replicants are highly illegal on Earth. Gaff saying that it's too bad she (Rachel) won't live doesn't mean that Bryant has exhonerated Deckard from retiring her. If Bryant isn't taking any chances with the meekest and most advanced replicant, why would they give an older model a free pass if Deckard were to be one?
Also, if Bryant and Gaff are letting Rachel live, Gaff saying that it's too bad that she won't live becomes unnecessary if Deckard weren't a real human, because in this case, Deckard would be an older model than Rachel and hence, he would «die» before her.
Because the police are taking their sweet ass time to catch the replicants. Right at the beginning the movie is set on November 2019. Replicants are supposed to last only four years. When Bryant briefs Deckard, you can see in Batty's file that he was created on January 2016. This means that when Batty expired by himself, it was January 2020. In other words, from the time Leon shoots Holden until Batty's expiration, around two months have passed. It seems that Deckard is under no pressure to do his job fast. This means that the police is not worried that Deckard may expire before catching the runaway replicants. Therefore, Deckard is not a replicant.
After Deckard aplies the Voight-Kampf test to Rachel, Tyrell tells Deckard that Rachel is an experimental model, but also says that what makes her different is that the previous replicants are emotionally inexperienced. If Deckard were a replicant he would be maladjusted to human society as the Batty runaways were. Plus, Tyrell identifies himself with Deckard in the following quote:
Tyrell: Rachel is an experiment, nothing more. We began to recognize in them a strange obsession. After all, they are emotionally inexperienced with only a few years in which to store the experiences which YOU AND I take for granted. If we give them past we create a cushion or pillow for their emotions and consequently we can control them better...
Because Occam's Razor: It would require an extremely convoluted explanation to explain him being a Replicant, whereas everything is simple if he is human.
Tyrell's glasses imply he's nearly blind. Sebastian's aging rapidly. Wallace is blind. The three of them attempt to perfect a form of life while their own lives are limited, no matter how rich they are.
When Tyrell and Roy are discussing the methods to try and extend Roy's life, Tyrell cites reason after reason why the proposals wouldn't work. And the way he says them, it's obvious he's talking about things he witnessed. So, just how many Replicants did Tyrell burn through trying to figure out ways to extend their lives beyond the mandated "expiration date" before he concluded that it wasn't possible? And were they aware of and voluntarily facing the risks?
Extra horror: he could program them to want to volunteer.
At least one of the methods Roy suggests is dismissed by Tyrell as not working on mature Replicants. His company probably could build them to last longer if he wanted to. In which case he was not actually trying to extend the lifespan, but to make sure the limitation cannot be broken by anything they could think of.
Which fits with the versions of the film with the 'happy ending'.
Perhaps Deckard is not the first person to fall in love with a replicant. Perhaps they wanted to try to extend their loved ones lifespans by any means...now imagine them watching their loved one dying because they tampered with the built-in genetic time bomb...
The sequel jumps all over this idea, with the Nexus-7s onwards explicitly not having as limited lifespans, suggesting Tyrell or someone in his employ was successful since Rachel is one of, if not the first Nexus 7 model.
Pris is impressively strong and agile, overall on par with Zhora going by their given stats. It makes sense for a combat model to be very strong and rugged, but when you begin to consider why a sex worker would need to easily handle extreme abuse (such as partial immersion in boiling water), and you begin to realize the sort of things a Replicant sex worker might be expected to endure and still have a four year lifespan. Never mind the consideration of soldiers, laborers, and sex workers who never get past the age of four.
Even more so when you take into account they were made for Off-World use. That means that not only having to deal with colonists, but also environmental factors too.
The advertisement for off-world colonies ("A new life awaits you in the off-world colonies. A chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure.") is not clearly positive: "A new life" doesn't necessarily mean "a good life". "A golden land" as opposed to "the golden land" implies that it is not necessarily the best place of all. "Opportunity" as opposed to "wealth" means that people can try to become wealthy there, but many don't make it. "Adventure" implies unpredictability and risk.
At least in the film, Tyrell gave Rachael the memories of his own niece. Did he do this with or without his niece's knowledge? Even if he did have her permission to record and copy her memories, did she know that her uncle intended to use them to deceive a new generation of replicant slaves into unwitting compliance, or that an artificial woman with her memories would be heeding his every command as a pseudo-employee?
