<span data-atex-cstyle="$ID/[No character style]" data-atex-uat="{KerningMethod:JElEL09wdGljYWw=}">Denis Villeneuve, director of the eagerly anticipated, 30 years-in-the-making, sequel to Ridley Scott's 1982 classic film </span><span data-atex-cstyle="$ID/[No character style]" data-atex-fs="NormalItalic" data-atex-uat="{KerningMethod:JElEL09wdGljYWw=}"><em>Blade Runner</em></span><span data-atex-cstyle="$ID/[No character style]" data-atex-uat="{KerningMethod:JElEL09wdGljYWw=}">, may have settled one of the most hotly debated topics in contemporary cinema – is Deckard a replicant? </span> <span data-atex-cstyle="$ID/[No character style]" data-atex-uat="{KerningMethod:JElEL09wdGljYWw=}">Deckard, the movie's main character, played by Harrison Ford, who reprises his role in Villeneuve's sequel, is a Blade Runner – an elite police officer whose job is to hunt down and 'retire' (kill) escaped replicants – a race of artificial humans bred as a slave labour force for space colonies. The original film, particularly in Scott's later alternative cuts, left a huge question mark over whether Deckard himself was unknowingly a replicant.</span> <span data-atex-cstyle="$ID/[No character style]" data-atex-uat="{KerningMethod:JElEL09wdGljYWw=}">Speaking to </span><span data-atex-cstyle="$ID/[No character style]" data-atex-fs="NormalItalic" data-atex-uat="{KerningMethod:JElEL09wdGljYWw=}"><em>The National </em></span><span data-atex-cstyle="$ID/[No character style]" data-atex-uat="{KerningMethod:JElEL09wdGljYWw=}">at the film's international press launch in Berlin, about this debate, Villeneuve says: "I didn't find the answer in the movies, I found the answer in the book, where there is so much contact between replicants, between humans and non-humans that they start to doubt their own identity."</span> <span data-atex-cstyle="$ID/[No character style]" data-atex-uat="{KerningMethod:JElEL09wdGljYWw=}">Fans of 'the book' – Phillip K Dick's short story</span><span data-atex-cstyle="$ID/[No character style]" data-atex-fs="NormalItalic" data-atex-uat="{KerningMethod:JElEL09wdGljYWw=}"><em> Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? </em></span><span data-atex-cstyle="$ID/[No character style]" data-atex-uat="{KerningMethod:JElEL09wdGljYWw=}">(1968), on which</span><span data-atex-cstyle="$ID/[No character style]" data-atex-fs="Italic" data-atex-uat="{KerningMethod:JElEL09wdGljYWw=}"><em> </em></span><span data-atex-cstyle="$ID/[No character style]" data-atex-fs="NormalItalic" data-atex-uat="{KerningMethod:JElEL09wdGljYWw=}"><em>Blade Runner</em></span><span data-atex-cstyle="$ID/[No character style]" data-atex-uat="{KerningMethod:JElEL09wdGljYWw=}"> is based, will be aware that the literary Deckard is very much human – the book deals with the way in which Deckard becomes increasingly dehumanised through his brutal job, while the replicants become increasingly human as they seek their own identities, to the point where the two start to converge. If Villeneuve is using the book as his source, rather than the ambiguous movies, then it would seem the Deckard we will see in the new film is definitely human, although Villeneuve suggests that the question is in fact more important than the answer: "I love that sensation of creating questions about this paranoia about ourselves. I like asking questions, I'm not so bothered about the answers. I like this idea of, 'Is Deckard a replicant or not?' To ask the question is interesting, to have that tension."</span> <span data-atex-cstyle="$ID/[No character style]" data-atex-uat="{KerningMethod:JElEL09wdGljYWw=}">Villeneuve is not the only person connected to the film who has expressed an opinion in the issue. Ridley Scott emphatically told the 2000 Channel Four documentary, </span><span data-atex-cstyle="$ID/[No character style]" data-atex-fs="NormalItalic" data-atex-uat="{KerningMethod:JElEL09wdGljYWw=}"><em>On the Edge of Blade Runner</em></span><span data-atex-cstyle="$ID/[No character style]" data-atex-fs="Italic" data-atex-uat="{KerningMethod:JElEL09wdGljYWw=}"><em>,</em></span><span data-atex-cstyle="$ID/[No character style]" data-atex-uat="{KerningMethod:JElEL09wdGljYWw=}"> "He's a replicant." Original screenwriter Hampton Fancher, who also co-wrote the new movie, disagrees. He told a 2008 fan convention in Los Angeles: "Ridley's off. He's totally wrong. His idea is too complex."</span> <span data-atex-cstyle="$ID/[No character style]" data-atex-uat="{KerningMethod:JElEL09wdGljYWw=}">Villeneuve is aware of the disagreements: "If Ridley was sitting here now he would say, 'What are you talking about? He is a replicant.' But when you speak to Harrison Ford he'll say, 'Of course he's human.' Me, I just love the question, and honestly, that's what's interesting about science fiction. </span> <span data-atex-cstyle="$ID/[No character style]" data-atex-uat="{KerningMethod:JElEL09wdGljYWw=}">"You can approach these existential questions with the limits of science and perception. I think it's fascinating."</span> <span data-atex-cstyle="$ID/[No character style]" data-atex-uat="{KerningMethod:JElEL09wdGljYWw=}">We'll have to wait for the film to see if any further questions are raised this time around, but for the time being at least, from the director's own mouth, it looks like Deckard is a human.</span> ________________ <strong>Read more:</strong>