Spoilers I guess, on a 30 year old film.
I think the story is the weakest part. It's not a crime drama, it's not a quest or realization of humanity, nor is it a story about love. It is an awkwardly made drama of an old tired
human blade runner who is just tasked out. I think the point about questioning humanity is really irrelevant. This society is not believable, in my opinion, that there would be no differentiation between humans and replicants. It simply doesn't make sense, especially in the context that they are only used as sex objects, war machines and slaves. The only time that I can think of in the film where a replicant is used as part of day to day life is with Tyrell and his prototype, Rachael.
Her storyline is interesting, but the film doesn't explore it enough to make it a significant part of the film. Scott does not delve into her doubts about questioning her whole life, nor what's it liked to know yourself as a replicant among humans. Apparently there is a number that is incredibly small remaining on Earth. The love angle is incredibly weird in its own right. Why does Deckard get knowingly attached to a person who has a 4 year life span? Is his love blind and doesn't really matter because he had sex once and ruined her life? I dunno, it doesn't really make sense to me nor is a good direction of the film.
Now i've read countless opinions that Gaff's character is some sort of master searcher of replicants and his origami usage is a
clear indication of who are replicants, according to the same people who probably believe everything about Room 237. If you believe that Deckard is a replicant, I would really love to hear your reasoning, because the only thing that anyone seems to use as evidence is Scott's opinion 20 years after the film was made and this origami aspect. Even if he is a replicant, the film doesn't delve into his doubts at all and only brings it up once, when he is asleep and Rachel asks him. I do not think the film makes you/me critically analyze his human-ness nor does that mean anything to humanity.
I guess the last aspect is the actual story itself. Somehow, 6 replicants abducted a spaceship and killed 23 people and flew that back into Earth where apparently there are no radar systems nor Air Forces that would allow a ship full of known violent replicants back onto Earth. But, let's just skip that and accept that it's now Deckard's mission to kill these evil replicants and save the human race.
Here are the 6 replicants he's chasing. Two are written off in the film for whatever reason, and Leon, Roy and Pris all seem to be looking for the same answer. "How do I live longer?" I just took a dumb sociology class about society's denial of death so this probably goes right with the study of thanatology and how even androids can be like "hey man I can beat death too!" But ok, we have setup the two opposing stories. One to kill replicants and the poor replicants who want to live forever, or at least more than 4 years. Zhora's storyline is nonexistant other than showcasing Deckard's great skill at finding replicants and his first instance of him getting whooped on throughout the entire film, by replicants. Leon obviously dies shortly after by Rachael which fuels their insatiable love and then we follow Pris and Roy the rest of the film.
Pris' character is weak in that she like Zhora flaunts her sexuality to get by on Earth and try and go up the hierarchy of the Tyrell corp. Her weird gymnastic routine that leads to her death is weird to say the least(how human like is that or her death?) and then we move to Roy. Supposedly a military replicant who leads this group, but for some odd reason he toys with Deckard instead of killing him, even though he somehow knows this is last hours alive(how cheesy is the dove scene?). Why doesn't Roy fit his caricature? Who knows, but it doesn't really make sense.
All in all, this is what I see in the film and i'm curious to your Blade Runner supporters in what you think. I have read some articles that call this one of the most overrated films, but I don't think it's that bad. Just not worthy of any kind of great praise.
