Final Fight Scene Between Roy And Deckard example essay topic

"Blade Runner: Director's Cut" is a science-fiction film set in the not too distant future, 2019. It portrays a bleak future - a large, dark, impersonal world. It is within this place that the film raises the central question - What is it that makes us human? What is it that distinguishes us from machines or objects that surround us? These questions are relevant to today's world - increasingly dominated by computers, machines, advertising and entertainment. More people seem to be finding themselves living in an 'inhuman' world.

It is a world where they feel alone. In the film's first scenes the makers provide their answers to these questions, but before getting there a number of other possible answers are given and rejected. At the start of the film we learn that four replicants have escaped from slavery on another world and returned to Earth. A specialist replicant-hunter (Blade Runner), Rick Deckard, is given the job of tracking down these escapees and killing them. This is not, however, a simple chase film. In the beginning we see a person given a test, the 'Voigt Kampff' test.

It is a test of his emotional reactions to situations. We will learn as the film progresses that this test is used to distinguish 'replicant' from 'human'. The theory being that replicants lack any empathetic attunement with others and so, by this, exhibit their difference from human beings. Even though human beings can also lack this empathetic relationship with others they still maintain their human status. Already we have the central theme being hinted at - how do we decide who is 'human'? For the replicants, particularly Roy Batty, there is an association between humanity and a long life.

Their trip back to Earth was motivated by the desire for more life, to extend it until it matched that of a human being. Humans live much longer than replicants, so to be able to live longer means they will be more human. Yet, we will see that the replicants with four-year life spans at times exhibit a desire for life, love and dignity more than most of the real humans in the film. Their accession to human status is stopped by only the unwillingness and refusal of other human beings. They can fulfil all the criteria it takes to be human, but they cannot force an acknowledgement from those around them.

We have one of the nicer people, J. F Sebastian, who suffers from a premature ageing disease, Methuselah syndrome. There is also the statement that the replicant Rachel "wont live, but then again who does?" The length of ones life is not what makes us human. Rachel is the replicant who believes she is human, because she can remember her past. Unfortunately Deckard is quick to tell her that her memories are implants and belonged to the niece of her creator, Tyrell. Memories then can be faked.

They do not last as Roy points out in his moving final words "all those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain". Our memories are not what make us human. We see another possible answer in Roy's journey to the 'Tyrell Corporation' building. It has been suggested that this looks like a pyramid or a temple - the place where the creator ('god') of the replicants lives.

Tyrell is at the top of this pyramid, which suggests he is the most important person, so he is the creator. Roy goes there and asks the same questions that humans have longed to ask God. Why did you create me? Why did you design my life to be so brief? Can you not make things better? Roy has reached the point in development where he struggles with existential issues just like humans.

Tyrell's answers do not provide Roy with any hope or satisfaction, so Roy kills his 'god'. Our gods and religions are not what make us human. By this time, Deckard had "retired" all of Roy's companions. It seemed Roy would have to face imminent death alone. In the final fight scene between Roy and Deckard, Roy's intentions are to get revenge for his friends' deaths.

In the climatic moment of this scene Roy seems to accept his fate. He discovers an appreciation for life that goes beyond his basic instinct for staying alive. With Deckard's life in his hands, Roy saves him, showing compassion that Tyrell did not give him. In the last moments of his life Roy reaches emotional maturity and is now fully 'human'. This once again shows that it's more the emotions that make us human, than anything else. After this unexpected rescue of Deckard, Roy presents him with a description of his encounters in life "Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it?

That's what it is, to be a slave". Leon also said, "Painful to live in fear isn't it?" This makes it clear that replicants have experienced their own existence as one of living in fear, something they define as slavery. We know that replicants were specifically created to serve as substitutes for human beings in dangerous situations off-world. Slavery destroys an individual's independence, therefore destroying ones humanity. The human race as a whole is charged for the crime of denying the humanity of its replicant servants.

Many of the most poignant scenes in the film involve the hints of a caring and loving, relationship between the characters. Leon looks on with a touch of sadness and helplessness as Z hora is killed. Roy kisses the lips of his dead lover, Pris. These moments foreshadow the answers the film wants to give. These answers are given in the films final scenes involving Deckard and Rachel.

Deckard begins the film as a cold, unemotional 'killer'. He hunts replicants whom he regards as machines "Replicants are like any other machine. They " re either a benefit or a hazard". At one stage Rachel asks if he has ever taken the 'Voigt Kampff' test himself. By this question she is asking if he is capable of displaying any emotions or feelings. By the end of the film Deckard has changed.

As Roy is dying, a look of understanding dawns in his eyes. Only then does Deckard acknowledge replicants as conscious, living beings. He realises that Roy's nature is full of doubts and worries, loves and mysteries, just like his own. He sees that his task is to sit there and watch Roy die, because the best way in which another human can acknowledge humanity in those moments was to watch that death but more importantly to watch it as a death of another human being.

Deckard falls in love with a replicant, Rachel, but Deckard fell in love with her as a human, and by doing so, she became human. The film has answered the question it posed - it is the simple things of love, trust and caring which gives us our humanity. Today, before we get to the future seen in the film, these remain important answers.