HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: fineberg@win31.nas.nasa.gov (Samuel A. Fineberg)
Subject: Re: Deckard as 6th Replicant doesn't hold water
Organization: CSC, NASA Ames Research Center, NAS Division
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 92 19:48:36 GMT
Reply-To: fineberg@nas.nasa.gov

In article <1992Oct6.103019.19815@lut.ac.uk>, K.R.Catchpole3@lut.ac.uk writes:
|> 
|> 	Call me a stupid moron, but I thought one of the main themes in BR
|> was the fact that Deckard IS NOT a replicant but the job was so inhumane that
|> to cope he had to disconnect himself from his emotions, thereby BECOMING what
|> he hunted as those he hunted became more human. By being separated from his
|> wife and choosing a replicant over a 'human' for a relationship (i.e Rachel)
|> confirms the idea. This is why Gaff lets Deckard escape and the unicorn is his
|> way of telling Deckard that he understands. Gaff, after being portrayed as a
|> cold hartless character for most of the film, finally being given some human
|> (or humane) aspects.
|> 
|> 	In summary, I thought that the whole point of the film was that
|> Deckard is not a replicant and neither are any of the rest of the 'human'
|> characters but all are so similar to the replicants that to make a distinction
|> between them and kill the replicants is NOT HUMAN.
|> 
|> P.S. I haven't been following the discussion so don't flame me if I've missed
|> 	something.
|> 
|> Uncle Bill Burroughs Patent Adding Machine User 
|> 
|> 	"a Word to the Wise Guy"
That's the point of the book, however, it is apparent from this discussion
that Riddley Scott screwed up his adaptation.  Unfortunately, the ambiguity
he imposed on the issue hurts the impact of the story.  

Sam

P.S., Another stupid thing Scott added was the 4-year lifespans being a fail
safe device.  In the book androids died early because the designers had never
figured out how to make tissue regenerate.  Therefore, there was a good reason
to chase the replicants, and there was no such things as a special one that
could last longer.  Finally, in the book Deckard had taken the V-K test.
Now that I have said everything I wanted to say, I'm going to put this thread
in my kill file.  It has gone on way too long.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.movies,rec.arts.movies,alt.cult-movies
From: caruso@socrates.umd.edu (John Caruso)
Subject: Re: Deckard as 6th Replicant doesn't hold water
Organization: University of Maryland University College
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 04:27:45 GMT

In article <1992Sep30.215705.20802@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> dleibow@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (David E Leibow) writes:
>As for the unicorn, the origami found at the end need not imply anything 
>about him having any knowledge of Deckard's dream.

Of course, just a coincidence.  I wonder if anyone even noticed while they
were screening it?  How surprised they must all have been!

>If it seems a bit like too much of a coincidence that its 
>a unicorn, well, many directors have taken much more artistic license 
>than that to symbolially emphasize a thematic point.  If this wasn't 
>SF nobody would have given it a second thought...

*Sigh*.  It's disspiriting to read through these arguments about Deckard
not being a replicant...and then come to the unicorn part.  Here's where
people hem and haw, talk about "coincidences" and ESP, and basically just
show that they can't explain it at all.  Please, I beg of you, stop the
ingenuous handwaving.  There are only a few explanations:

     1) Deckard told Gaff about his dream.

     2) Gaff found out about Deckard's dream in some other way.  The only
        one of these that's hinted at by the film is that he knows about
        it the same way that Deckard knows about Rachel's memories, i.e.,
        Deckard is a replicant.

Nothing in the film indicates that 1) happened.  And for 2), we only have
one explanation offered (by analogy, and explicated above).  Please, unless
you have something *concrete* to say about other possible explanations for
the unicorn, don't expect anyone to believe that it was just a coincidence,
ESP, UFO's, or anything else.

- John
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.movies
Subject: Re: Star Wars in French item
From: ace@kryton.UUCP (Catherine Beckstead)
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 92 12:15:20 PDT
Organization: Paradox Alley F&SF BBS 805-492-8789

goudswaa@fraser.sfu.ca (Peter Goudswaard) writes:

> I had been watching a French (Canadian?) version of Star Wars a few weeks
> back, and the names of the 'droids were D2R2 and C3P7.  Anyone have any
> idea why they did this?  A ex says that C3P7 shortens the syllables, and
> R2D2 would simply be a French tongue-twister.  Any other reasonable
> explanations?

Well that makes sense.  In French C3PO would be pronounced "Say troi pay zero"
and C3P7 would be "Say troi pay sept" (pronounced "set") therefore cutting
down the syllable. Allthough it would be easier to have it 
"say troi pay oh" and let the "oh" constitute a letter instead of a number,
ie in French zero is the number, O is the letter.  As for the toungue twister,
that would be "R deux day deux", where "deux" is pronounced "duh".  That would
be a toungue twister.  So that "day deux r deux" is easier to pronounce.

So given the French pronouncitions, I think this explination does make sense.
Sorry if this is too confusing, and I'm not a French expert, I've only had
three years in high school and one semester in college.  But at least I did
learn how to pronounced letters and numbers.  :)


-------------------------------------------------------------------
Catherine Beckstead                    ace@kryton.uucp
"Do you want to argue with a can of deodorant that registers
NINE on the Richter scale?"        --Ace, in "Dragonfire"
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.movies,rec.arts.movies,alt.cult-movies
From: dleibow@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (David E Leibow)
Subject: Re: Deckard as 6th Replicant doesn't hold water
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 23:58:41 GMT

In article <1992Oct1.224011.3362@awdprime.austin.ibm.com> mlh@eddy.austin.ibm.com (Mike Haskell) writes:
>>
>
>I hate to disappoint you but movies are *about* seperating you from your
>cash.  period.  Now, the better they depict and portray their writing and
>filming skills, the more easily they will be able to seperate me from
>my cash for their movie.  Its this kind of discussion about whether or
>not Dekard is a replicant, that helps me see points about a movie I may
>have missed while watching it.  It also keeps it fun.  Your belief of 
>what the theme is irrelevant to most of us.  If you dislike the forum so
>much, you can read all the thema you want out of rec.art.cinema with all
>the other more refined (read English Lit. arrogance) people.  I do hope
>you are patient for postings there.  :-)  See ya!

I'm not that refined but I guess I am kinda arrogant.  That keeps it fun
for me.  Anyways, you apparenly live in a very different universe from
me.  In yours movies have everything to do with commerce and nothing to
do with art.  In mine they are always mixed together to some degree.  And
in mine the best movies are the ones that care less about seperating us
from our cash and more about showing us something that we've never seen
before and getting us to think about stuff we were never aware of before.
In my universe if I felt a movie's only ambition was to seperate me from
some of my hard earned cash I would have a hard time enjoying it.  Unless
of course that it did so in such an ingenius way as to get me to admire
thoroughly I had been suckered.
From: grae@ariel.its.unimelb.EDU.AU (Graeme Gerrard)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.movies
Subject: Re: BR: Raw oysters, boiled dogs, tequila worms, calfskin wallets.
Date: 7 Oct 92 03:04:48 GMT
Organization: University of Melbourne

In article <28594@nntp_server.ems.cdc.com> you@ems.cdc.com writes:
>One of the basic conditions at the time was that all life forms were
>endangered species except man. Only the very illegal had calf-skinned
>anything.

One thing I noticed in a recent viewing is that there ARE some real
animals in BR - rats in JRs apartment and doves/pigeons in the scene with
Roy and Deckard on the roof of the Bradbury, including the one Roy
frees when he 'dies'.
The whole animal extinction/blackmarket theme is much more developed
in DADES.  I can't see how the few references to animals could make
much sense without having read the book.

The city setting seems to be adapted from San Francisco in
The Man in the High Castle.

One conspicuous thing left out of BR, which was a central part of DADES,
was Mercerism.  I found that fascinating and hilarious.  It would have been
daring to try and treat this in the film, I'll admit; and probably
not essential, in that the lack of empathy theme of andies was brought
out in other ways.


Graeme Gerrard
Graeme_Gerrard@muwayf.ucs.unimelb.edu.au
School of Music
Faculty of Music, Visual and Performing Arts
University of Melbourne
AUSTRALIA


Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.movies
From: pete@cssc-syd.tansu.com.au (Peter Alexander Merel)
Subject: Re: Deckard is NOT a Replicant
Organization: AOTC - CSSC
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 05:53:16 GMT

mst@vexpert.dbai.tuwien.ac.at (Markus Stumptner) writes:
>Sorry, but it has been explicitly stated before (not by me, so I can't
>prove it) that Scott wanted to make it clear at the end and the
>unicorn obviously was his tool for the job.  And I don't like that.

That's a new one on me - I'd be really interested in references that 
indicated Scott wanted to clear anything up. If that were so then I
would agree that the unicorn is a lousy tool - that dream could have
been absorbed from Rachel (or her predecessor) by both Deckard and Gaff,
and so it proves nothing.

>It shows that Scott is willing to throw away the discussable qualities
>of his film and the consistency of it's plot just so he can have a
>nice spectacular plot twist at the end.  Still, why then did he allow
>them to take the scene out?

I believe he had no choice. I no longer have the starlog interview where
he first mentioned it, but I remember him sounding more than a little miffed.
Amusing trivia: that starlog had a cartoon with Han Solo blowing away C3PO 
and Luke whining "What do you mean he's a replicant!?!".

-- 
Internet: pete@cssc-syd.tansu.com.au   UUCP: {uunet,mcvax}!munnari!cssc-syd!pete
Snail: 1/18-20 Orion Road, Lane Cove NSW 2066 Australia    Phone: +61 2 911 3130
Theftright Peter A. Merel (T) 1992. Rights to all replies, followups, originals,
sources and anything else I can get my hands on reserved.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.movies,alt.cult-movies
From: dave@blackbox.cc.columbia.edu (David Milner)
Subject: Re: GODZILLA NEWS
Keywords: Godzilla Mothra Battra
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 06:05:11 GMT

A brief review of GODZILLA VS. MOTHRA from a friend who was at the Tokyo
International Film Festival premiere...

He likes the film about as much as GODZILLA 1985. What does this mean?
It means he likes it more than GODZILLA VS. BIOLLANTE, but not as much
as GODZILLA VS. GHIDRAH.

The special effects are about as good as those in GODZILLA VS. GHIDRAH. 
As in GIDORA, some of the flying sequences could be a little better.

The adult stages of Mothra and Battra are too small in comparison to
their larva stages.

The film is a little bit more of a children's film than GIDORA. There
is a little girl in the film who is supposed to be the daughter of
the archeologist who discovers Mothra's egg on Infant Island.

The film has "weaker dramatization and characterization" than GIDORA.

There is even more monster footage in the film than there was in GIDORA.

David Milner  Columbia University
inet:   dave@blackbox.cc.columbia.edu
usenet: ...rutgers!columbia!blackbox!dave
        ...rutgers!columbia!blackbox.cc.columbia.edu!dave
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.movies
From: sieler@allegro.com (Stan Sieler)
Subject: Raiders of the Lost Ark: R2D2 & C3P0
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 00:16:20 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Allegro Consultants, Inc., Redwood City, CA

Sorry if this is a FAQ, but can anyone confirm whether or not Raiders
of the Lost Ark has a cameo appearance of R2D2 and C3P0 (etched on a wall?)?
If so, in what scene?  We just got the wide-screen laser disc, and have been
trying to find them.

thanks,
stan sieler
sieler@allegro.com



Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.movies
From: jk87377@cc.tut.fi (Juhana Kouhia)
Subject: Re: Deckard is NOT a Replicant
Organization: Tampere University of Technology
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 92 22:18:00 GMT


In article <1992Sep24.211015.12811@spartan.ac.BrockU.CA>
des@spartan.ac.BrockU.CA (Desmond Irvine) writes: 
>I just wanted to raise a simple point as to why I think Deckard is not a 
>replicant.  The point is why would someone create a replicant that is supposed
>to hunt other replicants down and terminate them (a "BladeRunner" replicant)
>and make it weaker than them.

(Because BR is not Terminator movie. :-)

Why you think that it is not possible to make weaker replicant?
How weak Rachel was? She wasn't like Pris or such.

Juhana Kouhia
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.movies
From: huston@access.digex.com (Herb Huston)
Subject: Re: BR: was the U.S. defeated by Japan in a war?
Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 11:54:53 GMT

In article <1992Oct5.110242.3545@sol.ctr.columbia.edu> daniel@csgi64.dcs.leeds.ac.uk (D N Crow) writes:
>In article <1aog6dINNcjj@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>, bx916@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Ross W. Starkey) writes:
>> 
>> For your consideration - two datum from the film:
>> 
>> 1. The police I.D. badges display information in both English and
>> Japanese.
>> 
>> 2. Near the beginning of the film, the aerial billboard advertising the
>> offworld colonies - the "badyear blimp" if you like :-) or don't like -
>> is sponsored by
>> "[Japanese-sounding-company] - helping America into the NEW ORDER".
>> 
>> Now I'm not sure if all the information I present in (2) is correct,
>> but I'm DAMNED sure about the "new order" bit.  This was something
>> like eight years before George Bush, trusting his speechwriters, 
>> uttered his "new world order" line.  the "New Order" line in Blade
>> Runner was undoubtably inspired by the use of that phrase by the
>> Axis powers (Germany and Japan) in World War II.
>> 
>> 
>> Are we to gather, based on what we see in the film, that there has
>> been a non-nuclear war between the United States and Japan, which
>> Japan won?

Yes, but it's probably the economic "war" now in progress.  Last night
"60 Minutes" had a piece on the latest sortie.  A Japanese company was
exporting machine tools and having American employees replace the "Made
in Japan" label with a "Made in U.S.A." label to get around U.S. laws.
The customer was the U.S. military.  The U.S. government did nothing about
it.  The U.S. machine tool industry is in a major decline.

>Philip K. Dick wrote many novels and short stories in which he changed one
>historical event and then projected forward to see what sort of world
>resulted. Often this was that Watergate never happened and Nixon became a
>dictator of the USA. On a couple of occasions he did: what if the Axis
>countries had won WWII? He usually presumed that Germany got Europe and
>Japan took over America. I don't recall whether this is part of the plot of
>DADOES (anyone?) but it is certainly part of PKD's "world". So yes, I think
>there may be something to what you note.

One of Philip K. Dick's best novels is _The Man In the High Castle_ in 
which the Axis has won the Second World War.  The Germans control everything
east of the Mississippi, the Japanese everything west of the Rockies, and
there's a puppet state in between as a buffer.  Set in 1962, Hitler is
still alive although senile and strictly a figurehead.  The title character
dreams of an alternate world where the Axis lost.

-- Herb Huston
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.movies
From: pejulaju@psykoman.cs.hut.fi (Pentti Lajunen)
Subject: Re: MAD MAX...best of the series
Reply-To: pejulaju@niksula.hut.fi (Pentti Lajunen)
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 10:24:30 GMT

In article <1992Sep27.234022.19843@ringer.cs.utsa.edu> sbooth@lonestar.utsa.edu (Simon E. Booth) writes:
>I'm curious about when the films took place.
>
>MMII takes place after the nuclear war-that was explained in the opening
>montage, and the war was talked about directly in MMIII, but did MMI take
>place before, during, or after the war??  Or was the war strictly bewteen
>MMI and II??

The first one happened in a near future. No war, but a rotting society
(see: The Hall of Justice, at the beginning of the film.) with
unsafe highways and bloody battle between criminals and highway patrols.

Not a word about the supposed war in the first part.

When the second movie was made, they didn't want just to reprise the
first one so they invented this war AFTER the first was made.

So this whole war subject is just one big continueti error....
.....or this is the way at least I see it.

The error doesn't bother me. I like both films. (Not seen the third one.)

Satisfied? No?
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.movies
Subject: Re: Alien JawsThe Alien's mouths are based upon an animal that exists on Earth:
From: <JW83HISW@MIAMIU.BITNET>
Date: Friday, 25 Sep 1992 11:30:29 EDT
Organization: Miami University - Academic Computer Service
From: bx916@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Ross W. Starkey)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.movies
Subject: BR: Computers or physical? (was Re: Is not! Is too! Is not! Is too!)
Date: 5 Oct 1992 04:06:22 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Reply-To: bx916@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Ross W. Starkey)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu






In a previous article, gmark@cbnewse.cb.att.com (gilbert.m.stewart) says:

>In article <BvF43o.7IE@acsu.buffalo.edu> majcher@acsu.buffalo.edu (Salamander~) writes:
>>fierro@uts.amdahl.com (Doug Fierro) writes:
>>
>>>>I'm not convinced Roy is all that smart.  What he accomplishes he 
>>>>accomplishes by brute force, not intelligence, and he failed at his 
>>>>one goal - gaining a longer life from Tyrell.  I'm not going
>>>>to argue that Roy was dumb, but there isn't a lot of evidence
>>>>for him being bright, either.  Poignant, yes.  Bright, maybe.
>>
>>>  Didn't Roy checkmate Tyrell while waiting in the elevator?  Seems
>>>like Tyrell is a pretty good chess player...
>>
>>	That's brute force.  Trust me - computers don't play chess the
>>way humans do.  Maybe replicants don't either.  Check out an AI text
>>sometime...it's not pretty.
>
>And how many human actions cannot or never will be explained by
>an algorithm?  And what about Roy's seemingly-creative suggestions
>of ways of extending his life that Tyrell's people had already
>tried?  Sure, you could explain this with a "random idea generator",
>but if he appears intelligent, he is.  Think Turing.
>
>I'm not sure you want to turn this into a debate on the "essence of
>human intelligence".  It would go on for a long time, certainly.
>
>GMS
>

WHAT ARE YOU GUYS TALKING ABOUT????

Roy *IS* human!

Do you think he's a robot or something?

He is a genetically engineered HUMAN slave.

YOU'VE MISSED THE WHOLE POINT OF THE MOVIE IF YOU THINK OTHERWISE!

As Roy himself said:

"We're not computers... we're physical."

Now back to our regularly scheduled "is he or isn't he" argument.  :-)


Sorry if I've come across as a prick, but I have *STRONG* feelings about
people (genetically engineered) being labeled as androids (which,
according to the OED, they are), turned into slaves, and sold to people
who think "android = robot."  Even if it IS just a movie...


-- 
Whom first, whom later         No one is fool enough to choose war instead of
did you kill in battle,        peace - in peace sons bury fathers, but in war
Patroklos, when the gods       fathers bury sons.  It must have been heaven's
were calling deathward? HOMER  will that this should happen...      HERODOTUS
-- 
Whom first, whom later         No one is fool enough to choose war instead of
did you kill in battle,        peace - in peace sons bury fathers, but in war
Patroklos, when the gods       fathers bury sons.  It must have been heaven's
were calling deathward? HOMER  will that this should happen...      HERODOTUS
Organization: Penn State University
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 17:47:32 EDT
From: Sime <TJS107@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.movies
Subject: Re: What's wrong with Alien^3?
 <1aNqRB1w164w@glnserv.UUCP>

In article <1aNqRB1w164w@glnserv.UUCP>, kati@glnserv.UUCP (Lady Dragon) says:
>The main reason Alien 3 failed as a movie is that nobody in the audience
>cared about anybody in the movie, including Ripley. They killed off anyone
>in Alien 2 that we might have cared about, and when we might have cared
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>about the doctor, they killed him too. They kept us at a distance from
>possibly liking anyone else, and made Ripley not even care about herself.
>It's true that having a bad plot line didn't help either.

Whoo!  Just what I say!  What's the point of watching Aliens now that I've
seen Alien 3?  I just can't bring myself to do it.  I'll just be thinking
don't bother you're just going to be killed off stupidly in the beginning of
the next movie anyways...

Alien 3 was OK, but it would have been better if it was a completely different
plot, i.e. the plot of the comic book Aliens, Earth War.

Some movies they can get away with killing off the main characters and I still
enjoy them, like They Live, but I think it was a bad move for Alien 3.  It had
some of the horror of the first film, but was a dissappointment (IMHO) nonethe
less.

Hicks made Aliens what it was.  He could have been great as the disturbed
and scarred marine in an Earth War type movie.... Even the bad scripts I read
for Alien 3 before it came out were better than the original, I think.

Just to show my opinion a bit more, suppose the Millenium Falcon would have
been destroyed exiting the Death Star in Return of the Jedi, as it was
originally supposed to have been, I think.  This would have pissed me off to
no extent.  What is now my favorite SW film would be my least favorite due to
one stupid little scene.  Killing off main characters just doesn't work most
of the time. To quote Mr. Horse,

              "No sir, I don't like it"

Later,

Sime
                                                      Go Pirates!
The poison of love so pure it's deceiving,            Go Pens!
And deceit is all we have it's got to be over         Go Steelers!
   -Queensryche
Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Date: Tuesday, 6 Oct 1992 09:49:17 CDT
From: <U59849@uicvm.uic.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.movies
Subject:    T1000

Did anyone else noticed in the chase scene between Arnold and the T1000.  While
driving down the expressway in the SWAT Teams truck, the T1000 had to reload
and while doing so he controled the helicoper with his both hands while reloadi
ng with a third.  It a quick scene, but if you have slow motion with your VCR
you can notice it, then again if you pay strict attention I think it's noticabl
e.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.movies,rec.arts.movies,alt.cult-movies