What is human-a question only raised and answered by BR

Rating: 10/10 (10 June 2002)

First of all, so sad that it's only the 78th...In my opinion, Blade Runner is no less perfect than the Godfather. I watched this film in my film-as-literature class, and it shocked me. As most viewers pointed out, this is one of the few movies that raises the questions not about entertainment or the society, but the very base of the human. Compare to the ending scene of Roy saving Deck, I found the theme of the movie being revealed in another way in the scene of Thora cracking through the windows. Deck shoots Thora three times: the first shot brings Thora through the windows--the invisible wall between humans and replicants, which, in some sense, only exists in men's mind. After all, running from death and fear--aren't those the emotions that distinguish a human from a replicant? After the second shot, we have the overlapping image of Thora and the background. I don't know what others feel about it, but Thora looks like an angel to me in this image. She flies, with her transparent wings, until she falls. "Fiery the angels fall..." Doesn't this quote of Roy's correspond to Thora? The third shot is a little ambiguous to me. Thora crackes into a snowing room...what does snow represent here? Purity? Despair? Bleak truth of death? I prefer the last conjecture though. Finally Thora dies, and her blood streams on the snow. Blood--vitality, hope, life--life! Do you feel that she's a replicant--a nonhuman, when you see her blood? I certainly don't. Like Deck says, "shooting a woman on the back", she is a WOMAN, not a female replicant. Roy has been credited by many viewers as the true hero of the movie, and I agree. He "burns so very, very brightly", like Tyrel says, that he is above all other characters--humans or replicants, in the sense of humanity. Isn't that an irony to the humans, especially that demon Bryan? Alas, having too many to say about Roy, I can't even find a way to verbalize it(please forgive me MR. Martin, I still have a hard time verbalizing thoughts in English!)