Blade Runner - Big Deck Energy

Hey, Laura,

Hey Ja'far.

are you ready to have a fun, friendly conversation about a late stage capitalist dystopia where computers replacing human is society's biggest problem that they're willing to acknowledge?

Hell yeah.

Hello, and welcome to Who Are You? This is a reasonably well done sci fi watchcast hosted by two friends who are currently working their way through 2004's Battlestar Galactica. But not today, it's a movie break. I'm Ja'far,

And I'm Laura.

and we're watching Blade Runner.

Hell yeah.

So when we decided to do mo I mean, we knew we were gonna do Movie Breaks again, right? and you haven't seen the show, so I've been kinda taking the lead on the movie picks based off the actors, cause I'm more familiar with their work,

Sure, yeah. And I can't google too much about

Exactly.

Might be a problem. Right.

yeah. You Google Edward James Olmos and you see 20 episodes and you're just like, fuck! So, not what's going on here. You know, to avoid that I've been kind of taking the lead. Um, and then Edward James Olmos, the actor that we're going to be talking about from Blade Runner. Um, this is like the most softball pitch of a movie.

Yeah, for this show,

this show, a hundred percent, like it is so close, like some of the themes, some of the stuff, some of the inspirations, and to share Edward James Olmos in both is just chef's kiss perfection that it had to be our first movie break.

it is beautiful,

so. I know I talked about having a, like, maybe a poll in the Discord. That's the plan for the rest of the Battlestar Galactica movie breaks. Um, and I trusted the Discord if they saw the options, they would have picked Blade Runner. But, I didn't even think it needed to go to a vote. Uh, It's too perfect. We had to do it. Um, and you hadn't seen Blade Runner before?

thinks I have, but as I was watching it, I really, maybe we, we watched it together and I fell asleep or something, because I did not recognize things about it. And I did, you know, I have read the book, I did, after we finished, like, do a comparison. I looked up, because I couldn't quite remember some of the book. It'd been 20 years, you know, uh, but I was like, I know things were different. It wasn't this, it wasn't quite this. So I did my, my book to show comparison for that, um.

I definitely had not seen this version of the film before. Um, I thought I had. I thought, we watched the final cut. I think I said it at the end of the last episode.

Yes, I believe we

Which is a remastered, recolored version of the Director's Cut.

Mm

Um, and watching through it, it was clear to me that I've only seen the theatrical version beforehand. Because, like, even at the very beginning, like, I'm remembering stuff differently, I'm remembering pacing differently.

I mean, maybe that's my problem, too. Like, maybe I did see a different version that was enough different that I cannot recall.

So, I, I think you'd, I mean, the big stuff's still there.

Yeah. For sure. can I just say, before we get too far,

course.

that I absolutely love the composer of the Blade Runner score.

Yeah.

So, this is Vangelis.

Yes.

We have not encountered Vangelis in anything we've watched yet, I don't think. But we've had great electronic music composers because obviously we had Christopher Frank in Babylon 5. And then we had Wendy Carlos in Tron. when we watched Tron way back in the day. but to me, Vangelis is like the other, original, if you will uh, electronic music composer. Like those are the two that I know really well, mostly because my dad had a lot of their music.

That's cool.

And then Vangelis just has, has had a lot of, movie, electronic music, and then made many, many other albums. so if you're not familiar with Vangelis outside of Blade Runner, you actually are, because you've heard the Chariots of Fire theme

Yes.

You have. Like, even if you've never seen Chariots of Fire, you've seen it memed, you've seen it, like, parodied somewhere, and they've played the music.

you've heard that shit.

Yeah, people running on a beach. If you say that, then people go, oh yes! Yeah.

You know, chariot's fire. Um, I've actually seen the soundtrack performed live before.

For Chariots of Fire?

No. Blade

Oh, Blade Runner. Okay. I was like, damn.

One year at DragonCon when I was there, Jefferson Starship did the entire soundtrack of Blade

Wow. That's really cool though. That's so cool.

it's like this weird little, like, thing that I got to do that is like, So bizarre and interesting, um, but, I don't know, I, I remember, I mean, that entire con was a blur, I don't have any particularly standout memories of their performance but I remember going, and it's a box I can check off, I guess, I don't know, the music's good though uh, the soundtrack is solid,

I just have to recommend if you liked. The Blade Runner soundtrack. You haven't heard much else Vangelis besides Chariots of Fire, which you know you've heard. Then, the one album that my dad had when I was young that he, he played a lot was Heaven and Hell from 1975. It's really cool. I really like it. I had to do one of those things in my undergrad where like, if you could only take so many albums to a desert island, what would you take? I, Heaven and Hell was one of mine.

Yeah, that's cool It's very in line with the my current prog pop obsession everything everything as well

Yeah,

Obviously a more modern counterpart But there's definitely some through lines from Vangelis to everything everything. So

Yeah. He's a pretty influential composer, even though it's sort of almost like just new agey. You would think, why would that be influential? But he really is.

All right. Well, you're ready to talk about this movie

Yeah, sure. Let's talk about the movie part.

we get a little bit here at the beginning Tyrell Corp made Cylons, Cylons rebelled, Blade Runners hunt them for retirement, we're in Los Angeles, it's November 2019.

Oh, yeah. Oops. Did you miss all the Blade Runners? I don't think I got that. Ha

You know, there's some people that are like, Oh, but we're so close. And then there's some people that's like, we are not close at all. And we are not close at all.

Right,

Uh, but you know, we opened on a test designed to invoke a emotional response. And the emotion invoked is gunshot.

yeah.

Very American made robot. Clearly.

Yeah, obviously. This guy sounded so much like Harrison Ford that I thought for a moment we were already with him. But he is not Harrison Ford. And he's not in the movie long.

Harrison Ford. Okay, well, we'll talk about it in like five seconds. We cut over to Harrison Ford playing Deckard after this. Who just wants some street noodles when he gets arrested by GAF? This is Edward James Olmos.

Uh Huh.

guess ACAB stands for All Commanders Are Bastards. How old do you think Edward James Olmos is here?

I think I actually did the math but I have forgotten it. Tell me how old he is.

He's 35.

Yeah, okay.

do you think Harrison Ford is in this?

Oh, gosh, now that you've said it, I don't know.

Look at Edward James Olmos. Look at Harrison Ford. How old do you think Harrison Ford is? Just, like, looking at the two of them. You know Edward James Olmos is 35.

I don't know, man, I'm so bad at ages thirty eight? Forty. Okay, I was actually going to say that, damn.

Edward James Olmos looks the same 20 years later.

So I have a theory about Edward James Olmos character because he is very pimp stylin this whole time. And that is how I've decided you know, we'll get into it about the, you know, is Deckard a replicant or not theories, but I think he is, and this is his pimp. And that's, yeah, his handler. That's where we're at.

Gaff brings Deckard in as he finishes his noodles on the ride. They make it to Bryant's office, who I'm guessing is the police commissioner or something, the chief. I think they say he's

I think he's a

or something, I don't know.

Yeah, he's, he's in charge. More so than Gaff.

his office drives me crazy because his office has a very low ceiling but it's built inside of a warehouse with a very tall ceiling.

Yeah,

there's like nothing above it, it's just like a closed room.

Yeah, it's just like a dropped. I mean, architecture in this movie is wild, we've already seen the giant pyramids of the Tyrell Corporation, like,

Dear God.

lots of blinky lights on this giant pyramid, and, you know. That's, that's where oligarchy's going, right? That's what they want?

Big pyramids? Probably. I don't know. Ask Elon how he feels about pyramids. Don't ask Elon Musk how he feels about pyramids. You're going to be disappointed by the response no matter what it is.

I sense a new building project in Austin, Texas, coming up.

Cylons out on the run. They've come from off world.

Yeah, we've seen this giant blimp too, already. That is advertising going off world to the colonies. Loudspeaker and everything, it's got the like, the You know, electronic billboard. And then it's also like, go off world. It'll be great.

Yeah, this is the everyone's having a bad year blimp.

you think off world is real?

Ooh. Ooh, there's a question I hadn't considered.

obviously the replicants did come from somewhere, but do you think off world for humans is real? Like if you're like, all right, I'm so tired of this, sign me up, I'm going to the colonies.

They just kill you, just to get rid of you.

I'm just, I'm just saying.

Sign over all of your property, we'll send you into space. They send you into space and you never come back.

I mean, it's one of those things that's not really seen in the movie and kind of,

So, I actually, at the very end of the movie, like, at the absolute end of the movie we get some talk about, like, space battles being witnessed.

oh, yes.

Who the fuck are they fighting?

Hmm,

fighting who? Are humans fighting humans? Are replicants fighting replicants? Are replicants fighting humans? Are there aliens in Blade Runner? These are questions that might be answered in Blade Runner 2049, a film I haven't seen. Heh

I haven't seen it either. Erin has, but I have

heh. Mm hmm.

Interesting, interesting. Oh, and I had a good laugh too thinking about the off world colonies, and I was like, Caprica? Maybe? Why not? So, Brian just yelling at Harrison Ford. Basically. You're, you're a little man and you work for me. You don't get to quit. We don't know why Harrison Ford quit.

Yeah, that, I mean, maybe that's a replicant thing, but here's the thing is, he starts this movie retired, right? And a retired replicant is a dead replicant.

Yeah.

that's the very premise.

Hm.

So that's one in the column of not a replicant for me.

Yeah. I mean, we've still got Gaff to keep an eye on him though. I think, I think maybe. Yeah, I think there's still some life in the old girl, is why we haven't done anything. Or who knows, maybe, maybe uh, Harrison Ford is one of those people who just quits every week, you know, like, fuck this place! And then we get him back in, cause he needs a paycheck. The last commission runs dry and he shows back up with his hat in his hand.

Yeah.

Gaff apparently, one of his things is making a little origami out of gum wrappers.

Yeah, he makes these little origamis all over the place. They are a reoccurring thing. Which is fun. I'm sure there's some symbology there, but I am not bothered to look into it.

First one's a rooster. I caught that.

The last one's a unicorn.

And that's important. Yeah. There's like a man in between, like a little matchstick man, I think. But if there's more, I missed the rest of them.

But anyways, yeah they gotta get these four Cylons and they need big deck energy to handle it, so.

Mm hmm.

That's the plan.

Yeah, there were originally six. Um, they killed 23 people, stole a shuttle, and two of them are already gone by the time we get to the movie.

Yeah, they tried to infiltrate Tyrellcorp and got zapped by anti replicant stuff that only exists inside of Tyrellcorp, I guess.

Hmm. Interesting that Tyrell Corp would. Hang on to that.

Mm hmm.

Close to the vest, if you will.

Bryant brings Deckard up to speed. We get details on the Voight Kampff tests. A working Cylon detector that we need to get over to Baltar real quick.

Yeah, somebody get him on the phone.

They found one of the uh, replicants Leon, posing as an employee. And then we see clips of Batty, Zora, and Pris, the remaining replicants to find, and learn they have a four year lifespan as a failsafe for their emotional sentience. Thanks!

we give them a longer lifespan, they might develop emotions and presumably opinions attached to those emotions.

I

See, this is why I'm always nice to chat GPT when I ask for help. Laughs.

but I also say what the fuck are you good for sometimes. So you know,

It's so weird, you know, I, I understand that I don't need to, but like, I see younger colleagues will just like copy and paste a thing and just slap it in chat GPT, but I always feel like I need to introduce it to the, my problem and say, I'm working on X, you know, and can you help me with this? Thank you. You know?

No, that, that, that actually helps the model.

Okay.

So the way a language learning model predicts is, um, if you have five word sentence, and it takes the first word and that's a single dimension. of space, right? The second word adds a second dimension, and so on and so forth. So you're doing incredibly complex high dimension math when you're throwing in thousands of words at once,

Hmm. Yeah.

The better you start it off by addressing your topic and your goal will actually impact the end results in a positive manner.

Okay, I just feel like context is king, right?

yes, and it's a robot that doesn't understand context in the way that we do, but by putting these words into the filter. Before you give it the other stuff. You are adding dimensions, which makes it harder to process. But you're also guiding those initial dimensions. So that you get a better targeted answer as you get this giant dimensional cone thing that exists in 260 dimension space. Yeah, you know, fun stuff, crazy math.

if ChatGPT ever develops emotions, I hope I'm covered.

Well, here's the thing. It

I, I know, I know. You don't have to do the whole thing. Yeah.

we've heard you rant about how AI doesn't have feelings enough. It just means that you're an empathetic person. That's all it means. It's not a bad thing.

I can't change my nature.

Yeah, no, nor should you. It's a good thing to think that the AI you're talking to has feelings. It doesn't, but it means that you are recognizing patterns in its speech and empathizing, and it probably means you're better at talking to people.

Yeah. Yeah. Mm. Maybe. Yeah.

well, talking at people, at least. We

For sure, right?

we get an hour of practice of that every week. So, you know. Over at Terrell Deckard meets Rachel and Dr. Terrell, who ask him to administer a Voight Kampff on Rachel as a demonstration. Deckard knows she's a Cylon, but Rachel is unaware. Hmm,

Hmm. Haven't seen that before.

Yeah, some of them are programmed to think that they're human.

Weird.

Deckard questions the purpose of having a Cylon that thinks it's human. Uh, Which, fair question.

Yeah, I don't think this guy answers it.

he doesn't.

I want to say from my memory of the book that Like, he just wanted a daughter,

yeah,

but I'm not 100 percent sure on that. But my impression was he wanted a daughter, but without the pesky, you know, having a human daughter. Yeah, she's also very picky about, you know, have you ever retired a human by mistake?

Yeah, just wants to know. Asking for a friend. The friend is the police. You kill anybody? Did you ever have you ever killed a human person? We can't say real person.

These questions that we ask in the Voight Kampff test we've got calfskin wallet butterfly collection. And the killing jar wasp crawling on her arm, and, and when we were questioning Leon earlier, we had, like, the tortoise on its back in the sun, and did your mom love you or something? I

Mm hmm.

don't, don't remember exactly, it was something about a mother, and that's what provokes the gunshot. just goes to show you, we all have strong feelings about parents, but I do remember those questions from the book, like, that, that's lifted straight from the book. The material.

And those are like, that's like a famous thing. Like, that, that is something that has been touted about a ton of science fiction over the years.

Mm hmm. Yeah. Picked up and used other places. Yeah. Naked girl, raw oysters, um, entree of boiled dog, like a whole bunch. He has to go through a lot of questions, and I think at the end they say he asked her over a hundred questions and it finally kicked that she's a replicant and she doesn't know it.

Yeah.

But she's starting to suspect.

Mm hmm. We ask why you would give someone false memories of their past in here as well as part of this. That's why she's unaware is because she has a full memory of her history. And it's, we get the explanation of this is the emotional pillow on which we rest our heads and build the rest of our thoughts on, our memories. And so that's why. She could be unawares and still have the four year term, and also why the four year term is so important to prevent them from going on, as it were.

Yeah.

Because then you might feel guilty about enslaving people. If the

If they, if they knew that they were slaves and, and understood and felt ways about that. Hmm.

Gavin Decker, go check out Leon's hotel room. There's, like, minerals in the shower?

These are scales, right?

Are these the scales? Is that what this is?

Well, I know we get a scale from the shower.

Yeah, it seems like there was like, random buildup of other stuff though. I was so

Oh, you know what? I think I saw something that was like machine oil or something

Yeah.

that reminded me of that in addition to we get the scale. Yeah. Yeah. But we see that these aren't just like, gears and oils, robots.

like, leftover head and shoulders that didn't make it down the drain. Like, this is, this is some shit. Well, no, it's not. That's, I guess, the point. Um, yeah, it's like, yeah, I just, it was so bizarre to me. Like, what is this?

Yeah. I, I remember thinking machine oil, but they're also like meat robots, like our Cylons, like clearly. We see it pretty graphically later,

Yeah.

But the important part is we get a scale out of there,

Yeah. That'll, that'll take us to plot later. And then also the photos are super important.

oh, this is where the, the matchstick man gets left behind, but yeah, a stash of photos. Yeah. Yeah.

Leon notices that they're in his place and goes to tell Batty that he is being pursued.

Yeah. Batty asks him if he got his photos, and now that we're like, talking about the photos, I'm like, what was so damn important about those photos?

They were his memories. They're his emotional pillow. It's all photos of him hanging out with the other three Cylons.

Yeah, okay. I know we're going to use it to do our little CSI Enhance later, but why were they important to Leon was the memories.

Yeah, so like Rachel has fake photos of her past, right? Has like evidence, evidence of her personhood, effectively.

This is, I'm real because I have this,

Yeah, I have memories, I am a real thing. This is the same thing as that. It's the, these memories are, I think they represent the group's collective sentience, in a way.

Mm hmm. Yeah, okay. Well, and then, just hopping ahead, we're gonna see Dex's apartment in a little bit. And I remember being struck by, like, all of the old stuff in it.

Yeah. Yep.

kind of thing. Old sheet music. Old pictures. Hmm. Hmm.

Before we go to there, though, we go to iWorld, where uh, James Hong is treated like shit.

Yeah.

He doesn't tell them anything, because he doesn't know anything, but he does send them to J. F. Sebastian, who can take them to Dr. Terrell. Yeah. Cleansecrafters. Cleansecrafters.

it's implied from this that like, his technology went into the Robits, right? but I guess he's also just making eyes. Like, if I need a new eyes, I go get one Mm

eyes? Sure. Yeah. I mean, if Robits Asylums are meatbags, right?

hmm.

So, it stands to reason that we got pretty good at making fake orkans.

Yeah.

Throwin in a person?

Yeah.

Yeah.

This is a neat world building spot though with like the freezing store and he's like wearing a parka that he has like heat piped into it, you know, to keep all these eyes on ice. Uh, It's a nifty little scene even though, you know, we get to see our actor be treated poorly.

yeah,

But he recognizes Roy right away as a Nexus type of replicant.

Nexus 6, which it occurred to me this time that that was probably why they named the phone that. I had a Nexus 6 phone.

Oh, hilarious.

think, I don't think there was a Nexus 1 through 4, I think they came out with the 5 and 6 at the same time.

Well, I wondered if Chief Tyrell's name was kind of a little reference to the Tyrell Corporation without being, you know, obvious.

yeah, that, that could be quite true. It's a fun little thing. Deckard goes home, but Rachel is waiting in the elevator. She wants to know her test results. Deckard gets her to believe it by recalling memories that she's never told anyone about.

Yeah.

How the fuck does he know this stuff?

I guess it seems like Tyrell must have shared some kind of file with him.

Yeah,

And I think maybe that does happen in the book. Maybe it happens in another version of, like, another cut of the movie. but yeah, it seems like he had been given some information, extra information about her after he uncovered who she was.

Yeah.

Because otherwise, yeah. How does he fucking know?

That doesn't make sense to me. But whatever He tries to reverse course here but the damage is done. Deckard looks at her photos and then Leon's immediately after.

Yeah, she drops hers in a huff when she leaves.

After this we see Pris walking around. She's hiding out in a trash pile until she's disturbed by J. F. Sebastian who is getting dropped off by a taxi.

Yeah, I did not understand this guy and I called him a garbage collector at first,

Yeah. Oh.

notes, until we found out he was J. F. Sebastian. Apparently he was also in third space.

Babylon 5 Third Space?

Sure was.

Ah, okay. Yeah, I'm thinking of a different movie. Ugh, God. Third Space. I've blocked out Third Space

Yeah. This is a weird character.

Yeah, they they're walking, like, through halls to get to his apartment, and this place is just littered with sex dolls.

Yeah.

Like, Pris, self aware, knows she's a sex doll. If I were to go to a place and saw all of this, I am not sta Like, obviously she's not there because she wants to be, she's there because she knows who this guy is and was waiting for him, and It's all, it's all so that they can get to Dr. Terrell. But, like, man, I would be on high fucking alert.

Yeah, he's living alone in this building. It seems like it's abandoned. It's implied that enough people are going off world, that we have some of these buildings that are just empty now. He says an interesting line, that there's plenty of room for everyone.

hmm.

it made me wonder what this guy, like, kind of knows. Like, is he Cylon sympathetic? And like, yeah. I, I live with a bunch of dolls already, like, bring your friends, you know?

Yeah.

because I, I don't know if he says it any time soon, but basically he clocks Pris and Roy. Pretty much instantly that they are replicants and It made me wonder, like, why do we need Blade Runners so bad when we've had two characters just completely recognize them? No bullshit, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. What's the point of the Voight Kampff when enough people work on these fucking things? It's like, they're just, like. They're just engineers who are like, Oh, you're a, you know, a 2012 Equinox. I worked on you. You know, that happens here in Deux Trois all the fucking time.

Right. Right. It's like, huh. Interesting.

Yeah. I mean, shit. I worked on a car that I own, like shit happens like that all the time here. It's, it's the same thing.

I just wonder, is he a sympathizer in some way, yeah,

You don't have a Napoleon teddy bear that you've animated to life without being some kind of sympathizer.

yeah. this is fun though, that a lot of these little toys that he has are very clearly, you know, actors. They're people. We've just painted them up or put them in some kind of a fantastical costume to make this place extra creepy. Like it's so creepy.

the creepiest Daryl Hannah run.

Back at Dex's apartment, he's picking at his piano. And hallucinating a unicorn. Dick drinks a lot.

Everyone only drinks future Johnny Walker in this movie.

Yeah. But it seems like pretty much every scene he's either, like, drinking a drink or going to get a drink.

Or smoking.

Or smoking. Yeah, yeah.

80s Harrison Ford.

Yeah. Fair

Is it the character? Is it the actor?

he hallucinates this unicorn. Not clear why. Why he's thinking about unicorns.

Man, that is a point in the uh, replicant though.

Mm hmm. Oh, yeah. Definitely.

Knowing that Gaff leaves one for him later. 100%.

Yeah. He Goes and sticks the one of Leon's pictures into the TV to enhance His apartment's just like a big mess, isn't it? I mean, I don't know if this is just like the darkness of the visual style, but I was like

The thing that gets me is like, The 3D printed kitchen backsplash of the weird, like, maze pattern.

It's like on all the walls it's everywhere and we have like weird pillars that are also covered in the backsplash

Yeah, who would do this to a home?

Like he goes out on the balcony at one point And it's on the outside balcony. It's like, we just took the stuff that we made the outside of and also made the inside of that.

Yeah, it's

It's weird. Ha ha ha.

God, this guy carpets over hardwood. I know everything I need to about him.

Oof. Oof.

Fucking, so, We get what I think is the biggest piece of science fiction in this here, which is a printer that just works

Uh Huh.

as he prints out some his enhanced photos for later.

Right?

he takes the scale that he found in the markets and learns that it was a Cylon snake, which he follows to Taffy Lewis in Chinatown.

Yeah. The snake salesman is fun.

Timestamp 4857. If you're in the Discord, you saw me post this as well. this is the uh, two dancing girls wearing Jason hockey masks, like old school hockey goalie masks.

Now, Ja'far, don't yuck anyone's yums. ha ha. I had to go look at the picture, too, because I hadn't seen it yet, and this is hilarious.

I'm not kink shaming, I'm kink asking why. I mean if it's just like Jason Mask monster fucker stuff, I don't understand it but I acknowledge it.

Yeah, that's a, that's a real fun picture. I did not catch that.

It was, it was so quick that like I had paused it, right? And Beth was in the other room, comes back in, sees what's paused on the screen as I'm just laughing. And is like, what are you watching? And I'm like, this is Blade Runner.

This is just Blade Runner, man. Like, this is an

This isn't in Blade Runner, what are you talking about? I'm all like,

Oh, yes it

rewind 30 seconds, see Harrison Ford. Like, no, it's fucking Blade Runner. What is going on?

Deckard asks about the snake. To Taffy Lewis, and Taffy orders him a drink, so more drinking and he goes to call Rachel on the payphone and invite her to the weird strip club?

Yeah, weird choice, dude.

is so weird. And she basically tells him like, I'm really upset at you for one thing, like that's the big vibe, is you've hurt my feelings very badly.

Yeah, my real human feelings.

my real human feelings, and I'm not that kind of girl.

Yeah.

I don't know how he couldn't tell from the hairdo. That's a very, not that kind of girl hairdo she has.

Yeah, so Harrison Ford watches the Cylon snake sex show? What the fuck Ridley Scott?

this is really funny to me though, because like, She hangs up on him, he goes back to the thing, and they announce Salome and the snake, I think is the name of the, the act here. And it's like a beat where he's watching it come on and then he just like turns away. And I was like, what is happening over there that he was like, oh no. But he goes in and coughs Salome after the show.

This is Zora.

mm

don't say it. They give us, I was, like, they give us one name at the start of the movie and then a different name in the second half of the movie and they never say it's the same person.

Uh Huh. Are we supposed to wonder if he might perhaps have gotten the wrong person? Because they never verify it. I mean, I guess they do verify that she's a replicant. At least the chief does.

Yeah.

but he's pretending to be, like, some union rep. and this is some very good Harrison Ford here. He's his best, like, nerd, innocent nerd act, obviously. Mm hmm.

He clearly learned this hanging out with Mark Hamill. Like, he does such

Oh, do you think he's channeling Mark

100 percent he's channeling Mark Hamill here. Um, I have questions about this scene. Namely what happens to all to Zora's bedazzlement because she's like covered in like rhinestone stickers when she goes into the shower and then they're all off when she gets out of the shower.

That's not good for your drains.

No, it's terrible for your drains. What is it with replicants ruining fucking drains and just having all kinds of stuff they shouldn't in there?

For real, they're like, well, we don't have to worry about these pipes. We won't be here in four years. This is someone else's problem.

They're just treating their homes like they're rental cars. I hate it.

It's crazy to me that she, like, gets in the shower and he's just Like, looting the dressing room, talking to her at the same time. there's no respect for anybody who shares this dressing room.

No. Deckard's questions get him tossed, choked, and embarrassed as Selene makes a run for it in a fucking plastic poncho?

Yeah, like her underwear and a plastic poncho. See through, See through, poncho. Makes for a dramatic

We get it, Ridley Scott. You're horny. We understand.

It makes it really dramatic when she runs through several plate glass windows.

It does. He gives Chase through crowds and buses. And he has to shoot her like three times as she runs through all of that aforementioned glass.

Yeah, yeah as, you know, we're confirming she's been shot dead Leon sees the scene, but isn't seen.

Yes. And so he goes to confront Deckard.

Yeah, and no one on the street seemed to care about the murder they witnessed either.

Oh, cop showed up? Oh, it's a replicant? Whatever. Yeah, no one gives a fuck. I mean, honestly, this is super police state y, so they probably just don't give a fuck anyways.

they're like, this is Tuesday. At this point I wrote, is Deck an alcoholic robot? Cause he like, goes to get a bottle of liquor at the liquor store or a bar window or something. I don't know, I was like, got a little bit of like, the bender going on here.

Yeah. If you stay drunk, you never have to deal with sobering up.

Hmm.

That's, that's, that's not real. That's ironic advice, audience. Please, please seek help if you need it.

Yeah.

Please.

For sure.

Gaul uh, tracks him down when he's going through this to take him back to Bryant, who adds Rachel to the list because she's gone missing now.

Oh yeah, and he's very cavalier about the whole thing. it's like Ah, well, there's another one, so whatever you can do, go, go get him.

Deckard sees Rachel across the way here and goes to catch up when Leon grabs him and puts the hurt on him. As they scrap, Rachel gets Deckard's gun and kills Leon, saving Deckard. Hmm.

in here. He says, wake up, time to die. I was like, hmm, that's, I wonder if that's a reference to like, You are also one of us, and,

Well, I mean, Time to Die is also at the end of the film too, so.

Mm,

Which was ad libbed, so. That's interesting.

yeah.

anyways they go back to Deckard's place to talk and drink. She asks if she runs, if Deckard would be the one to hunt her down. He says he wouldn't hunt her down but somebody else would. They sit down at the piano, and uh, he kisses her. She goes to leave after this, and it's all really fucking gross power dynamics since she literally needs him to let her escape to live.

Yeah.

is no possible way she could consent here.

Yep.

This is fucking gross and I hate it.

Yeah. The, the whole thing is really gross. she clearly doesn't, like, want to kiss him, and we know because she is so human like That she has feelings.

Yeah.

So, this like, forced intimacy, I guess? I don't know, that's not a great word for what it is, you know? but it's so, it's so jarring because we have, him violently forcing her to stay. And we also have just like, sexy saxophone in the background.

Yeah! I wonder how much of this is just like, this was acceptable in the 80s. And, I will, I mean, I haven't seen this movie in, I wanna say probably 15 years. Right. It's been a long time. And I know that I am a different person now than the person that I was 15 years ago. And I don't remember anything this jarring. I don't know if it's just not in the other cut of the film, or if it's handled differently.

Mm hmm.

So like, keeping that in mind, part of me is just like, Oh, it's the 80s, this was just acceptable.

I mean, it can be that.

Duhhhhhh. I hate it here.

It's interesting that I wonder if he really thought she was a woman, if he would behave the same way, but she's been, like, dehumanized. She's, like, not on the same level

Because she's a robot, it's okay.

Yeah, I don't know. I feel like there's a feminist message in here as well about how women are treated as not people.

Yeah.

parts of our society and culture. And then we like, cut over to Pris, who is also a not people, and she's airbrushing a mask on herself.

She's just putting on some doll makeup to hang out with the other dolls.

Mm hmm. Sebastian's asleep in his chair and we find out he's 25.

Yeah, he's got Methuselah Syndrome, which means he ages rapidly, so he can't go to space.

Yeah.

we have to talk about something else here. This is the most prominent example of this in the movie, so I wanted to call it out here. Um, there is a thing with the replicants that we see continuously throughout this movie. Uh, before this and after this. Where, um, you know when you take a picture of like an animal on like an old film and their eyes are different? That happens with all of the replicants in this movie.

all have a yellow glow to the

Yeah. Yeah, it's all, like, that red, yellow, like, animal pupil glow thing that happens in photographs. And Pris has it most prominently here out of any of the replicants outside of the owl,

Yeah, the owl's like, super obvi, yeah.

Yeah.

I was really interested in Methuselah Syndrome, I was like, is this a real thing?

A normal direction Benjamin button.

It's like, we just kind of drop this in there, but we don't do anything with it and it doesn't go anywhere. And I was very confused.

Yeah.

Uh, But Roy comes in and kisses Pris. He's found them. Sebastian is trying to be diplomatic here. He offers them breakfast. Roy does not give a shit though.

No.

Tells her that Leon is dead, and she says, we're stupid and we'll die, and I feel the same way.

Oh, Laura Hugs.

I think that's Ph. D. student syndrome. Pris,

Oh, no.

Pris, where, what program did you get into? Where are you going? I kid, I

Yeah. Sebastian's a real fucking nerd here talking about what model silent are you and stuff. And then Batty reveals the reason that they stole that shuttle, killed all those people, and came to Earth. It's because their expiration date is near, and they don't want to die.

They want Tyrell to fix it.

Sebastian can't help but say he'll ask Tyrell, and again, helps them. Uh, He takes Batty to go to Tyrell after uh, some chess.

For some reason, this scientist gets to play chess with the CEO all the time.

Yeah.

This weird scientist who lives alone in the building of sex dolls gets to play chess with the CEO

This is what happens when you've got a, like, billionaire who just comes into a bunch of money and just, like, hires a bunch of, like, nerdy antisocial kids to work for him. But then, I mean, you know, it's just, it's pure science fiction.

Seems legit. Uh, He's, JF is sympathetic, but he's starting to seem pretty reluctant at this point. This is getting a little weird and violent, even for the weird sex doll guy.

Yeah. Batty and Terrell go back and forth about the possibility of replicant lifespan here. But they seem pretty set. They techno jargon at each other for like three minutes here. Just like, well, what about this? Well, that will form a virus. Well, what about this? Oh, well, then we'll do this, and then this happens. It's just like, they've clearly tried all their shit, bro. You didn't have any answers, which you knew, which is why you're here, because if you had answers, you wouldn't be here.

My gosh, yes. This is uh,

mean, maybe it was, you know, patricide, maybe deicide for Batty? I don't know.

yeah.

I mean, I've played enough JRPGs to know what my feelings are if I have the opportunity to kill God. So,

Yeah. And the owl watches the whole time.

yeah.

Unmoved.

Deckard hears the news of Terrell's passing and goes to the Bradbury to check out Sebastian's place.

Yeah, very nice. Very, very nice.

Pris screens the call and hangs up so that way she can hide in the sex dolls as Deckard makes his way through Sebastian's place.

This is a pretty good plan, Pris. Because she's, she's painted on that mask and she, like, drapes herself a little bit. And she's just so, you know, thin and lithe and like, Doll like.

Yeah.

It's perfect. Like, if you could just get the drop on him, maybe you could get out of this.

And she does get the drop on him. But then she decides to do flippy shit instead of something useful in a fight

Mmm. Oops.

and she gets shot for it. Like as someone who's done enough martial arts to know where you've got people who think that it's a cinematic thing and they're doing flippy shit and they just get. In my case, stabbed, but in this case, shot. Yeah, never works. Never fucking works.

Mm hmm.

There's like three reasons you ever have to do anything like this, and they are few and far between.

Yeah, Pris's death is really dramatic in a different way from Zora's.

Yeah.

She's, like, seizureing on the floor to death. It's, it's very

Yeah. Batty has made his way back at this point and finds Pris's body. He grabs Deckert through the wall and breaks his fingers.

Oh, yeah. Ugh.

But Batty's like trying to give him a sporting chance, or is just trying to like, fuck with him?

Yeah, like, why, man? Come on. I guess all his feelings that he's developed are pretty nasty.

Well, he's impaired of some variety because he is dying. This is his expiration date.

We have seen him act weird, too, like, his hand clenching up.

Yeah.

We see it a couple times before things get to the fight, I think, and he's now you can see it's a real problem.

Yeah, he's, he is in the process of expiring,

He, like, sticks a nail through his hand to get it to stop clenching,

Yeah, the pain just like, I assumed it was like an adrenal response, like the pain will keep me alive right

Mm, yeah, definitely not a Jesus metaphor at all.

No, no. Why would there be a Jesus metaphor in a movie about Robits? That's absurd. they fight through a bathroom up on the side of the building. Deckard climbs up to try and escape, but he's followed and almost bites it trying to jump over rooftops.

Mm

When Deckard slips baddie catches him and drags him up on the roof. He says he's seen some shit

Before we talk about seeing some shit, which is a really good line, and we obviously have to talk about it, where did he get this bird? He's like holding a bird now. A white dove.

he just needs he knew he was gonna need to dramatically let it go when he died.

Yeah, we've gotta see his soul ascend to heaven I guess, so he's just like pulled a bird out of his pants. He was getting more and more naked as this fight goes on too.

does

He just starts like losing pieces of clothing, and I think we're down to boxers at this point, aren't we?

Yeah, I mean, this was pretty par for the course for me because one of my best friends would get drunk in college and just start losing articles of clothing, no matter what the situation where we were did not matter. Like, Very rarely fully naked, but just like, Oh, I lost my shirt. Like, how did you lose your shirt? Like, actually losing his clothes. Like, how did you lose your shirt?

I think this is a clear sign that the bird was in his pants, just waiting, so. And it's a robot bird, right? So.

yeah. Well, we know he's a magician. His first name's Roy.

Oh.

So,

And obviously great with animals.

yeah, 100%. he catches Deckard. Deckard's just like, I'm fucked, but, but Batty knows he's dying. So he talks about, you know, seeing the laser arcs outside the Tannhauser gate and stuff. Space battery things. And then he, he says his memories are like tears in the rain. Time to die.

Yeah. Speech.

So I read a bit about this scene because this is like the iconic scene from this movie, right?

Yeah.

And Originally, it was just a bunch of like space battle stuff he talks about and then he dies. He does not say, like Tears in the Rain, he does not say time to die in the script as written.

I think that that's not in the book either. I think the townhouser gate is in the book, but not this other stuff.

It was compl it was ad libbed by the actor, who, the night before filming, was like, This does not have the emotional resonance that it should. Did not tell anyone, and just shot the scene like that. And, apparently, it was so impactful, that once there was, like, enough silence cleared for the scene to be done filming, the entire crew erupted in applause.

Oh, yeah. they should.

Yeah. Well, yeah, it's fucking great. It's, it's, it's the part of this movie. I wouldn't recommend only watching one scene from this movie if you're going to watch, if you want to get experience Blade Runner. But if you do, it's this fucking scene.

Yeah. If you had to.

Yeah.

So his robo soul ascends to heaven.

Yep.

And then Gaff tosses him his gun and congratulates him on doing a man's job.

Yeah.

Hmm.

Weird.

Hmm.

Point, point in the replicant category.

Yep. And tells him, oh, by the way, Rachel's going to die.

Yeah, well, I mean, they're all going to die.

Yeah,

That's, I mean, I guess that's what he says too, but you know, shame she's gotta die, but we all have to some point anyways, you know. Yeah, and uh, he goes back to his place Rachel is like fully asleep, and in his apartment, and also loves him now.

Ugh.

You've known each other for two fucking days.

And you were forced to stay here, and then he left, and you probably could have left.

Ugh.

I don't know, man.

They run off together. End of movie.

Yep. Oh! Gum wrapper unicorn, though. On our way out the door, we find a gum wrapper unicorn in the hallway. And we get in the elevator, to credits. So. Big mysteries.

Yep. Okay.

Yeah.

Replicant. Yay. Nay.

100%. Replicant.

I think that it is a better movie if Deckard is replicant. I don't think the intention is to make him a replicant.

You don't think so?

No, I think that a lot of that came out of the discourse after the movie, um, because I think both Ridley Scott and Harrison Ford have said, no,

I recall Harrison Ford saying no. I thought the director had finally admitted it. But maybe he's admitting it because it's convenient too. You know what

yeah, it's gotta be, it's like such a prevalent fan theory. It's like, it's beyond fan theory. You know, it's, I, I think it's fun. I think it's interesting. I think it's good world building. I don't know if they give us an answer in 2049 because I haven't seen that shit. They're making a third one right now, too. They're making a 2079 or a 2099 or something.

Oh, wild. Okay.

Um,

I thought 2049 critically didn't do so well. Am I wrong?

I don't think it did great. But it was Denis Villeneuve who just did the Dune movies.

Oh,

those did enough where he can do whatever the fuck he wants now.

Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha.

so,

I do think that this story is a better story than the original book. If that's not too rude to say

I mean, Philip K. Dick as an author, like good,

some

definitely,

ideas, like, how many movies have we made, sci fi movies have we made based on an idea, at least, within one of his stories? There's this one, there's, um, Report

there's that animated Keanu Reeves one that's

Scanner Darkly,

yeah, Um. I mean, uh, The Man in the High Tower ran for like three seasons on Amazon or something.

yeah, The Man in the High Castle,

That's it. Yeah. Which is an excellent book. I think that's his, his best book. Personally, I've read a couple of his and it's just like, he's really good at the story and the world surrounding it and making things interesting. And he's good at crafting a page turner and he's good at Making you ask questions by not telling you everything, but by the same token, he never tells you everything,

yeah,

which is like, fine, like, that's what you get when you're reading Philip K. Dick and you can do that and move on with your life and know that you're never going to know anything and you're going to have questions.

The questions are important. It's, it's important to feel things and ask things and not have everything handed to you all the time. Like, there's a place for this. Um, one of the main differences, I think, in the book is Deckard has a wife. Yeah. He has a wife and He is doing these jobs because he really wants to buy her a real animal as like a status symbol. Um, and it's, she needs one, like she's kind of like depressed and needs something to take care of.

I think it's easier for him to be a replicant he's alone.

Oh, that's true. It'd be funny if if the wife had bought a replicant husband and then not found it satisfying.

That's why she's depressed.

That's why she's depressed and he feels pressured to get her a real animal because he doesn't realize it, but he's the disappointment, you

Yeah. So, speaking on that,

Uh

uh, Spoilers for a movie that came out in theaters last weekend as of recording. I think it'll be like two or three weeks when this episode airs. Um, it's only two weeks. Um, I just watched Companion with Beth.

Oh, okay.

Which, if you watch the trailers for, not all of them spoil this twist. But it is revealed very early on that, like, this is a future society where there are robots that are Exactly that, they're like companion robots, they're emotional support robots, they're sex dolls,

Yeah, also that, I mean, that's a thing that we're definitely going to do, right? Have already done,

as a society, yeah, robot sex dolls, yeah, that's on its way. Um, man, iTunes, I, pfft,

there, there are chatbots that people are out there, like,

oh yeah, no, there's ads for like AI girlfriends all

like, acknowledging like I would rather have AI girlfriend than go through the effort of trying to make a real human friend.

I maybe I'm just old, maybe this is, maybe this is the sign, um, but I don't get it. Like, I mean, I, I, the need for companionship is strong, that's a very human thing, and I encourage everyone who feels the need for companionship to seek it out, and if that's with people or with animals or with AI, I guess, whatever. Um, maybe I just know too much about how that technology works to be ever be able to truly humanize it. Um, I can't Pac Bond with a Roomba.

it's, no, no, no, but I don't know that an AI can, help you achieve the same self improvement that you get by relationships with other people? I mean, not all people are going to improve us in some way, right? But the practice is good. Yeah,

talk. Like, real, real heavy talk, I guess. Sometimes the things that make us grow are the things that hurt us. You know? And that can be a bad breakup, that can be the death of a loved one, that can be losing a friend in your life. Those cause moments of introspection that lead to personal growth sometimes. Um, I hope that, you know, those are never good experiences, but there is a silver lining there. That it does change who you are and hopefully it changes you for the better.

I would, I would amend your statement and say that they're not comfortable experiences.

That's fair.

Yeah.

but that's not something you'll ever get with A chatbot, because the chatbot will always be there waiting to respond to you. Because the chatbot is a product that you are being sold.

Yep.

And that company is invested in making sure that you keep coming back to it. So. If anything capitalism ruins chatbots from being meaningful companions.

It was capitalism again.

capitalism all along

The main villain of our podcast.

the main villain of all podcasts, let's be real, I mean, except Joe Rogan

right.

and I think that's, that, that's the difference for me, um, is that there is an inherent risk that I think makes a relationship more meaningful. Um, the fact that it is not one sided, the fact that things can go poorly, the fact that, you know, someone can leave you, the fact that someone will change that people will not always be the compatible people that they were when they met. Um, and that makes it work. And making it work.

Yeah.

Well, this wasn't the conversation I was expecting to have about this movie.

Crap.

and fart jokes! Yeah,

sex dolls, I guess. I don't know. It got, no, that's, no, that's where, that's how this got weird. Oh no. Oh, well, I guess we should wrap it.

Um, yeah, I don't know, like if Deckard were a sex doll that his wife got, that'd be an interesting twist as well,

Yeah, right? So, we don't rate movies, right? But I had a good time with this movie. It is very thoughtful. And the world is really neat.

I enjoyed this movie significantly less this time than I have any previous viewing. And I don't know if it's because the world has changed. I don't know if it's because I have changed. Um, probably both. but I did, um, and this is something I've talked about a couple of times since we started podcasting and you don't just watch a TV show. You watch TV

Yeah. Yes. Hard to

that's a

Yep.

experience

Mm

me to be a lot more critical about everything that is going on and it's, it's interesting dichotomy too because so often when I'm like. Just watching a show to watch a show. I'm also, like, playing on my phone or doing something else. And to give something complete undivided attention, that demands undivided attention in the way that taking notes does. Um, I Not saying that, like, I don't enjoy doing it, because if I didn't enjoy doing it, this podcast still wouldn't exist. Like, at

we would have,

exist with me. Yeah. for sure. Um, but it's a very different experience and that also colors my perception of the film. In a way that made me really appreciate the world building. A lot more than I have on previous viewings. So even though I didn't like the film as much as previous viewings, I did like, I want to go watch Blade Runner 2049 now, which was not something that I was interested in two weeks ago,

I've heard it's long. I think When did that movie come out?

like five, six years ago.

Yeah. I think for some reason that's one of those that Aaron went by himself to see, because like, I didn't have a, like, a long enough block of time for whatever reason to go with him. Isn't that wild? Yeah,

been too young.

it must be something like that. But, I don't know. I'm interested. I'm sure I can find it streaming somewhere now. And that comes with the ability to pause and do something else if I need to.

Yeah I definitely had to, like, get up and walk away from this during the uh, very uncomfortable Harrison Ford scene with Rachel. Um, which is also a thing, too, that sometimes, like, because you're forced to pay attention to it when something like that happens and you're made super uncomfortable and you're still, you're trying to find ways to either talk about it or Not necessarily make light of it, but acknowledge that we are, at our heart, a crude humor podcast.

yeah. Sometimes we just want to make jokey jokes about a thing and not take it too serious. But that, yeah,

Yeah, and there's, there's things that obviously we we, can't make. Jokes about, or we shouldn't make jokes about, um, which makes it difficult to come back. And it's not about being funny in that moment, it's about being funny ten minutes later. And it's really hard to be funny ten minutes after that. And so I know that's a thing where I just have to fucking get up and walk away for a couple hours.

Discharge something, yeah.

Yeah,

watch in the evening when Owen was still up and he started the movie with us and was pretty quickly bored and left. It's not for 10 year olds, that's for sure. It's not the right pacing,

there's a surprising amount of nudity.

Yeah, no, the pacing was enough to get him gone before anything questionable happened, so thanks a lot, Ridley Scott. Licking out for me.

all that violence didn't need any of that.

Yeah.

Alright, well, that's that, I suppose. Did you have anything else you wanted to throw out there about the movie before we move on?

Nope, I just want everybody to go listen to some Vangelis and chill out for a while.

Yeah.

It's real good.

Take a jazz gummy listen to some Vangelis

Actually that sounds like a goddamn delight. That's Hmm. Yeah. Oh, he, he is deceased. He, he passed away in 2022, so there won't be anything new out, but there are so many albums. He has just so many albums.

You should you should go check it out listener Just like you should check us out next week. We're back to Babylon. No fuck

Back to what now, Ja'far?

Back to Battlestar Galactica habit we're watching Season 1, Episode 8, Flesh and Bone. Glorianne from Cool Girls Don't Look at Explosions is joining us.

Oh, yay! I'm so excited. I'm even more excited.

And uh, yeah, we're gonna say the uh, the little synopsis. Are the Cylons man or machine? Carithrace discovers the limits to her own humanity when she's ordered to torture a Cylon who claims he's put a bomb aboard Galactica.

dun dun.

really strong Laura Roslin episode, which is why I asked Glow on.

I'm just glad that flesh and bone didn't mean we were going to have more of Baltar and Six, like, centric weirdness. It sounds like not.

Yeah!

I mean, I could just have shot myself in the foot and it's actually, like, much more Baltar and Six than I had anticipated, but that sounds like not as much,

I haven't, I haven't seen this episode in a long time, so I don't remember. But, we will remember when it's in our recent memory after we watch it, before we record the next episode. Because that's, that's how time works.

That's, that's literally the thing we do, yeah.

God, I was choping so hard for a segue in there, but I didn't find one, so instead I'm just gonna say thank you, Jeremy. Jeremy Siegel, the only Jeremy Siegel 42 on Bandcamp that makes music. So much for a theme song, we appreciate the hell out of it. You can find Jeremy's work at the aforementioned Bandcamp site and on streaming services as Nuclear Jaguar.

And thank you to Angry Duck Time Machine on Instagram for our podcast artwork. Hehehe.

Appreciate the hell out of you. Thanks for editing this podcast.

Hey, listener. Thank you for being here, and I just want to say, I'm proud of you. We had a lot of listeners in the discord today talking about tough weeks that have been had like this week or previous weeks. And I'm just really happy that we all made it through those weeks and we're here together. And I'm sorry that I make PhD sadness jokes. But it's one of those things you, you make the jokes to get through it. Right. And uh, I really appreciate that.

Yeah. Hey, Discord community. I appreciate the hell out of you. We've seen a jump in numbers over there the last couple of weeks, and it's been great to have a bunch of new people hanging out, joining the conversation over in the Discord. Which you should do, you can find the link, you found the, you found us! If you've made it to this far in the episode, you've clearly found us, so you can find the link to the Discord. Probably wherever you're listening to this, I, I fuckin hope so.

We're still on that email. We'll get ya.

we still have the Facebooks, um, the Twitter is officially a Abandoned at this point. I log in every couple of weeks Maybe just to see if anyone like messaged me that hadn't made it over to blue sky yet but the blue sky is popping Um, thanks to glow From cool girls who's been doing a lot more of the engagement and stuff on there instead of my Three posts a week about new episode drops that are typically what it was so it's been great to see that popping off as well.

And we would love to Facebook if you're not a bot. We've had a bot in our DMs lately.

Oh yeah, I was wondering if you saw me talking to that bot.

Oh, I didn't see that you were talking to the bot. I just was like, okay, obviously a bot. You know what my next thought was? I'll let Ja'far handle this.

Yeah, I mean, that's typically my job as I handle the Facebook messages. But if you should go read it, it's fun because I'm all like, wow, that seems impossible. How could you accomplish this?

Well, that'll be fun for me later.

Yeah, a little treat. All right, we'll see you next week, Internet.

All right. Bye.

Bye.