Replicants In The Blade Runner

The Blade Runner by Ridley Scott is a neo-noir science fiction film which discusses the roles of genetically engineered replicants, nearly indistinguishable from humans, in a near dystopian future. The film follows an ex-blade runner, a man tasked with killing rogue replicants, who reluctantly agrees to take on one last assignment to hunt down and ‘retire’ a group of recently escaped replicants. However, when one watches the movie they may come to ask themselves “Is killing replicants wrong?”, an issue that goes somewhat unaddressed throughout the movie, and perhaps this was done deliberately. When one closely analyzes the emotions the replicants convey, the few differences between the two parties, and what really defines a human being, one

When one looks at some of the replicants subtle actions such as Zhora, one of the Nexus-6 model replicants working at a strip club, who clearly, in one scene, has the opportunity to kill Deckard decides not to, is that not itself a key example of humanity, sparing someone's life even though you know they’re trying to kill you? This act of selflessness is a trait only really shared by humans, i’m not saying that this act is enough to make someone human, but it definitely makes them pretty damn close to one in that sense. And this isn’t the first time that happens, even during the breathtaking end scene of the film, Roy Batty, the replicant set-up to be the main antagonist of the film, saves the life of the man who was trying to kill him, and for what reason? Simply out of the goodness of his “heart”. This final scene has many literal and metaphorical meanings to it, both of which can be utilized to backup this point. Roy drives a nail into his hand to truly feel his last moments of life, he desperately tries to cling on to the various sensations of life, even if it means enduring excruciating pain. Roy then delivers in his final moments his breathtaking “Tears of Rain” soliloquy, which extols some of the many wonders of life, and despite its complexity, how utterly fleeting and transitory life truly is, because all of those precious moments “will be lost in time, like tears in the