List of minor characters in Blade Runner
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This article details the minor characters in the film Blade Runner.
Contents |
[edit] Roy Batty
| Replicant character | |
| Gender | Male |
| Designation | Roy Batty |
| Model | NEXUS-6 N6MAA10816 |
| Incept date | January 8, 2016 |
| Function | Combat, Colonization Defense Prog |
| Phys. Level A | Ment. Level A |
| Portrayer | Rutger Hauer |
Roy Batty is the leader of the renegade Nexus-6 replicants. He is very intelligent, fast, and skilled at combat, and yet still learning how to deal with developing emotions. He leads a few of his fellow replicants on what is inevitably a fruitless search for more life. As hope slowly fades away and his friends are eliminated one by one, it is his experience that brings up the question of "What is human?"
The "prodigal son" of Eldon Tyrell, Roy returns to his "father." First seeking a longer life, then asking forgiveness, he ultimately destroys his own maker.
There is no future for Roy, as his friends are killed, his hope for more life is quashed and finally his girlfriend, Pris, is "retired" by the Blade Runner Rick Deckard.
Deteriorating fast, he plays cat and mouse with Deckard, and chases him onto the roofs, where Deckard ends up hanging for dear life on a post high above the ground. Roy then performs an act (saving Deckard's life) which suggests perhaps that he has gained the empathy that is the thin dividing line between the Humans and the Replicants. Showing more "humanity" than the men who seek to kill him, we are left wondering at what exactly makes us human. As he dies, Roy tells Deckard about the things he saw in his life and how all those memories would be gone forever. This is due to the phrase that he repeats several times during the course of the film: "You wouldn't believe the things that I've seen". This leaves the question of what exactly he did see, or had memories of.
In the original novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, his name was spelled "Roy Baty".
[edit] Bryant
Bryant is the captain of the Rep-Detect department of the Los Angeles police department. His job in the film is to deal with a group of escaped Nexus-6 replicants (whom he refers to as "skinjobs") that have landed on Earth. His top Blade Runner, Holden, has landed up in hospital, barely able to breathe. These Nexus 6 Reps are good. He needs to get Deckard - his best ever Blade Runner, now "retired." It seems little persuasion is required to make Deckard get back on the job.
[edit] Hannibal Chew
Hannibal Chew works for the Tyrell Corporation. His job is to create the eyes for the replicants. In the film, he receives unwelcome guests while he creates the artificial eyes. As an eye designer for Tyrell, Chew designed the eyes of Roy and Leon. They want to find out who can get them into Tyrell's inner sanctum, and go to Chew for answers. It is unlikely that Chew (or the person tending to the store in front of the eye shop) survives the encounter.
[edit] Gaff
Gaff, a mysterious character in the film, presents his compulsory invitation to Deckard in a street lingo called Cityspeak, (much of it invented by actor Edward James Olmos). He is quickly identified as being very different than Deckard through the ways he dresses and behaves. He makes subtle observations about Deckard, sometimes by making little origami figures and sometimes through dialogue. The last words heard in the film (Director's Cut version) are spoken by him: "It's too bad she won't live. But then again, who does?"
[edit] Holden
Holden is the Blade Runner testing new employees at the Tyrell Corporation on the premise that the escaped Replicants might try to infiltrate the company. He underestimates the Nexus 6 Replicants. It seems that the new replicants are difficult to detect even with the Voight-Kampf machine.
Holden is shot and left for dead while trying to give the Voight-Kampf test to Leon, one of the Nexus 6 Replicants on the run.
Interestingly enough, during his testing of Leon, Holden's eyes can be seen glowing the same way as replicants'. This could mean that Holden himself was a replicant and can lead to the assumption that maybe all Blade Runners are, in fact, replicants too.
There are two deleted hospital scenes with Holden and Deckard, but these were cut from the film because they did not add anything to the story (and perhaps detracted from it). One scene can be viewed in the documentary On the Edge of Blade Runner, which may be on a Blade Runner Special Edition DVD. Another possibility is that one or perhaps both scenes will appear in a "deleted scenes" section on said DVD.
[edit] Leon Kowalski
| Replicant character | |
| Gender | Male |
| Designation | Leon |
| Model | NEXUS-6 N6MAC41717 |
| Incept date | April 10, 2017 |
| Function | Combat/Loader (Nuc. Fiss) |
| Phys. Level A | Ment. Level C |
| Portrayer | Brion James |
Leon Kowalski is a friend of Roy Batty. His emotions are at a much lower level of development than Roy's, but he evidently believes in Roy's quest for more life. Leon is classified mental level C. There is a debate about whether this means he is less intelligent compared to the average human, or just less intelligent compared to the average Nexus 6 Replicant. However, in the film he consistently stays one step ahead of all of the human opponents and would have eliminated the protagonist of the story had it not been for outside intervention. Considering that Roy was roughly as intelligent as an extraordinary genius such as Tyrell at the age of only four, it would follow that being less intelligent than Roy would not make him less intelligent than a normal human.
He doesn't have the speed of thought that Roy does when it comes to getting through a situation. As a result, he often resorts to simple violence. Blade Runner Holden is Leon's first victim; Leon shoots him as he tries to give him the Voight-Kampf test. Leon beats up Deckard after he witnesses him kill Zhora. But just as he is about to kill Deckard, Rachael shoots and kills him from behind.
Leon cherishes photographs of his friends. Unlike Rachael's false photos of her childhood, these are current photos of people who mean something to him.
[edit] Taffey Lewis
Taffey Lewis is the owner of Taffey's Snake Pit Bar. The bar features music, exotic dancing, and something being smoked in pipes. It seems to be an upper class establishment, as all the clientele seem to be well dressed. Taffey is used to policemen and has little time for them; he dismisses Deckard's threats with a free drink.
Deckard invites Rachael to join him, but she says it's not her kind of place. Deckard then sees Zhora and waits for her backstage. After he gains access to her, she discovers his intentions and escapes. After a chase through the Los Angeles streets, Deckard shoots her three times, killing her.
[edit] Pris
| Replicant character | |
| Gender | Female |
| Designation | Pris |
| Model | NEXUS-6 N6FAB21416 |
| Incept date | February 14, 2016 |
| Function | Military/Leisure |
| Phys. Level A | Ment. Level B |
| Portrayer | Daryl Hannah |
Pris is a "pleasure model" (incepted on Valentine's Day) created for entertainment and thus even more of a slave-object than the others. However, she shows that she can be quite adept at manipulation of the human male when she uses her wiles to "make friends" with J.F. Sebastian, a man who, until then, literally built his friends. Pris is also the girlfriend of fellow replicant Roy Batty. She sets a trap for Deckard in the Bradbury Building, where she disguises herself as a mannequin and uses her gymnastic skills to ambush Deckard; however, her attempt at killing him by breaking his neck fails, and having no further strategy nor specific combat training, she is shot and retired by Deckard.
[edit] Rachael
Rachael is the latest experiment of Eldon Tyrell. There is a problem with his more recent, advanced Nexus 6 Replicants - they start to develop their own emotions. The other replicants we see provide plenty of evidence that this is true. They then start to rebel against being slaves. Tyrell believes that this is because they have no framework within which to deal with their new emotions. Thus, if he can gift them with memories, they will cope with situation better and therefore be a better product.
| Replicant character | |
| Gender | Female |
| Designation | Rachael |
| Model | NEXUS-6 |
| Incept date | Unknown |
| Function | Experimental (Memory transfer) |
| Phys. Level B | Ment. Level A |
| Portrayer | Sean Young |
Rachael has the implanted memories of Tyrell's niece, and she is led to believe that she is human. We do not know how long she has been living, but Tyrell admits that he thinks she was beginning to suspect the truth of her existence. While it is not specified what model type Rachael is; it can be inferred from her purpose and actions. She would be Physical Level B as she does not require great strength, and would actually undermine the illusion of being human; as to Mental Level she would be a top level A so that she would be best equipped to process and comprehend the memories given to her.
When Rachael learns the truth, she is ignored by Tyrell. In desperation, she turns to Deckard, who has been told by Captain Bryant to terminate her. He eventually falls in love with her. Many possibilities exist in interpreting their relationship. Some of interpretations depend on whether or not one believes Deckard is a Replicant himself.
Both of them are allowed to live: Roy saves Deckard from falling off a building, and Gaff does not kill Rachael. Gaff leaves his calling card, a foil unicorn, at Deckard's apartment to show he's been there.
[edit] J.F. Sebastian
J. F. Sebastian is a genetic designer working for Tyrell. He is not allowed to emigrate off-world because he has Methuselah Syndrome. Because of this, he has "accelerated decrepitude" in common with the Nexus 6 Replicants. With the Bradbury Building all to himself, he makes the most of his talents, even making his own Toy-friends.
He is easy prey to Pris; sexual tensions arise when Roy encounters her. Although J.F. is excited to discover that his new friends are Nexus 6 generation, he finds his life rapidly going downhill shortly after he meets them. He is manipulated and then forced into helping Roy Batty get to Tyrell.
Batty kills J.F. immediately after killing Tyrell; it is overheard on the police radio as Decker sits in his car that J.F's body was found with Tyrell.
[edit] Dr. Eldon Tyrell
Dr. Eldon Tyrell is the genius who has built up the large Tyrell Corporation. His creations are Replicants, some of which have been given away as an incentive for people to emigrate to the Off-World colonies. Others are used in combat to protect those settlers. Roy Batty, along with J.F. Sebastian, finds Tyrell, and asks him to extend his life beyond the four-year limit built into Nexus Six replicants. When told that this is impossible, Batty kills Tyrell by crushing his skull.
[edit] Zhora
| Replicant character | |
| Gender | Female |
| Designation | Zhora |
| Model | NEXUS-6 N6FAB61216 |
| Incept date | June 12, 2016 |
| Function | Retrained (9 Feb., 2018) Polit. homicide |
| Phys. Level A | Ment. Level B |
| Portrayer | Joanna Cassidy |
Zhora, a replicant, has managed to get a job as an exotic dancer at Taffey's Bar (using Joanna's own pet snake). Tracked down by Deckard from a snake scale (the close-up of the snake scale is actually of a marijuana bud), she soon realises that he is dangerous. Zhora has been retrained in political homicide (i.e. an assassin) and could have dealt swiftly with Deckard. However, he escapes death by the slightest of margins as people walk in just before Zhora delivers a killing blow.
She desires to live and tries to escape from Deckard in the busy street. He shoots her in the back, however. Leon turns up too late to save her, and as a result wants to instill the feeling of the fear of dying in Deckard. For the second time, Deckard just escapes with his life, this time with Rachael's help.
| The Blade Runner series | |
|---|---|
| Films | Blade Runner • Soldier |
| Novels | Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? • The Edge of Human • Replicant Night • Eye and Talon |
| Games/comics | The Blade Runner videogame • A Marvel Comics Super Special: Blade Runner |
| Characters | Rick Deckard • Eldon Tyrell • Gaff • Rachael • Roy Batty • Leon Kowalski • Pris • Zhora • J.F. Sebastian |
| Locations | Tyrell Corporation • Bradbury Building • Tannhauser Gate |
| Cast | Harrison Ford • Rutger Hauer • Sean Young • Edward James Olmos • Daryl Hannah |
| Crew | Ridley Scott • Hampton Fancher • Michael Deeley • David Peoples |
| Other topics | Philip K. Dick • Vangelis • Soundtrack • Themes • Replicants • Voight-Kampff machine • Spinner |
| Related articles | Postmodernism • Cyberpunk • Cult film |
