Ambiguity in Script Writing - 25 Years of Blade Runner

Review: Blade Runner - Script by Hampton Fancher & David Peoples

Considering how much of a box-office flop it was in 1982, it is incredible to see the buzz of excitement surrounding the 25th Anniversary special release of Blade Runner on DVD in a brand new 'Final Cut'.

Blade Runner is not the first flop to gain cult status on home video, yet the film is notable for many other reasons. Firstly, as an ongoing work-in-progress, the film has now reached its fifth version. George Lucas may have revisited his Star Wars films more than once, but even he would balk at the number of times an editor has started from scratch with Ridley Scott's piles of dystopian celluloid.

The Blade Runner Exposition Masterclass

What is interesting about Blade Runner is that the different versions achieve different goals and therefore can help to illustrate the effectiveness of ambiguity over exposition in scriptwriting.

The troubled original film shoot and the production fights have been well-documented elsewhere and there can't be many fans of the film that aren't aware of the controversial voice-over and alternate ending that featured on the first commercial release. But the infamous voice-over of the 1982 cut did more than turn Scott's vision into a poorly written Sam Spade knock-off. Blade Runner is a film about ambiguity, about questions that can't be answered. What the voice-over did was to remove the ambiguity and avoid asking the questions.

And Blade Runner is all about subtext and alternate meaning.

I can still remember forcing my father to watch the film on television back in 1987. Afterwards, although he was impressed with the sets and design, the script left him flat and convinced that it was an ordinary and predictable detective film in a wasted futuristic setting. No amount of lecturing from me would convince him of the multiple layers beneath. At that point, as the 1992 Director's Cut was still five years away, my reading of the film was based on script books and magazine articles. The 1982 edit turned a multi-layered film into a cheap pulp-noir disposable entertainment through the simple device of explaining too much whilst avoiding the underlying themes.

Most famously, the 1982 version clearly avoids the question of whether Deckard is a replicant himself. Because the tone of the film was transformed so that the audience was led by the hand through clunky exposition, you are never challenged to think about the subtexts and alternate meanings that layer the script.

They're Just Questions. Designed to Provoke an Emotional Response

What Blade Runner tells us about scriptwriting is that exposition can sometimes be counter-productive. Why should every question be answered? Reality doesn't work that way, so why should our films? Of course, that doesn't mean we can fudge our plot-points by avoiding sticky exposition, we still need to show how our character got their hands on the gun he uses in the last scene or why our villain does what he does. The choices of what to leave ambiguous and what to explain to the audience are among the most vital a script writer will make. Too much exposition and an audience will feel spoon-fed. Too little and the audience can be confused. But the viewer is conditioned to not look under the surface if the script doesn't require them to.

So when can ambiguity actually serve a script?

"I've Seen Things You People wouldn't Believe."

Phillip K Dick was obsessed with the notion of artificial reality. His written works constantly return to the paranoia that no one can truly know whether the reality we experience is true or is somehow artificially pumped into our brains. The concept was most recently popularised in the Matrix trilogy, which owes a huge debt to Dick.

With Blade Runner, based on Dick's novel 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?', Dick explored the notion of artificial memories and the concept of whether we truly know who we are.

Dick doesn't want to answer the philosophical questions these concepts invite, and the novel doesn't claim to reveal Deckard as a replicant, but in adapting Dick's theme for the big screen, Fancher and Peoples knew the central theme needed to be a paranoid foreboding of questioning one's own reality.

Hampton Fancher dealt with this idea by exploring Rachel's revelation of her artificial origins. But it was when People's misinterpreted a line Hampton had written for Deckard contemplating his maker (meaning God) that he became excited with the idea of Deckard confronting his own humanity.

Just as Rachel discovers that she is an artificial human with implanted memories, there are incredibly subtle hints that Deckard reaches the same conclusion himself. There is no concrete evidence provided, and the idea isn't even verbalised by Deckard or any of the characters, but the clues are there for the audience to read, even if you may miss them on your first few viewings.

Famously, Harrison Ford and Ridley Scott disagree on this point, with Ford adamant that Deckard is human whilst Scott insists he is artificial. Rather than confusing the issue, this dispute only heightens the point. We are not meant to know for certain, just as Deckard can never know absolutely. After all, any experience he may have that may suggest one or other answer could easily have been artificially implanted along with his memories.

This is the essence of Blade Runner - a Chinese puzzle without an answer - asking more questions of ourselves and the philosophy of identity than it answers within its own plot.

"All Those Moments Will Be Lost - Like Tears In Rain"

For those of you who may have only experienced the original voice-over version, you have not watched Blade Runner. For those of you who revere the 1992 Director's Cut version, you have not seen Blade Runner. For all of you who will be receiving the new 'Final Cut' in your stockings this Christmas, you will still not have seen Blade Runner. Blade Runner is a constantly transforming and evolving film that changes as each new facet is revealed. Whether the 'Final Cut' will be the last version to be made is not important. What is important is that, after twenty five years and five different edits, the film has gained more ambiguity and provoked more questions.

Blade Runner is unknowable, a continual work-in-progress that will always leave itself, and us, unanswered. And for that reason alone - it is glorious.