I am really confused about this

Thanks, Charlie, that was fabulous. I keep meaning to get over to Cinema 21 but I think I'm too late.

It shows through Thursday. Definitely worth the eight bucks or whatever it is. Not the same watching it on DVD.

This is a good taste of the film, Charlie. One other thing that has really changed: we no longer smoke in anywhere near the frequency they thought we would.

If we're going to get replicants out in space to see attack ships fighting off the shoulder of Orion or C-beams glittering in the dark near the Tannheuser Gate by 2019, we'd better get the heck on the stick. At this rate, the replicants are just going to have to do their fighting in Iraq.

It's about this.

It would seem that at the precise moment when I'm turning over nearly full control to my co-editors, they've become obsessed with a 25-year-old sci-fi movie.

At least they're talking about electric sheep and not these.

Blade Runner was one of the first DVDs we bought back in the late 90s when we got our first player.

OK, who wants to go over to Cinema 21 with me on Wednesday night at 7 and see this thing?

Lest anyone think this movie has a strictly partisan appeal, it has long been one of my favorites. I loved it in the theater 25 years ago, went back to see the director's cut several years later, own the director's cut DVD and both the original and director's cut on VHS, and own (and have read) the Phillip Dick novella.

And after all that, I still don't know the answer to the question, "Is Deckard a replicant or not?"

Jack, Ridley Scott did a long interview with Wired Magazine. He scoffs at your question and calls it "horseshit." But then proceeds to give an oblique answer. Here's the entirety of what he said:

Scott: I read an article recently saying that one of the reasons the film has found an ongoing audience is that it was incomplete. That's absolute horseshit. The film was very specifically designed and is totally complete. In those days, there was more discussion than was welcome, as far as I'm concerned. [Screenwriter] Hampton Fancher, [producer] Michael Deeley, and I talked and talked and talked — every day for eight months. But at the end of the day, there's a lot of me in this script. That's what happens, because that's the kind of director I am. The single hardest thing is getting the bloody thing on paper. Once you've got it on paper, the doing is relatively straightforward. Wired: It was never on paper that Deckard is a replicant. Scott: It was, actually. That's the whole point of Gaff, the guy who makes origami and leaves little matchstick figures around. He doesn't like Deckard, and we don't really know why. If you take for granted for a moment that, let's say, Deckard is a Nexus 7, he probably has an unknown life span and therefore is starting to get awfully human. Gaff, at the very end, leaves an origami, which is a piece of silver paper you might find in a cigarette packet, and it's a unicorn. Now, the unicorn in Deckard's daydream tells me that Deckard wouldn't normally talk about such a thing to anyone. If Gaff knew about that, it's Gaff's message to say, "I've read your file, mate." That relates to Deckard's first speech to Rachael when he says, "That's not your imagination, that's Tyrell's niece's daydream." And he describes a little spider on a bush outside the window. The spider is an implanted piece of imagination. And therefore Deckard, too, has imagination and even history implanted in his head. Wired: You shot the unicorn dream sequence as part of the original production. Why didn't you include it in either the work print or the initial release? Scott: As I said, there was too much discussion in the room. I wanted it. They didn't want it. I said, "Well, it's a fundamental part of the story." And they said, "Well, isn't it obvious that he's a replicant?" And I said, "No more obvious than that he's not a replicant at the end." So, it's a matter of choice, isn't it? Wired: When Deckard picks up the origami unicorn at the end of the movie, the look on his face says to me, "Oh, so Gaff was here, and he let Rachael live." It doesn't say, "Oh my God! Am I a replicant, too?" Scott: No? Why is he nodding when he looks at this silver unicorn? I'm not going to send up a balloon. Doing the job he does, reading the files he reads on other replicants, Deckard may have wondered at one point, "Am I human or am I a replicant?" That's in his innermost thoughts. I'm just giving you the fully fleshed-out possibility to justify that look at the end, where he kind of glints and looks angry. To me, it's an affirmation. He nods, he agrees. "Ah hah! Gaff was here. I've been told." Wired: Harrison Ford is on record saying Deckard is not a replicant. Scott: Yeah, but that was, like, 20 years ago. He's given up now. He said, "OK, mate. You win! Anything! Just put it to rest."