Okay. I missed the ball last time Mark let loose, so here’s a doublestrength dose: not only is this an image of a unicorn, it’s a screengrab from Bladerunner, and is therefore imbued with extra-pretty healing powers. Link to fullsize, and source.
Reader comment: Gavin Brown says,
OK, this is really nerdy, but I can tell you that the unicorn scene in Blade Runner has some history.
The scene was originally filmed as a dream sequence for Blade Runner, but the original cinematic cut of the film dropped the scene (and added the voice-over, and so on).
Scott then re-used it in Legend (with Tom Cruise). Then, when he released the Director’s Cut of Blade Runner, it went back in. So that sequence appears in two different Ridley Scott movies.As well as this, if you look at the graphics on the dashboard of Gaff’s patrol car, you can also see computer graphics that were originally used in Alien. So obviously Ridley doesn’t like to waste good material!
Reader comment: Stylimitsu, “Blade Runner Geek”, says:
Just wanted to let you know that the reader comment from Gavin Brown is incorrect.
The unicorn segment was an outtake from the original footage discarded by Ridley Scott in 1982. It was “rediscovered” in London’s Rank film vault during the last minute scramble to produce a Director’s Cut of Blade Runner that the director would actually endorse (Scott threatened to publicly disown the version Warner Brothers had prepared – a version without the unicorn!). This was in August of 1992. Legend opened in 1985. No shared unicorn footage.
Source: FUTURE NOIR: The Making of Blade Runner by Paul M. Sammon
Reader comment: Tessa says,
I thought I might add that the Unicorn you featured is rumored to be evidence that Harrison Ford’s character in Blade Runner is actually a replicant as well. The following is the reasoning behind this:
In theory the Tyrell Corporation which manufactures replicants implants memories into the minds of its replicants because the intelligent robots are led to believe they are real humans with pasts. The police tracking these replicants have access to the files of memories placed in each replicant’s mind, which is why Deckard can list the memories of his replicant love interest when he is trying to prove to her that she is a replicant.
The Unicorn sequence serves no narrative purpose whatsoever.
You see a shot of Deckard playing a single note on the piano and looking reflective and then the shot of the running unicorn. End of sequence. At the end of the film when Deckard and his love interest are making a get away, he finds an origami unicorn on the floor of his hall.
Origami creatures were the signature of his police partner who was always sidling about on screen looking like he knew something. His police partner would not only have known that Deckard was a replicant if he was one, but would have access to the files of memories implanted in his mind (like the Unicorn.) As Deckard examines the origami unicorn, there is an echo of his police partner’s last line:
“It’s too bad she [the replicant love interest] can’t live, but then again who really does?”
Hence the conclusion that Deckard is, in fact a replicant, as evidenced by the use of the unicorn.
Reader comment: Tai Freligh, Producer of “The Exchange” on New Hampshire Public Radio, says:
Ridley Scott has been trying to get a completely new version of Blade Runner released with new footage, but has been having a hell of a time with the rights. I wrote a piece for our local paper on it here: Link
Reader comment: Stuart Ian Burns says,
In the documentary On the Edge of Blade Runner, film writer and interviewer Mark Kermode asks Scott directly if Deckard is a replicant and he answers simply ‘Yes.’ One of the other clues is that in a couple of scenes, such as the one between Deckard and Rachel in the kitchen of his apartment, the same technique is used to make the pupils of his eyes flash as appears elsewhere (see Roy on the roof). Link