When Roy realizes that his death is inevitable at the end of Blade Runner, he decides that he needs to be redeemed before passing on. So, rather than letting Rick Deckard fall to his death, Roy Batty grabs his pursuer by his arm, picking him up and saving his life.
Roy's decision to spare Deckard's life in his final moments is a masterstroke in terms of thematic storytelling, solidifying Roy's key motivation -- not a vengeful zeal against humanity but lust and passion for living. This presents the need for a stark reassessment of both the movie's hero and villain.
K was retrieved by a replicant freedom group, who had tracked him through a device left on him by Mariette. The group's leader, Freysa, urged K to prevent Niander Wallace from reaching the group by killing Deckard. She then informed K that the child was a female, not male, thus it was not him.
Deckard, resigned to his fate and in captivity inside a spinner, was rescued when K intercepted Luv's spinner escort and took them all out of the sky near the Sepulveda Sea Wall. Unknown to Deckard, K had orders to kill Deckard in order to protect the resistance movement and the child.
Why do they want to kill replicants in Blade Runner?
1982's Blade Runner introduced fans to the now-iconic sci-fi universe, where sentient artificial humans known as Replicants are created for slave labor on off-world colonies, and Blade Runners are police officers assigned to kill Replicants, should they step out of line.
Blade Runner - Final scene, "Tears in Rain" Monologue (HD)
Why do humans hate replicants?
Humans hate replicants because even though they appear similar to humans they're still perceived as fundamentally different. Humans have once again fallen for the bias of seeing themselves as the center of the world (which is called anthropocentrism).
Wallace butchers a newborn replicant, a short-haired woman covered in an ambiguous yellow fluid, scared, trembling and useless to Wallace because she (like all replicants) is barren. She cannot give birth to new replicants.
The second film further develops Rachael's origin, and gives significantly more details about her radical design. It revealed that she was an experimental model of replicant with a high percentage of human organs, including human reproductive organs, and that Rachael conceived a child with Deckard.
In a 2023 interview, Ford stated that he "always knew" that Deckard was a replicant, but wanted to "push back against it", adding that a replicant (or at least, Deckard) would want to believe that they are human. Ridley Scott stated in several interviews that he considers Deckard to be a replicant.
However, he later learns that, even if the memory is real, it was not his own but Dr Ana Stelline's. Through her work, Dr Stelline shared her memory with K, and this allowed him to understand what it was like to walk in her shoes, but most importantly, to believe himself a free, loved replicant.
Because of this memory, K became convinced that he was Rachael and Deckard's child, but was eventually informed by Freysa that he was not and that the child was female. With this revelation, K soon determined that Stelline was the child. K took Deckard to Stelline's lab as she interacted with a snowfall hologram.
Replicants were sometimes referred to as "skinjobs" or "skinners," as they were indistinguishable from non-engineered humans, except for their empathetic abilities. These terms were considered slurs. Throughout the existence of replicants, various movements for and against their freedom were formed.
One of the most significant – and moving – sequences in Blade Runner 2049 arrives in its third act, when K learns that he is not, in fact, Deckard and Rachael's missing child. K is what he was told he was all along: a replicant, nothing more, nothing less.
What happens to Deckard at the end of Blade Runner?
The theatrical version ended up giving audiences a rather typical Hollywood-style ending. Deckard runs away with Rachael after Roy's death. There's even some off-camera narration in which the blade runner explains that Rachael outlives her predetermined lifespan.
Though the theatrical "happy ending" seems to diminish Blade Runner's intended themes a bit, the conclusion still could be summarized as the inevitability of death and the dehumanization of technology.
Deckard's ability to survive injuries that would kill any human and his successful takedowns of other replicants hint at his replicant status. The unicorn dream sequence and Gaff's knowledge of it imply that Deckard's memories may have been implanted, further hinting at his identity.
That seems pretty definitive, but even so – the film remains open to interpretation, and Denis Villeneuve's 2017 sequel “Blade Runner 2049” does nothing to confirm or deny Deckard's replicant nature.
Both Blade Runner and 2049 refused to confirm or deny, and while the evidence for Deckard being a replicant was always compelling, the ambiguity - and the sense even he wasn't sure - is what made the query so involving.
Why are they trying to find the child in Blade Runner 2049?
Finally, industrialist Niander Wallace (Jared Leto) sees the child as the key to discovering how to make a self-replenishing replicant population capable of exponential growth, a secret that the original film's Eldon Tyrell (Joe Turkel) had unlocked shortly before his death only for that knowledge to be lost due to a ...
During the final fight with K, after subduing him, she smugly kissed him and retorted "I am the best one!", as if trying to prove her superiority over not just K, but all other replicants, further hinting at her deep-seated insecurities that she kept well-hidden.
Replicants were used Off-world as slave labor, in the hazardous exploration and colonization of other planets. After a bloody mutiny by a NEXUS 6 combat team in an Off-world colony, Replicants were declared illegal on earth — under penalty of death.
When Roy realizes that his death is inevitable at the end of Blade Runner, he decides that he needs to be redeemed before passing on. So, rather than letting Rick Deckard fall to his death, Roy Batty grabs his pursuer by his arm, picking him up and saving his life.
Wallace can look at six completely separate things at once using these drones, and according to one fan theory, Wallace was born blind, for which he blamed his “flawed” creator. His blindness may be a large motivating factor for why he wants to do more, create more and continue to show he is “more powerful than God.”
After Elle again tried to attack, Wallace offered her to be in his service and receive her creator's love. She sheathed her sword, feigning acceptance, but quickly drew it again to slash Wallace's eyes, blinding him.
