Blade Runner Cut Scene Expanded and Explained
📗 SUMMARY
- Ridley Scott chats with EQ
- He expands on tne Tyrell cut scene
- They may have been several Tyrell replicants
Director Ridley Scott has spilled the beans on why Eldon Tyrell lived in that monolithic pyramid in Blade Runner (1982). For those unacquainted, the film trails the path of former cop Rick Deckard, played by Harrison Ford, as he tracks down rogue replicants—bioengineered humanoids illegally present on Earth. The flick boasts a dazzling line-up with Sean Young, Rutger Hauer, and Joe Turkel. Widely acclaimed as one of Scott’s masterpieces, it currently holds an 89% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
It’s long been known that a cut scene would have revealed that Eldon Tyrell, the creator of the replicants, was himself a replicant, with Rutger Hauer’s Roy Batty discovering that his creator had died a long time ago. Batty would have killed the replicant version of Tyrell, only to discover the body of the real man in a coffin.
In a candid chat with GQ, Scott divulged why we see Tyrell perched atop his pyramid abode, and expanded the ideas behind the cut scenes.
The reason for the pyramid, the pyramid was, I think, the true Tyrell was dead inside a sarcophagus in the middle of the pyramid, because he knew he was dying. Whatever the age and the time, there would always be some industrial disease that we haven’t actually dealt with. But he’d also, here’s the trick, does Putin have six clones? So Tyrell had made several lookalikes of himself so he could be anywhere. You wouldn’t know where the real one was. So the Tyrell we were talking to was probably not the real Tyrell, but was a fundamentally replication of himself. So that’s how complex it gets. That’s how we ended up with the pyramid. We never got to do the scene where they go to the sarcophagus and see he’s dead. I think he died in the sarcophagus and then some, I took it from, there’s a massive power breakdown on the East Coast of America. One powerhouse in one of the states. It was crazy. All the three states switched off for 22 hours. So I think I went from that idea, when it went down, Tyrell may have died in the dep freeze.
The interesting thing here is the political side of the film. This is certianly not something that was ever really covered in the film, and we can only guess that it was cut to preserve the integrity of the films aesthetic, or maybe it was just budget?
Playing with ambiguity is something Scott excels at, similar to how The Thing (1982) left audiences questioning who was human till the very end—a classic horror move by director John Carpenter. Having viewers ponder over whether they’re seeing the ‘real’ characters or their artificial replicas adds layers of mystery and eeriness. Having the Tyrell be a replicant would ahve been an amazing reveal, but it may very well have taken away some of steam from the films biggest question, is Deckard a replicant?
Scott’s works often challenge perceptions and blur lines between humanity and technology—elements which seamlessly seep into their narratives making them timeless classics revered by sci-fi enthusiasts worldwide! It’s the nature of Blade Runner’s direction and story that keeps film fans coming back and discusing this amazing neo-noir sci-fi film.
Hilly Horror
Hilly love of horror knows no bounds. As a massive fan of slasher and ghost films, she has watched all of the Wrong Turn and Paranormal Activity films. Now that’s bravery at a scale we can’t beat.
