Blade Runner Ending, Explained

Ridley Scott's Blade Runner is one of the greatest science fiction movies of all time, and a widely hailed masterpiece that perfectly merged the themes and mood of film noir into a dystopian cyberpunk future. The movie achieved its status the hard way, with a rocky production and anemic early reception, only to bloom on home video and subsequent critical revision. Its cynical view of a corporate-dominated 21st century has outlasted the hypothetical 2019 timeline, and it feels as fresh and relevant today as it always has. A sequel, Blade Runner: 2049 updates the story, and has similarly engendered a good deal of debate among fans.

Multiple versions of the film have been released in an effort to address studio interference in the initial cut. All of them address heady issues concerning the nature of humanity, mixed with Frankenstein-like fears of artificial intelligence out of control. Many of its themes and ideas require multiple viewings to come out (one of the reasons for its early box office failure), and its ending – at least in the versions approved by Scott – can be downright cryptic. Here's how Blade Runner's finale breaks down.

Blade Runner Has Multiple Versions with Different Endings

Blade Runner was, by all accounts, a nightmare to shoot. The film was infamously taken out of Scott's hands during post-production and completed without his approval. That included several new components that proved disastrous, notably an improbably happy ending and voice-over narration from star Harrison Ford packed with tired detective clichés.

Ford later told TV station WENN that he was deeply unhappy with that decision, and it shows: he reads the lines like they're a car insurance policy. The film itself was one of the casualties of the summer of 1982, with its pessimistic future clashing badly with the hopeful optimism of Steven Spielberg's E.T.: The Extraterrestrial. Like so many other 80s classics, it found its audience on home video, but for almost a decade, the theatrical cut was the only available version, sloppy ending and droning voice-over intact.

Blade Runner Critical Reception Overview

That changed in 1992, when The Director's Cut of the film was released in theaters. It was based on a work print, which had been used in test previews leading up to Blade Runner's release and prompted changes when audiences reacted negatively. Copies had been publicly screened at film festivals starting in 1990, to enthusiastic responses from audiences. Scott authorized an official director's cut, with a number of scenes expanded and several key excisions made.

Both the voice-over and the tacked-on ending were dropped, and Scott added a dream sequence using footage of a unicorn from his movie Legend. In 2007, another version was released, dubbed The Final Cut and representing the only released version of the film where Scott had total control. It's about a minute longer than The Director's Cut, and makes a few small tweaks to individual scenes here and there. It's also generally regarded as the definitive edition of the film.

Different Versions of Blade Runner Mean Different Endings

The three "official" versions of the movie offer essentially two different endings, which each alter the message of the film dramatically. Blade Runner delves deep into questions of artificial intelligence, positing a world where an underclass of physically and mentally superior androids begin to develop what could be called a soul. The Tyrell Corporation – which manufactures androids called replicants – has a hypothetical solution with Rachael: an artificial creation who believes that she is a human executive at Tyrell. She goes on the run during the course of the film, having finally deduced her true nature, and seeks aid from Ford's android-killing bounty hunter Rick Deckard.

Deckard has spent most of the film tracking a group of rogue Nexus-6 replicants, who have come to Los Angeles in an effort to leverage an extension to their built-in four-year lifespans. In the original ending, Deckard and Rachael escape the city and travel across a pristine landscape of pines, lifted from aerial footage filmed for the opening of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. Deckard's voice-over explains that because of Rachael's nature as a prototype, she doesn't have a four-year lifespan like other androids. She and Deckard presumably fly off to make what happily ever after they can, far away from the pollution and corruption of Los Angeles. The ending has undergone a good deal of scorn for the way it jars against the bleak and pessimistic tone of the rest of the film.

In many ways, The Director's Cut and Final Cut versions simply excise that out-of-place scene. Instead, the film ends with Rachael and Deckard fleeing his apartment, unsure if they're being followed, and on the lookout for potential attack. Rachael is still a fugitive, and Deckard has likely joined her. Rather than flying across a beautiful landscape of green trees, they're still in Los Angeles, with potential threats around every corner and no sense of anywhere safe to go. On top of that, the latter two cuts of the movie plant seeds earlier to bolster the idea that Deckard himself might be an android. That includes the unicorn dream, which Deckard himself experiences, only to later discover an origami unicorn left by his fellow bale runner, Gaff.

It suggests that Gaff knows more about his inner world than he himself does, and thus his thought patterns must be artificial. A more subtle clue concerns his eyes, which appear reflective like a cat's in one moment, and match the eyes of the movie's androids. If that's the case, then both he and Rachael might be hunted. Ending the film with the pair at the elevator – rather than far away in a sunny landscape – puts their future in far more dire peril than the earlier version. Even if they escape, the androids' four-year lifespan is presumably still intact, giving them just a tiny amount of time to find whatever happiness they can.

Blade Runner's Ending Asks Questions About Human Nature

Beyond the false notes of the happier ending, the 1982 theatrical version of Blade Runner overlooks a profoundly important question: If androids really do "dream of electric sheep," as the title of Philip K. Dick's original novel implies, it means they have a soul. It's hard to argue that the rogue Nexus-6's androids haven't earned their humanity, but the question becomes even more blurred when applied to Rachael and Deckard. She spent a good deal of time believing she was human, and even he can't be 100% certain whether he's a replicant or not at the end of the film.

This ambiguity calls into question the entire social structure of Blade Runner's universe, with androids essentially a slave caste forced to perform dangerous or demeaning jobs that humans no longer wish. If they're more than simple constructs – if they do have a soul – then the social structure is based on a monstrous injustice. The implications are tremendous, but the powers that be in Blade Runner are happy to sweep it all under the rug in the name of doing business. Rachael constitutes a threat on that level alone, as does Deckard once he decides he loves her.

The sequel Blade Runner 2049 provides a few answers to their fate, with Rachael dying in childbirth and a replicant Deckard reuniting with their daughter at the end of the film. Surprisingly, it more or less fits with the continuity of both versions, allowing the story to proceed regardless of how the audiences arrives at that point. Either way, it underscores one of the original film's most important messages: humanity is defined less by birth than by actions, and androids in this universe are entitled to the same rights as any other sentient beings.

That can prove a bit cryptic, even with the second film providing clarity. Blade Runner was never intended to be reassuring, with flawed protagonists occupying a compromised universe that is likely beyond redemption. The audience is left rooting for the wayward replicants regardless – a sign that their humanity is effectively no longer in question. Blade Runner shrouds that in their uncertain fate, leaving viewers to contemplate humanity's capacity to dehumanize each other, and whether that might change if artificial intelligence ever reaches human levels of self-awareness.

Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049 are currently available for rental or digital download.