Leon Ot-nay oo-tay ight-bray. Leon is brawn but not brains. He is used primarily to reinforce our ideas about replicants: he reacts to the Voight-Kamff test and shoots Holden (after only two questions); he wants to go back to collect his "precious pictures" (which we're told replicants collect); and he follows Roy's orders. He is the machine, perhaps a Nexus 5, though it's never stated. As with all the replicants, Leon has a child-like quality. Holden In the script he represents what's bad about the attitudes of humans towards replicants (and anyone considered "lesser"), although in the final version(s) that role is given to Bryant. Very little in the way of characterisation beyond that, if it weren't for the fact someone needed to find Leon and get shot in the opening he could have been dispensed with. Deckard A lost soul, the very best Bladerunner who resigned because he hated it, but now without direction. He is forced to take the job of tracking down the replicants. Like another Harrison Ford character he can take a lot of punishment, and suffers, but keeps going. Yet, when faced with Roy at the end, he knows he is outclassed and runs. His decision is to not fight any more (he didn't want to in the first place), but Roy won't give him the choice. Part of Deckard's change is as a result of his growing relationship with Rachael, he knows what she is but he falls in love with her. And if he's in love with a replicant, the ultimate declaration of humanity, how can he kill them? Gaff In the script a fairly strange character, dislikes Deckard, just wants his job, believes he could do the job himself. In the movie however he knows exactly what Deckard is, and is effectively his minder. Probably there to shoot him if he goes off the rails. Yet even he is moved by the end, and lets Deckard and Rachael run. More humanity. Bryant In the script just a pen-pusher and manipulator. In the movie itself he represents the inhumanity of man. It appears that Bryant doesn't know Deckard's true nature (though Gaff does). Rachael She thinks she's the PA of the most powerful man on Earth, and has the arrogance and sophistication to go with it. She almost despises Deckard - she is above it all. Until she discovers she *is* the business. Her world crashes down and she is added to Bryant's list of skinjobs to be retired. For most of the story she is confused. She doesn't know whether what she's feeling is her own emotions or Tyrell's neice's feelings. She's attracted to Deckard but repelled by what he does. When she kills Leon it's still the old Rachael's sense of right and wrong. Only with Deckard treating her like a person (not always pleasantly) does she regain any stability. Tyrell He is Dr Frankenstein. He wields the power of Mary Shelley's creation, and suffers the same fate. He is arrogant in the extreme, he condescends to deal with lesser mortals. Batty Roy is power: The light that has burned so very very brightly. More intelligent than Tyrell (beats him at chess) and understands Tyrell's explanations of the reason why the replicants cannot be re-made. Yet still with a child's sense of fun and emotion - though I feel this aspect of all the replicants was more in the acting than the script. Chew Is simply a plot function, though admirably played, he's there to provide the first link to J F Sebastian and thence to Tyrell. Pris "A basic pleasure model". On the one hand she shows the depths to which humanity will fall, she is the ultimate sex doll, but she and Roy love one another so she expresses their humanity. She uses her skill with men to ensure JF takes her in, a very delicate scene. But when she attacks Deckard she is angry and desperate but can only perform the attack within the limits of her programming. Like the rest of them, she is scared, she does not want to die. Sebastian "Accelerated decrepitude." He is a human with a short lifespan, a counterpoint to the replicants that makes him "like" them. He is one of Tyrell's top designers, and suffers from the same fatal flaw of seeing the replicants as merely machines. "We're not computers, Sebastian, we're physical." Egyptian Has a much larger part in the script than in the finished version. But is essentially just another link in the chain - Deckard's chain - leading him to Zhora. Salome (Zhora) Zhora is not very clearly defined, and is never seen with the other replicants. Does she have her job (which arguably would be more appropriate for Pris) to make money for the rest of the group? Is she trying to infiltrate the Tyrell corporation from another angle? She is intelligent and suspicious, and would have killed Deckard with a few seconds more time. He was lucky. But like the others she is scared.

Great job, Adaddinsane. Your articulation really helped me to see the characters in my mind as if laid out on a chart, from left to right. On the far left you have Base Human with Holden in the script and Bryant in the movie as the most extreme example, base in the sense that they have no empathy for the Replicants and because of their insensitivity are coarse, base human beings. On the far right, you have Base Replicants with Leon as the most extreme example, with no authentic empathy or understanding of humans. And then in between, we have all these other characters, each more or less in touch with their human-ness or replicant-ness, and more or less in touch with other's human-ness or replicant-ness. That's an interesting way to look at Deckard and Rachael as they would have the most significant metamorphoses: Deckard starts on toward the far left (Base Human) and Rachael on the far right (Base Replicant) although neither, at first, realizes what they are (representing states of Disunity). Along the way, they gravitate toward the middle where they connect by falling in 'love,' whatever that means for them, combining replicant and human values into some sort of viable couple which we can see as representing a form of Unity.

BTW, I go along with the idea that Deckard is a replicant, but there is some debate about that, in part due to the seven different versions of the movie that have been released. Here is the Wikipedia description of this issue: The question of whether Deckard is intended to be a human or a replicant has been an ongoing controversy since the film's release.[62] Both Michael Deeley and Harrison Ford wanted Deckard to be human while Hampton Fancher preferred ambiguity.[63] Ridley Scott has confirmed that in his vision Deckard is a replicant.[64][65] Deckard's unicorn dream sequence, inserted into the Director's Cut, coinciding with Gaff's parting gift of an origami unicorn is seen by many as showing that Deckard is a replicant—as Gaff could have accessed Deckard's implanted memories.[54][66] The interpretation that Deckard is a replicant is challenged by others who believe the unicorn imagery shows that the characters, whether human or replicant, share the same dreams and recognize their affinity,[67] or that the absence of a decisive answer is crucial to the film's main theme.[68] The inherent ambiguity and uncertainty of the film, as well as its textual richness, have permitted viewers to see it from their own perspectives.[69] What does everyone think about this question?

Leon is a Nexus-6 (NEXUS-6 N6MAC41717), as were all 6 of the rebel replicants.

I was pretty sure he was a replicant the first time I saw the original theatrical release in 1982, because of the shot where he says "But someone would." He and Rachel both have red pupils, so I thought Scott was spelling it out pretty clearly. But there was no follow-up. I actually didn't like BLADE RUNNER much the first time I saw it, and one reason was I thought the story was too ambiguous on this point. Both the film and the ambiguity grew on me, but I like the way the final director's cut handles it too, where I think it's pretty definite that he's a replicant.

One of the theories that was going around when this movie originally came out revolves around the fact that 6 replicants were originally mentioned, one got fried and Deckard takes out 4, leaving one replicant unaccounted for (Ridley Scott fixed this in the Final Cut). The notion was that Deckard was #6, and that he'd been programmed with memories about his life as a blade runner. Given that the creation of this movie was so difficult, particularly during the writing phase, I consider it one of those fortuitous accidents that sometimes happens when everything is not under control. But imho, it's clear from Deckard's fascination with the photos of his past, along with the unicorn scene, that he's supposed to be artificial. Moreover, the way he and Rachel fall in love felt forced to me, and I always attributed it to replicant pheromones, i.e they're attracted because they're the only two of their kind, and therefore must. Which I guess would imply Deckard is a similar model to Rachel (i.e the nexus 7)

The machine to human spectrum, very useful device for considering Blade Runner. Deckard, I say he's human, too schlumpy for machine. His affectlessness I bought as burn out, the ex-detective who wants to be anywhere else but here. I'm fascinated by Batty. I can't call him nemesis, even though I know officially he is one. He's not conniving like Gaff. And he and Deckard both traverse a mid-life (half-life?) crisis. Both good soldiers who've seen the light. I bought love, not big love, or pheromone love, but love nonetheless, between Deckard and Rachael. They saw each other's humanity, last two folks on a life boat, shared circumstance, kindred spirits, that kind of thing.