Blade Runner’s Eye Symbolism Explained: What It Means For Each Character

Blade Runner and 2049 are rife with eye symbolism, connecting to perception, memory, and identity. Here’s what it means for every character.

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Both Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049 are rife with symbolism and visual motifs that offer commentary on the eternal debate on memory and nature versus nurture, with eyes emerging as noteworthy iconography. Eyes permeate the screen right from the first scene in Blade Runner, in which a giant close-up of an iridescent eye reflects the neon-drenched, dystopian landscape of the film. As eyes are often deemed as windows to the soul, this symbolism extends into the themes of perception, appearance as opposed to reality, and the concept of memory in Blade Runner.

At the crux of Blade Runner is the question of what makes a human, and this notion is inexplicably tied with identity, which is often shaped with the aid of vision, perception, and memory. Due to this reason, replicants in the Blade Runner universe find themselves at the mercy of human perception, especially in the form of the Voight-Kampff test that gauges empathic responses from the iris, giving away the subject’s true nature. This is exemplified in the scene wherein the replicant Leon Kowalski undergoes the Voight-Kampff and the persecution-fueled violence that ensues.

Organic human memories, in conjunction with dormant ancestral ones, offer a stark contrast to the artificially-instilled fabrications that are integral to the replicant experience. However, Blade Runner posits pertinent questions with its eye symbolism: if vision and memory are linked, do actual replicant experiences that accumulated over their limited lifespan hold value? What makes the human experience, or human perception, more righteous than a genetically engineered one? As human perceptions are inherently flawed, does a replicant’s view of the world at large come with unimaginable emotional depth? Here’s a deep-dive into what the eye symbolism means for each major character in Blade Runner and 2049.

Eldon Tyrell & Tyrell Corporation

Dr. Eldon Tyrell was the founder and corporate head of Tyrell Corporation, which was responsible for the design, manufacture, and selling of replicants – humanoid slaves mostly created for dangerous missions in Off-World colonies. Tyrell assumes the mantle of the irresponsible maker, who summons life by engineering sentient replicants but denies them a fulfilling lifespan and fatherly-love. Instead, he views them as replaceable pawns and strategic moves to garner corporate domination, near-sightedness that is manifested in the form of the thick glasses worn by Tyrell, implying that his vision, both literal and symbolic, is impaired. This theory is backed by Janice Rushing and Thomas Frentz in The Cyborg Hero in American Film, in which the duo argues that while Tyrell is personally involved in the making of his genetic offspring, he is unable to extend the same empathy he accuses them to lack.

This is interesting to dissect, as one could argue that creations are often made in one’s own image, which manifests in the actualization of repressed emotions, parahuman desires, and spiritual instincts. The fact that Tyrell was unable to recognize or foresee his own downfall is exemplified in the scene wherein Roy Batty kills Tyrell by gouging his eyes out, putting an end to the maker who underestimated the return of the Prodigal Son. This also applies to others involved in the manufacture of replicants, who are only spurred by profits without recognizing the wide-ranging repercussions of subjugating sentient beings armed with visceral memory implants and parahuman abilities. By extension, Tyrell Corporation, with Tyrell at its head, failed its many offspring due to their skewed vision and limited human perception, further underlined by the creation of Rachael as an experimental Nexus-6 model, spurring the central events of both Blade Runner and 2049.

Roy Batty

As the leader of the renegade replicant group that managed to escape to Earth, Roy Batty demonstrated incredible depths of emotional pain and empathy. Vision and memory lie at the core of Batty’s character, as his innate need to extend his lifespan stems from the desire to preserve his memories and experience life at its fullest. While on the hunt for his maker Eldon Tyrell, Batty and Leon come across Hannibal Chew, a genetic engineer responsible for designing the eyes of replicant models. While eyes remain the seat of vision, they also hold the power of insight, which is negated when Batty retorts while undervaluing Chew’s contribution to the manufacturing of his kind: “Chew, if only you could see what I’ve seen with your eyes.” This observation not only highlights the superiority of existential experience helmed by replicants in the Off-World colonies but also the unimaginable pain and loneliness that stems from it. Despite eons of technological marvels and advancements, and a comparatively longer life span, the human vision and experience remain painfully stunted when compared to that of a replicant.

The eye symbolism in Blade Runner is taken a step further when Batty manipulates J. F. Sebastian into taking him to Tyrell by foreseeing the chess moves that would lead to his victory. On meeting his maker, Batty demands extended life, which is only met with the hollow consolation that the flame with a shorter lifespan burns twice as bright. Resultantly, Batty crushes Tyrell’s skull and gouges his eyes out in an attempt to defy the curse of mortality inflicted by his maker, along with the cruel apathy and shortsightedness he exhibits towards his children. It is also important to note that eye symbolism is also pervasive with it comes to other replicants, such as Pris’ spray-painted eyes and the way in which she is viewed as a “basic pleasure model”, Zhora’s objectification via countless human eyes during her time at The Snake Pit, and the fact that Leon attempts to kill Rick Deckard by gouging his eyes through his skull.

Rick Deckard

Deckard’s function in the narrative as a “blade runner” meant to retire replicants is hinged upon his perception of these beings, which plays into his conviction that they are lesser than humans. As vision ties in with memories, latent dreams, and desires, Deckard’s unicorn dream sequence as posited in the Final Cut of Blade Runner situates the dilemma of whether Deckard himself is a replicant or not. This begs the question: does Deckard doubt his own humanity, which is why he fills his apartment with countless childhood memories in the form of photographs? Also, does Deckard’s perception of replicants undergo an alteration when he meets Rachel, who symbolizes the quintessential question of what it means to be human? Moreover, the frenetic chase sequence between Deckard and Batty presents a clash between their widely discordant inner worlds. While Deckard, despite being supposedly human, is unable to extend empathy to the likes of Batty, he is surprised when the replicant offers to save his life in a final act of mercy, which is supplemented by Roy Batty’s iconic speech about identity and the formation of the self. While musing about the spectacular visions of “C-beams glittering in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate”, Batty presents Deckard with a widened, magnified world-view, and how these memories will die with him, erasing his identity, like tears in rain.

Rachael

Rachael is central to Deckard’s arc in presence in Blade Runner, as it is he who is tasked with determining whether she is human with the aid of the Voight-Kampff test. When Deckard tells Rachael that the childhood memories of her mother are false implants, she retorts by saying that she remembers experiencing them, hence making them real in her eyes. Despite the fact that Rachael’s memories are false, the emotions that stemmed from them are not, as they played a seminal role in shaping her worldview and the way in which she dissects her identity. When the core of her identity, her humanity, is questioned, Rachael finds herself irreparably broken, and it is this pain that moves Deckard and influences his emotions towards her. Apart from this, it is Deckard’s decision to deem Rachael as human that leads to him absconding with her, leading to the conception of their child, which serves as a source of narrative conflict in 2049.

As humans and replicants are virtually indistinguishable, director Ridley Scott underlines this distinction for the audience by making the pupils of certain replicants’ eyes glow. While the characters that inhabit the world of Blade Runner are not privy to this distinction, audiences can glean much from this visual cue, which lends an aura of artificiality to these humanoid beings. Rachael also sports this iridescent glow but, as Deckard cannot see this distinction, it makes it all the more difficult to gauge the question of her humanity or lack thereof during the Voight-Kampff test. The color of Rachael’s eyes also plays an important role in 2049, in which Deckard rejects the young Rachael clone created by Niander Wallace by stating that the color of her eyes was green, implying that no cheap imitation can replace his memories of the real Rachael, whose soul remains irreplaceable for Deckard despite her replicant status.

Niander Wallace

A successor of the Tyrell Corporation, the Wallace Corporation took the world of Blade Runner by storm by ending a global food crisis via genetically-engineered food. Helmed by scientist and technocrat Niander Wallace, the Wallace Corporation revolutionized the replicant business by creating beings that were coded to obey human will without question, which ties into the fates of Luv and K in 2049. Although Wallace is blind he can perceive and interpret the natural world with the aid of artificial eyes, which allows him to actualize his grand vision concerning replicants. However, despite possessing formidable perceptive skills, Wallace remains blind to the wonders of the natural world, which is precisely why he is unable to solve the puzzle of human-replicant fertility. This metaphorical blindness prevents Wallace from truly understanding the motivations of Deckard, along with that of the perenially-conflicted K, who saves Deckard and kills Luv in the end. This nearsightedness also lends to much of Wallace’s cruelty, such as when he apathetically kills a newborn replicant, or when he commands a replicant to slit its throat in an attempt to demonstrate their unquestioning servitude to human will.

Joi

Joi is a customizable program manufactured by Wallace Corporation, residing within a main console, with personal units located in user homes and portable emanators. Now that replicants are no longer limited by a short lifespan in Blade Runner 2049, Joi serves as a fleeting distraction for replicants such as K, who are gripped with loneliness and the need to belong. However, when K passes a billboard advertising Joi, he notices that she is considerably different than his Joi, both in terms of demeanor and appearance. In the billboard, Joi’s eyes are black, implying that she is merely a template meant to modified by user inputs, which in turn, also extends to her personality and relationship with the user. What distinguishes billboard Joi from the program that K interacts with is the fact that the latter is imbued with a “soul” that stems from K’s perception of her. In return, K’s Joi, despite being a hologram, attempts to protect him moments before her death, an act of love that cannot be defined or diminished within the complex, barren world of Blade Runner.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/blade-runner-2049-eyes-memories-symbolism-meaning-explained/