Cacique-Borja, No Sheep.

No Sheep.

The movie Blade Runner, 1982, portrayed Richard Deckard as a distant cousin of the Richard Deckard character in Phillip K. Dick’s novel. For starters, the Richard Deckard in the movie had already developed some sort of empathy towards the droid before the audience had even been introduced to him. The comparison point in the book, when Richard is informed of what happened to Dave and how he is being sent to test out the scale, Richard has just been introduced to this thought provoking idea. This first difference between both Deckard’s also ends up being one of the few similarities that both Deckard’s have.

Another prominent difference is the absence of the electric sheep. His obsession for acquiring a real animal in the book, which is the driving force behind the retirements, is nonexistent. Deckard in the movie does not have an electric sheep. The electric sheep in the book made it clear that society had a fixed idea of what was and what wasn’t. Everything else, the Sidney catalog, the specials and the nexus 6 were the little details that made the idea of there being a distinction between droids and human seem plausible. Instead, the movie relies on visuals to explain the book’s clear distinction between droid and human.

Following this time line, Richard in the movie is forced to entertain the request of his old boss while the Richard in the book embarks on the journey for the monetary value. As stated above, the ownership of live animals was a sign of power. Deckard in the book felt compelled to live up to the society’s standards which is why he was happy to have so many droids to retire because he could finally replace the electric sheep with a real animal.

The last eye sore difference between the two Deckard’s was the absence of Iran, Deckard’s wife. In the book, Deckard lives with his wife who is in a way, another role in Deckard’s ability to continue being a Blade Runner. He has to provide for his wife both financially and socially. With the bounty money he can buy her things (such as the real animal) and raise her from the miserable experience of being on earth. In the movie, Deckard does not have that reason to work hard which is where Rachel comes in and is completely transformed from the emotionless seducer to a soul mate. Someone had to take Iran’s spot to motivate Deckard and at the same time serve as the final say in Richard’s capability of sympathizing with droids.

Overall, there were a couple of main “beings” that were not in the movies that slightly altered the meaning of the movie to the book, but through the shifting of elements, the lack of beings were accounted for.