I almost always like the book better than the movie, but I liked Blade Runner better than “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”
I still find it hard to believe that PK Dick, of all people, didn’t see (or didn’t choose to pursue) the angle of making Deckard a replicant:
- It would’ve been pretty much a signature PKD move to do so.
- It heightens and reinforces the emotional impact of the story, because you’re given a chance to develop some rapport with and sympathy for Deckard before it’s revealed that he’s a replicant – unlike the other replicants.
- It only makes sense. In a dystopia where they manufacture people for all of the cruddy and dangerous jobs, is anyone seriously going to consider sending a “real” person to hunt down escaped replicants, when they could just use another replicant to do it?
Plus the movie does away with the whole Mercerism thing, which I don’t think I ever really understood the point of.