Abstract
Who but a nostalgic reactionary would take an interest today in the version of Blade Runner that was originally released in 1982? With its anchoring voice-over and ‘happy ending,’ the film appeared to retreat from posthumanist subjectivity into a humanist shelter, where the lines between human and inhuman are firm and clear.
In the wake of Blade Runner: The Director's Cut (1992) and Blade Runner: The Final Cut (2007), the ‘impostor’ that has been on the loose since 1982 appears to have little hope of survival. The ‘real thing’ is apparently here, unafraid to depict authentic posthumanist subjectivity.
To approach the earlier version of the film in this manner is to ignore the flickering of subjectivity running through the text. This essay offers, therefore, a reading of the 1982 version that draws out how, regardless of its yearning for humanism, the film baffles the anthropocentric understanding of subjectivity. I am not seeking to rescue Blade Runner in the name of nostalgia, and my point is not that the version released in 1982 is actually the ‘authentic’ text. My argument, rather, is that Blade Runner frustrates all attempts to limit its depiction of subjectivity to the space of humanism.
© 2009 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin
