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Blade Runner
Ridley Scott — a question, withdrawn and replaced
The novel is called Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Philip K. Dick, 1968. The title is a question and the book declines to answer it.
The film keeps the detective, keeps the city, drops the sheep, drops the question, and issues a motto.
Commerce is our goal here at Tyrell. “More human than human” is our motto.
Eldon Tyrell, Blade Runner, dir. Ridley Scott, 1982
The phrase is not in the novel. It was written for the screen by Hampton Fancher, to be spoken by a manufacturer, to a customer, about the quality of a product.
Set the two titles beside one another. One asks whether the manufactured thing has an interior. The other advertises that the manufactured thing exceeds specification. Somewhere between 1968 and 1982 the question was retired and the answer went into production, and there is no minute anywhere recording the decision.
A question was withdrawn and a slogan was issued. The slogan is the part that survived.