Why would anyone make a replicant?

[Simon_Jester]

Since nobody even reacts to the advertising it's obviously even less effective in that city than the Mars ads in Total Recall.

But hey lets ignore the fundamental premise of the movie some more. :v The idea nobody wants to go is just that hard to accept I guess. Radioactive battle mines so attractive!

Rather than ripping off bad Doctor Who stories maybe the want people of world because of the same legal system that allows replicants of world, and EVERYONE KNOWS THAT.

...Who, me? I don't even watch Doctor Who, in what universe does it make sense that I'm ripping off that.

But I happen to find the idea that replicants are the handful of normal citizens who do sign up for colonization, biologically and mentally altered to be 'suitable' to the purposes of the colony owners, and now being hunted down on Earth... well. It's not really Blade Runner, but it's a suitable chilling premise that someone could make a good story out of it.

I think Simon's idea encompassed more than just brainwashing I got the impression of 'soylent workers' - basically recycled from people, just into some new and disturbing way. Sort of economic cannibalism, I gather. If you re-use some human components (only improved) you could shorten the 'construction' process so to speak. That can really depend on how they actually make them, of course.

I think he was talking about the book rather than the movie. The two, from what I've looked up to jog my memory, are two completely different things (replicants is for the movie, the book uses a different term.) It might be better, Simon, if you stick to the movie rather than introducing the book on that basis.

Since I've never seen the movie in my life, that could be rather difficult.

It was purely a thought- an interesting 'hey what if' that doesn't invalidate or criticize anyone's other takes on this, and that casts a lot of events in the movie plot (which I'm at least broadly familiar with) in a new light. But, yes, totally shot full of holes.

[jollyreaper]

Plugging in shit plots from Doctor Who is like the opposite of looking and a work and seeing what flows from it. Maybe tropes destroyed fiction because most people just can't think outside cookie cutters. What motivates this? Fear of being wrong? Fear of expressing a new idea nobody likes? Fear of new ideas themselves? Who knows.

It's particularly sad that people can be so enamored of their trope pile they're willing to destroy the emotional climax of the film (Roy's death and the uniqueness thus lost) by saying none of it even happened and it was all false memory.

Fucking SIGH.

Well, let's put it like this. There's what we're told in happened in a story. We can take it at face value or we can say there's a unreliable narrator. Or we can say we know what was shown but let's go off on a complete tangent and talk about another scenario, something closer to a rewrite, another take on the premise.

In franchise stories with multiple writers we often get retcons that really ruin the flavor of what came before because the new writer rejects what the old writer did or doesn't want to build upon someone else's idea, he wants to put his own mark on it.

I would tend to accept at face value what's presented unless there's real cause in the story to doubt the official version. So as far as the movie goes, there are offworld colonies and you have to try to reconcile everything seen with that premise.

But as a wild aside, the idea that replicants ain't made but created from normal humans, that's an interesting crazy scenario. Likewise the thing I said about there not being offworld colonies, it all being a giant con.

The whole thread started because I liked the premise of what makes us human but I had trouble understanding how the whole "passes for human" replicant situation could arise in the first place.

It's similar to the Matrix plot hole. I love the Matrix. But why do the robots need humans? Energy source? No way. Turns out that wasn't in the original script. They were going to be using human brains as part of the distributed network but the studio executives didn't buy it so they had to simplify it to being batteries and violating thermodynamics. Ok, we can pretend they said neural networks instead of batteries. That was the revised explanation I came up with before I even heard about the rewrite. But that being said, why keep the rest of the body around? Why not just have brains in jars? Obviously, if they got rid of the body you'd have a lot more trouble unplugging humans from the Matrix. There needs to be a reason why the machines don't ditch the bodies. What's the reason? That's where I draw a blank. Could there be a great explanation? I'm sure of it. But damned if I can think of it.

[NoXion]

It's similar to the Matrix plot hole. I love the Matrix. But why do the robots need humans? Energy source? No way. Turns out that wasn't in the original script. They were going to be using human brains as part of the distributed network but the studio executives didn't buy it so they had to simplify it to being batteries and violating thermodynamics. Ok, we can pretend they said neural networks instead of batteries. That was the revised explanation I came up with before I even heard about the rewrite. But that being said, why keep the rest of the body around? Why not just have brains in jars? Obviously, if they got rid of the body you'd have a lot more trouble unplugging humans from the Matrix. There needs to be a reason why the machines don't ditch the bodies. What's the reason? That's where I draw a blank. Could there be a great explanation? I'm sure of it. But damned if I can think of it.

My take is that the rest of the body is needed in order to properly stimulate brain development - why should we assume that a disembodied brain growing in a jar is going to turn out to be anything like an entire human being grown in a jar?

[Stark]

Or they thought they were doing them a favour and obviously forced amputations aren't that. :v I neve saw the other two movies but the robots clearly had an ideosyncratic culture and identity so why would they be purely logical or rational?

[Guardsman Bass]

Wikipedia is saying that Replicants were banned from Earth after a violent revolt off-world, so that further inclines me to the theory that it's a combination of labor shortages off-world plus fear that increasingly capable Replicants might supplant humanity on their home world (and as we see, Roy & Company are far more capable than your average human). The four-year-life span is also a side-effect of designing Replicants with superhuman capabilities - Tyrell's "candle" comment.

That actually makes sense to me. The short life-span could be the inevitable by-product in that setting of designing beings both with physical and mental capabilities far greater than your average human, and who have to grow to maturity in an extremely short period of time. In real-life evolution, greater complexity in terms of physiology and mental capabilities usually resulted in greater womb and overall development times for animals, which is why humans take so long to reach maturity (and human infants are so helpless). But a Replicant that took 20-30 years to reach maturity would be much harder to justify economically.

I really need to re-watch that movie.

[Stark]

It also plays into the core concept that to make 'better' humans you have to change them such that they suffer; Roy is superior to humans in every way but can never have a 'normal life'. Beyond the crazy ideas about how they're secretly brainwashed peopel or whatever is this idea that to make supermen you have to doom them to that kind of life, because they're just tools.

We never see how they're made, but if its cheaper to send a seedship that can bang out accelerated growth replicants that emerge with all skills etc, a revolt would challenge Tyrells business model. Such a revolt would have been pretty easy to invent anyway, especially if it happened around the time the differences became indistinguishable.

[NoXion]

Or they thought they were doing them a favour and obviously forced amputations aren't that. :v

Now that depends on one's point of view, surely? Yes, to most humans in any culture that one could care to name that would be the case, but it's not humans calling the shots any more. The machines could also take the view that the excision of a vast amount of flesh is inconsequential or at least compensated by the addition of a simulated world of such high fidelity that it can't be seen through by the vast majority of humans. I could certainly understand a culture of intelligent machines taking the basic view that "input is input" and not fully understanding the psychological importance (for humans) of knowing for certain that one's experiences actually correlate to physically tangible events as opposed to largely being the product of a computer-generated stage set, however veridical it may superficially be.

Agent Smith mentions that the first Matrix was meant to be "perfect", but how do we know that this was intended to be a favour and not just a method of control? After all, if you're too contented to realise that you're in a prison, why would you attempt escape?

I remember now another answer that is probably more in keeping with the film (in fact I think it was in one of them), which is that the rebellion against the Matrix is in fact just another control system of the machines, used to mop up those whom the newer, less-perfect Matrix is unable to keep sufficiently fooled for long enough. Hence it would make sense to keep the whole human being.

I neve saw the other two movies but the robots clearly had an ideosyncratic culture and identity so why would they be purely logical or rational?

Because we (the viewers of the film) never get more than hints about what that culture and identity is really like, so we (or at least I) have to work with what is reasonably obvious. I suppose one could garner additional information if one was willing to look at The Animatrix and the other two films, but its been a while since I've seen any of them so for the moment I'm sticking with the first film.

[Stark]

Yeah I'm not sure its worth imagining the movie really makes any sense, but its a good example of a movie lambasted for being 'stupid' (omg teh thermodynamix) where its only stupid if you figure we know all about what the machines are doing and that they are rationally trying to achieve that goal. Since they're obviously fucking strange I'm not sure its really safe to do that. If we start from a 'scientific' perspective (ie, known facts, what who is doing and why, etc) we can get around the knee jerk 'stupid' reaction and try to see what the movie is saying or what it leaves unsaid.

Its not like there needs to be one 'true' answer or that the author needs to have had a clue; because like Mike always said, only what's in the fiction counts. And if the fiction says something works xyz way... it fucking does, cause we see that. If you don't like it, just admit you don't like it instead of ATTACKING the POOR SCIENCE in the film (a hobby which could occupy anyone's entire life and is basically useless).

[NoXion]

Yeah I'm not sure its worth imagining the movie really makes any sense, but its a good example of a movie lambasted for being 'stupid' (omg teh thermodynamix) where its only stupid if you figure we know all about what the machines are doing and that they are rationally trying to achieve that goal. Since they're obviously fucking strange I'm not sure its really safe to do that.

I'd agree with that. Although with the thermodynamics issue in particular, I never really saw it as a "deal-breaker" or anything like that, since an obvious (but by no means definitive) "solution" is that Morpheus simply didn't know what he was talking about. Or he was lying. Or...

If we start from a 'scientific' perspective (ie, known facts, what who is doing and why, etc) we can get around the knee jerk 'stupid' reaction and try to see what the movie is saying or what it leaves unsaid.

Its not like there needs to be one 'true' answer or that the author needs to have had a clue; because like Mike always said, only what's in the fiction counts. And if the fiction says something works xyz way... it fucking does, cause we see that. If you don't like it, just admit you don't like it instead of ATTACKING the POOR SCIENCE in the film (a hobby which could occupy anyone's entire life and is basically useless).

But surely the lack of any one definitive answer provides just the flexibility needed for a satisfying explanation that doesn't shit on what is perhaps one of the least controversial laws of physics? Sure, Morpheus says that humans are used as batteries, but that doesn't necessarily mean that statement has to be true, and the fact that humans are currently being grown in jars I would consider to be a more crucial element to the story than the exact reason that is being done. If humans are being used for purposes which they might not willingly consent to had they been given the choice, then from a human interest point of view I'd say that's more salient than what the purpose specifically is.

Whether batteries or neural networks, the same themes come to my mind; control, freedom, and the dangers of an instrumentalist approach to one's fellows (my impression is that the machines are just as guilty of doing that sort of thing to each other as they are of doing it to humans).

[Stark]

That's it though; Morpheus saying people are batteries is in no way 'stupider' than faster than light travel or fake gravity or whatever. And since it doesn't impact the story at all (ie the combined power of 20 people in tanks charges a laser or something) I'd argue it's basically irrelevant beyond 'gee those machines sure are evil'. It's just a cheap thing to criticise - oh noes, a fantasy is not TEH REALIZM! Whatever shall we do alas, alack? The work still exists and still has something to say regardless.

What I've started doing is when I get that judgement feeling I reverse what I think of it and see if the opposite is also true. If you don't like what a movie is saying, but you find it also says something else, or even the opposite, it's a good reminder of how subjective the perception of art can be. Movie says two people are the same, but also emphasises difference? Maybe - just talking crazy here - different people will come out on different sides of that perceived message.

[Guardsman Bass]

The Wachowskis would have been better off just not explaining why humans are in the tanks at all. Just leave it as an open question, and imply that the Machines are doing this out of some weird controlling/protecting programming. That would leave you with the thematic element of being plugged into the machine that is society, without having to deal with the inevitable "wait, what?" moments when you try to explain it.

As is, they had the Machines double-down on the "human power supply" explanation in Matrix: Reloaded, so it's not just Morpheus's crazy speculation.

[Stark]

But it literally does not matter. If you cannot accept a part of the fiction as real, thats your problem, not anyone else's. I hate to tell you, but heaps of plot irrelevant detail in <your favourite scifi> is ALSO not real and impossible. So what? Indeed since I don't think it's ever shown to be true (ie, four tanks running a bar heater or something) people who believe dialog in the face of actual evidence are being fundamentally unscientific just to find something to complain about.

This is what I mean by reversing the message. You hate a movie because (heavens above) it has impossible things in it. But if you turn that around and ask yourself does the movie say is is not the case, you can see how little evidence there actually is for it and how irrelevant it is to the plot.

[Simon_Jester]

There needs to be a reason why the machines don't ditch the bodies. What's the reason? That's where I draw a blank. Could there be a great explanation? I'm sure of it. But damned if I can think of it.

[sighs]

Okay, here's your reason. Let's double down on suspension of disbelief, that without which no one can enjoy a story anyway:

MORPHEUS: For the longest time, I wouldn't believe it. But then I saw the fields with my own eyes, watched them liquefy the dead so they could be fed intravenously to the living -

NEO (politely): Excuse me, please.

MORPHEUS: Yes, Neo?

NEO: I've kept quiet for as long as I could, but I feel a certain need to speak up at this point. The human body is the most inefficient source of energy you could possibly imagine. The efficiency of a power plant at converting thermal energy into electricity decreases as you run the turbines at lower temperatures. If you had any sort of food humans could eat, it would be more efficient to burn it in a furnace than feed it to humans. And now you're telling me that their food is the bodies of the dead, fed to the living? Haven't you ever heard of the laws of thermodynamics?

MORPHEUS: Where did you hear about the laws of thermodynamics, Neo?

NEO: Anyone who's made it past one science class in high school ought to know about the laws of thermodynamics!

MORPHEUS: Where did you go to high school, Neo?

(Pause.)

NEO: ...in the Matrix.

MORPHEUS: The machines tell elegant lies.

(Pause.)

NEO (in a small voice): Could I please have a real physics textbook?

MORPHEUS: There is no such thing, Neo. The universe doesn't run on math.

[Stark]

Or call me crazy it's a symbolic transfer of power because the humans aren't free; their 'power' is being 'taken' by their machine jailers. If they wiped out the humans or used their brains (ps brains also really inefficient and would not make the 'science' less stupid lol) they wouldn't be able to style themselves caretakers or morally better or whatever.

Drinking blood doesn't make you immortal either, but nobody complains about that.

This is what Connor talks about with preconceptions; it's easier or more comfortable for people to accept some conceits than others. It's a part of opening up to new experience to put aside those monkey reactions and try to experience the work regardless.

[jollyreaper]

My original comment was that I loved the Matrix but wanted to find a fix for something that didn't make sense.

Being too rigid with realism can ruin enjoyment of a movie but a basic level of coherence is needed or else it's little more than superman getting arbitrary powers.

A great point brought up before is that the people in the matrix literally could not be freed because there isn't a viable habitat to support them. Unplug them and they die. Not enough room in Zion. That is a great problem to face, really makes you question things. Do you leave them plugged in? Why can't they know the truth? Would it lead to the paradise paradox smith mentioned before? Does the truth mean death and the only way to keep them alive is enslaved? Maybe the computers were just bad at making decent human environments we could live with? So many good questions.

Now, what if at the last minute someone pulls out a genesis device and the whole planet is terraformed back to Eden in a dramatic two minute effects sequence. What's your reaction?

My reaction is that it would be far beyond the tech shown up to this point in the movie but, more importantly, it's a silly resolution to a problem that would provide more drama and interest to the story. Is that first objection irrelevant?

Simon, I do like your matrix explanation.

[Connor MacLeod]

From what I recall of the Matrix there was a huge 'love/hate' relationship going on between humanity and the machines, some sort of endless cycle. One could argue that the machines have learned to be like humanity, and that they're capable of spite, hatred, tormenting, or just acting in some manner that makes sense in something other than a perfectly logical one. Humans do many things that are logically senseless but may make sense within the confines of their own mindsets (this being partly why value is relative. We place different values on differnet things based precisely on our perceptions.) The idea that machines might be equally irrational is not exactly improbable, and not a new concept either.

That's just one idea to float about, it needn't be the only answer, but I think that in and of itself is the point. Its easy to 'make sense' of the setting in at least some manner, its just that not everyone is going to accept the explanation because it doesn't fit their idea of what 'Makes sense.'


A good question oneself is often: 'what matters to me more, that an explanation can be contrived in some fashion, or that the explanation must fit my preconceptions of what is sensible for me to accept it.'

[Guardsman Bass]

Well, we do know that the "agent" program keeping outsiders from fooling around in the Matrix is completely out of control, eventually metastasizing into a monster that threatens to consume the Matrix and the Machines in the process. So it's possible. There's also a bunch of examples of other Programs chafing at their designated roles and/or out of control, such as the Merovingian, the Train Master (under the thumb of the Merovingian), the child Program, and so forth.

It would also represent a perverse evolution of the Machines' view on the system of control, which may have originally been benevolent despite Morpheus (the Agent's talk about "human beings being a virus" and Morpheus mentioning that humans darkened the skies), but which has evolved into something that exists more or less for the purpose of keeping humanity under Machine control - and possibly the Machines themselves bound into it.

That said, I think it's fair to just say, "This is too much for me, I can't suspend disbelief for this".

[Stark]

Yeah, I do too. But it's valuable to be able to do it anyway, because it shows you can engage with fiction on its terms and not the terms you bought with you or would prefer.

[Connor MacLeod]

Well its always fair to say 'I can't suspend disbelief for X-y-z fiction' because people's tolerance for BS, magic, handwaving or whatever is variable, and it will also vary according to tastes, perceptions, and suchlike. People are different and all that. I mean its fair to say that on this board there are lots of people who can suspend disbelief for Star Wars, but not for Trek

On the other hand that's not the same thing as saying 'it can't be made sense of AT ALL' because someone who is interested in the setting and can toelrate the BS probably can make sense of it somehow. Not everyone may agree on the rationalization, but it does not mean it CAN'T be rationalized.

I think thats the important distinction here, in that its not 'absolutes' we're talking about, its subjective/relative, even arbitrary things. But because it is subjective or arbitrary does nto mean its bad, either.

[Simon_Jester]

Or call me crazy it's a symbolic transfer of power because the humans aren't free; their 'power' is being 'taken' by their machine jailers. If they wiped out the humans or used their brains (ps brains also really inefficient and would not make the 'science' less stupid lol) they wouldn't be able to style themselves caretakers or morally better or whatever.

Drinking blood doesn't make you immortal either, but nobody complains about that.

This is what Connor talks about with preconceptions; it's easier or more comfortable for people to accept some conceits than others. It's a part of opening up to new experience to put aside those monkey reactions and try to experience the work regardless.

Works as literature, and might work in the machine's minds. I just gave the explanation above because it shuts up people bitching about that issue rather nicely; yours is probably closer to the truth for reasonable values of true.

[Korto]

If you're looking for alternate explanations for the Matrix, I like that they were keeping the humans because that's what they were programmed to do. Keep humans safe and happy, and the matrix is the way they decided to do it. Just following their programming.
Any claims that it would have made more sense then to just have brains in jars is then "maybe, maybe not". It all depends upon the idiosyncrasies of the original programming. Anyone expecting a computer to always make the most "rational" choice, because it's a computer, has obviously never played computer games. Computers do what they're programmed to do, no matter how idiotic.

[NeoGoomba]

Sorry I'm late to the party on this one, but regarding the four year lifespan for replicants it's mentioned that their short life is basically just another means to shackle them. From the info the Tyrell corp gave to Deckard and his boss, Nexus models begin to develop their own responses and emotions after four years of responding to stimuli. So to prevent yet another element of unpredictability without limiting his creations' abilities, Tyrell instituted the very limited lifespan. It's worth noting that all of the replicants with Roy were on their last legs, lifespan-wise, which explains their comparatively advanced behavior and emotional capabilities (opposed to other replicants, presumably). I also can't recall how old Rachel is.

When Tyrell was talking to Roy, he was commenting on how it was impossible to modify the lifespan of an already "alive" subject, not altering the model completely. Perhaps the uprising that occurred on Earth was with Nexus models that did not have the inhibited lifespan/emotional abilities?

[Guardsman Bass]

You're right that Rachel isn't limited by that life span, although that could be due to Tyrell making her much more human-like than Replicants like Roy, who have superhuman capabilities. Here's the conversation Tyrell had with Roy about it:

Tyrell: [Tyrell explains to Roy why he can't extend his lifespan] The facts of life... to make an alteration in the evolvement of an organic life system is fatal. A coding sequence cannot be revised once it's been established.

Batty: Why not?

Tyrell: Because by the second day of incubation, any cells that have undergone reversion mutation give rise to revertant colonies, like rats leaving a sinking ship; then the ship... sinks.

Batty: What about EMS-3 recombination?

Tyrell: We've already tried it - ethyl, methane, sulfinate as an alkylating agent and potent mutagen; it created a virus so lethal the subject was dead before it even left the table.

Batty: Then a repressor protein, that would block the operating cells.

Tyrell: Wouldn't obstruct replication; but it does give rise to an error in replication, so that the newly formed DNA strand carries with it a mutation - and you've got a virus again... but this, all of this is academic. You were made as well as we could make you.

Batty: But not to last.

Tyrell: The light that burns twice as bright burns for half as long - and you have burned so very, very brightly, Roy. Look at you: you're the Prodigal Son; you're quite a prize!

Batty: I've done... questionable things.

Tyrell: Also extraordinary things; revel in your time.

Batty: Nothing the God of biomechanics wouldn't let you into heaven for.

Then here's the conversation about Rachel:

Deckard: [narrating] Gaff had been there, and let her live. Four years, he figured. He was wrong. Tyrell had told me Rachael was special. No termination date. I didn't know how long we had together... Who does?

[Stark]

You mean the narration that always gets removed that refers to something Tyrell didn't actually tell him? :v

[NoXion]

Kind of makes me glad I've only seen the version without the narration, if that's a typical example.