Harrison Ford Will Again Battle Brutal Replicants In ‘Blade Runner’ Sequel

Harrison Ford is riding a wave of success when it comes to reprising the roles he made iconic at the beginning of his career. Except for those living under a rock, everyone knows Ford recently returned to the Star Wars franchise as Han Solo. There are also rumors that Harrison will be picking up his trusty whip and dusty hat for yet another go-around as Indiana Jones; but, even before that, there’s still another character Harrison will be bringing back to theaters. Teaming up one more with Ridley Scott, Harrison Ford will be taking on bitter replicants in a Blade Runner sequel.

[Warning: This article contains spoilers for the original Blade Runner film.]

Harrison Ford And Ridley Scott To Bring Rick Deckard Back In A New Blade Runner Film

Blade Runner 2 has a release date but we'll have to be patient https://t.co/WLcmhJdbjC pic.twitter.com/5Tf2aHiIJm

— Total Film (@totalfilm) February 19, 2016

Though early in development, Blade Runner 2 has already been given a release date, giving fans the chance to see Harrison Ford as Deckard in theaters on January 12, 2018. That date puts viewers just shy of the year in which the first film takes place; but, once again, predictions of the future have failed us. There still are no flying cars, Replicants, or nary even a hoverboard. Come to think of it, though, we could do without those Replicants.

Ridley Scott’s original Blade Runner film was an adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? It presented a future filled with technological fancies, chief among them were the bioengineered androids that would eventually turn on their human overlords. In that first Blade Runner film, the year that the Replicants return from exile to wage war against mankind is 2019, so Blade Runner 2 will hit theaters just one year shy of the film’s proposed future.

Our own technological advances will allow Scott to create a sleeker and even more technology-driven world than the one seen in the original Blade Runner. Even the touch screens that we all take for granted are far beyond the clunky computers used by Harrison Ford’s 1982 character.

Blade Runner 2 May Prove That Philip K. Dick’s Message Has Been Lost

For those missing the point as they read this article on their mobile device of choice, the idea behind Mr. Dick’s novel is that technology will one day get out of hand, controlling every aspect of our lives until it eventually turns on us. Blade Runner 2 seems poised to really drive that lesson home with a plot that picks up decades after the events of the original Blade Runner.

Even as life imitates art with talk of robots and self-driving cars, Blade Runner 2 presents a world that has been at war with similar technologies for years and years. What will that world look like? How will it have affected Harrison Ford’s Deckard to have lived in a perpetual state of warfare for such an extended period?

This brings up the underlying mystery that was never answered in 1982’s Blade Runner. Is Rick Deckard a human being or is he a Replicant? Fans have debated this topic for decades and, more recently, the two men most directly involved with the Blade Runner films have offered their own opinions and it seems even they can’t agree.

Ridley Scott, who directed the first Blade Runner film and is producing Blade Runner 2, offered up his take on that mystery in 2007.

“Yes, he’s a replicant. He was always a replicant,” Ridley once told the New York Times.

Denis Villeneuve is directing the sequel and he has his own way of thinking in regard to the Harrison Ford character.

“The thing I must say is that I love mystery. I love shadows. I love doubts. I would just want to say to the fans that we will take care of that mystery. I will take care of it.”

Fans will have to wait for Blade Runner 2 to hit theaters in 2018 to find out once and for all if Rick Deckard is one of us.

[Image via Warner Bros.]