Tyrell Corporation - Egyptian similarities. An owl flies across the room and lands on perch.
Rachael: Do you like our owl?
Deckard: It's artificial?
Rachael: Of course it is.
Deckard: Must be expensive.
Rachael: Very. I'm Rachael.
Deckard: Deckard.
Rachael: It seems you feel our work is not a benefit to the public.
Deckard: Replicants are like any other machine. They're either a benefit or a hazard. If they're a benefit, it's not my problem.
Rachael: May I ask you a personal question?
Deckard: Sure.
Rachael: Have you ever retired a human by mistake?
Deckard: No.
Rachael: But in your position that is a risk?
Tyrell: Is this to be an empathy test? Capillary dilation of the so-called blush response? Fluctuation of the pupil? Involuntary dilation of the iris?
Deckard: We call it Voigt-Kampff for short.
Rachael: Mr. Deckard, Dr. Eldon Tyrell.
Tyrell: Demonstrate it. I want to see it work.
Deckard: Where's the subject?
Tyrell: I want to see it work on a person. I want to see a negative before I provide you with a positive.
Deckard: What's that going to prove?
Tyrell: Indulge me.
Deckard: On you?
Tyrell: Try her.
Deckard: It's too bright in here. [The window changes shade, letting less light in.]
Rachael: Do you mind if I smoke?
Deckard: It won't affect the test. All right, I'm going to ask you a series of questions. Just relax and answer them as simply as you can. [pause] It's your birthday. Someone gives you a calfskin wallet.
Rachael: I wouldn't accept it. Also, I'd report the person who gave it to me to the police.
Deckard: You've got a little boy. He shows you his butterfly collection plus the killing jar.
Rachael: I'd take him to the doctor.
Deckard: You're watching television. Suddenly you realize there's a wasp crawling on your arm.
Rachael: I'd kill it.
Deckard: You're reading a magazine. You come across a full-page nude photo of a girl.
Rachael: Is this testing whether I'm a replicant or a lesbian, Mr. Deckard?
Deckard: Just answer the questions, please. [pause] You show it to your husband. He likes it so much he hangs it on your bedroom wall.
Deckard (background): ... bush outside your window...
Rachael: I wouldn't let him.
Deckard (background): ... orange body, green legs...
Deckard: Why not?
Rachael: I should be enough for him. [Audio fades out and in, time passes.]
Deckard: One more question. You're watching a stage play. A banquet is in progress. The guests are enjoying an appetizer of raw oysters. The entree consists of boiled dog.
Tyrell: Would you step out for a few moments, Rachael? [pause] Thank you.
Deckard: She's a replicant, isn't she?
Tyrell: I'm impressed. How many questions does it usually take to spot them?
Deckard: I don't get it Tyrell.
Tyrell: How many questions?
Deckard: Twenty, thirty, cross-referenced.
Tyrell: It took more than a hundred for Rachael, didn't it?
Deckard: She doesn't know?!
Tyrell: She's beginning to suspect, I think.
Deckard: Suspect? How can it not know what it is?
Tyrell: Commerce, is our goal here at Tyrell. More human than human is our motto. Rachael is an experiment, nothing more. We began to recognize in them strange obsessions. After all they are emotional inexperienced with only a few years in which to store up the experiences which you and I take for granted. If we give them the past we create a cushion or pillow for their emotions and consequently we can control them better.
Deckard: Memories. You're talking about memories.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWPyRSURYFQ
http://www.oocities.org/lpittack/br-transcript.html
A scene from Scott's Bladerunner provides a useful example. Using the 'voigt-kampff' machine, Deckard (Harrison Ford) interrogates Rachel (Sean Young) at the Tyrell Corporation in order to test her empathic responses and thereby to establish whether she is truly human or a manufactured 'replicant' Rachel 's answers are slick and
sure-fire and indicate well-rounded subjectivation.
The final question, however, leaves Rachel floundering in a state of
confusion as she cannot find a point of positive identification (in the symbolic order) and the machine registers a chilling wipe-out - the void of $.
What is compelling about the scene is that, far from separating Rachel (and the other replicants) from 'us', it serves to underscore her human condition as a being whose subjectivation is prone to failure and negative distortion.
It is precisely this malfunctioning element (the bone stuck in the symbolic order) that confers human status.
(Conversations with Zizek, 2004, pp. 4-5)
