Relationship To Other Works
The book's plot draws from other material related to Blade Runner in a number of ways:
- Deckard, Pris, Sebastian, Leon, Batty, and Holden all appeared in Blade Runner.
- Many of the parts of the "conspiracy" are based on errors or plot holes identified by fans of the original movie, such as Leon's ability to bring a gun into the Tyrell building, or the reference to the sixth replicant.
- The character of John Isidore, and his "pet hospital", is taken from Dick's original novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, although that book contained no suggestion that the shop ran a sideline in modifying replicants.
- Blade Runner's Sebastian was based on Electric Sheep's Isidore, though Jeter features them as separate characters in The Edge of Human.
- The idea of replicant models being mass-produced, and in particular a woman identical to Rachael existing, is also from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?; although in that book, Pris was the replicant double of Rachael, and there was no suggestion that replicants were constructed based on human templates.
- The etymology of the term "blade runner" is revealed to come from the German phrase bleib ruhig, meaning "remain calm." It was supposedly developed by the Tyrell Corporation to prevent news about replicants malfunctioning.
However, it also contradicts material in some ways:
- Sebastian was stated as being dead in the movie, yet he is alive in The Edge of Human.
- Pris was clearly stated as being a replicant in both the movie and the original novel, yet The Edge of Human claims she was human.
- Pris was clearly destroyed by Deckard in both the movie and the original novel. Sebastian's ability to bring Pris back to life as a replicant introduces numerous problems: the book implies that Sebastian somehow was able to do this without realising that her original body was human. It is likewise unclear why Deckard would have left her, or any suspected replicant he retired, in a state from which they could be repaired.
- "The Final Cut" of Blade Runner removed the reference of a surviving sixth replicant, as it was normally considered a leftover from an early script.
Read more about this topic: Blade Runner 2: The Edge Of Human
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