Blade Runner 2049 and Memory

There is a scene in the film Blade Runner 2049, sequence to Ridley Scott’s original Blade Runner (originally from novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep), where Decker faces a young Replicant of his deceased love Rachel.

Decker ends the temptation of being reunited with his loved one by telling the perfectionist businessman Wallace that her real eyes were green.

However, after rewatching the first movie – I can attest that they were not green at all.  A little glare in the first scene with Decker and Rachel makes her eyes shimmer green, but brown was the actual color.

I have this under the Category “A.I.” because, well, Replicants.  They are A.I. so advanced they can believe themselves to be human, such as Rachel in the first movie.  The Rachel that appears in 2049 (a stunning piece of CGI work) is for all intents and purposes a perfect Rachel.

But to Decker it isn’t perfect.  Because humanity, and human memory, are not perfect.  We all have an image of our loved ones in our mind that does not align with reality.  Memories are all impacted by other memories, emotions, and shared experiences.  The Rachel Wallace shows Decker is not Rachel – not Decker’s Rachel – because it is not the Rachel he fell in love with and recalls.

So maybe Decker simply remembers Rachel having green eyes because of that green shimmer when he first saw here, but more likely Decker says that one-liner to Wallace because Decker realizes no matter how perfect Rachel’s body and mind are, she will never be the same Rachel in his memories.  It is a different entity, even if the first Rachel was just as much a Replicant as this one.  Shared experience, emotion, and choices define a person and a relationship, not the physical matter  that comprises them.