Star Trek: Deep Space Nine made a direct link between the Harrison Ford movie Blade Runner and the Star Trek franchise by featuring its very own replicant. Based on Phillip K Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Ridley Scott’s 1982 movie was much more dystopian than the utopian science fiction of Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek. Intriguingly, an archived lot at Heritage Auctions reveals that Philip K. Dick was in possession of a Star Trek: The Original Series writer’s guide, suggesting that Gene Roddenberry had sought to recruit the acclaimed sci-fi author.
Though his positronic brain was based on the work of author Isaac Asimov, the struggles of Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner) to be seen as an individual, treads similar thematic ground to Blade Runner and Dicks’ original novel. However, the most explicit reference to Ridley Scott’s sci-fi movie comes in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 2, episode 14, “Whispers”. The episode, in which Chief Miles O’Brien (Colm Meaney) returns to Deep Space Nine to find everyone acting strangely, introduced Star Trek‘s very first replicant.
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Star Trek: DS9’s Link To Blade Runner’s Replicants Explained
The twist ending of “Whispers” reveals that Chief O’Brien has been replaced by a duplicate that genuinely believes that they’re the real deal. When writing this episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Paul Coyle decided that he couldn’t refer to the O’Brien duplicate as an android because that would draw a link with Brent Spiner’s Star Trek character, Data. Paul Coyle further discussed how he approached the O’Brien reveal in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion, saying:
“Obviously, this guy wasn’t a clone or an android or a robot. So what’s left? I used replicant and nobody objected.”
Replicant is obviously a direct nod to Blade Runner, and characters like Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) and Pris (Daryl Hannah). Both characters are also synthetic humans that have gained sentience and individuality, but are being hunted by Harrison Ford’s Rick Deckard. There’s a small echo, or whisper, of Blade Runner in the way that the O’Brien replicant dies in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, seemingly turning himself off, like Rutger Hauer’s Roy in Blade Runner.
Other Links Between Star Trek And Blade Runner
Chief O’Brien’s replicant isn’t the only link between Star Trek and Blade Runner. The biggest connection is probably Joanna Cassidy, who played Zhora, the exotic dancer that Deckard guns down in Blade Runner. Cassidy later appeared as the Vulcan T’Les in two episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise season 4. T’Les was the mother of Enterprise‘s T’Pol (Jolene Blalock), and was also an instructor at the Vulcan Sciences Academy. As well as Joanna Cassidy, a number of stunt performers from Blade Runner have also worked on various Star Trek movies.
For example, Jeff Imada was George Takei’s stunt double in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, succeeding Jim Halty, who had doubled for the Sulu actor in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. More recently, Star Trek: Picard’s Peyton List voiced the character of Josephine Grant in the animated series Blade Runner: Black Lotus, which also featured Stephen Root. A prolific character actor in his own right, Root played Captain K’Vada in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Unification I”. All of which proves that Star Trek: Deep Space Nine‘s replicant was the first of many links with Blade Runner.
All episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine are available to stream on Paramount+.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, also known as DS9, is the fourth series in the long-running Sci-Fi franchise, Star Trek. DS9 was created by Rick Berman and Michael Piller, and stars Avery Brooks, René Auberjonois, Terry Farrell, and Cirroc Lofton. This particular series follows a group of individuals in a space station near a planet called Bajor.
Blade Runner
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The original Blade Runner is a sci-fi neo-noir film set in 2019 in a dystopian cyber-punk society. Harrison Ford stars as Rick Deckard as a Blade Runner for the LAPD, tasked with hunting rogue replicants, genetically engineered humans designed to tackle tasks that human beings cannot. When four replicants go rogue and begin killing humans, Deckard is forced out of retirement to hunt them down and stop them – but the truth isn’t as simple as it seems. Deckard will have to reckon with the philosophical dilemma of what makes someone human.
