Blade Runner 2049 was already shaping up pretty damn nicely with a hot director, cool trailer and, of course, Harrison Ford in full swing on his reboot tour – but hardcore fans prepare to officially lose it: Gaff is coming back.
Eduardo Gaff, the infamously ambiguous, origami-obsessed LAPD Blade Runner vet played by Battlestar Galactica's Edward James Olmos, is a small yet iconic part of the original Ridley Scott movie – and, importantly, key to much of the "Is Deckard a replicant or not?" fan arguments.
Speaking on The Trend Talk Show this week, Olmos revealed, rather excitedly: "This is the first time that I'm telling the whole world, that yes, I am going to be Gaff in Blade Runner 2049.
"I signed a seven-page non-disclosure contract. I did, my manager did, my agent did, everybody did. I couldn't talk about it. I couldn't talk about it to anybody."
Now, Gaff was actually killed off in the non-Philip K Dick-written follow-up novel Blade Runner 2: The Edge of Human, so we can assume that's not canon. But what does his one-scene-only return mean for the focus of Blade Runner 2049?
"Well it's not about Gaff, but it's about someone who is going to try to find out certain things about us back then," continues Olmos. "My role is like it was in the original – that time I only had four scenes, in this I only have one. But again, it's a poignant little scene."
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The suggestion has always been that Gaff leaving an origami unicorn at Deckard's pad confirms that our heroic Blade Runner is, in fact, not human but a replicant, as it shows his unicorn-filled dreams are known and therefore pre-programmed.
Some fans have gone even further and suggested that Deckard *is* Gaff – or at least a replicant implanted with his memories, like Sean Young's Rachel was with the niece of Eldon Tyrell.
The fact that Gaff can barely walk is supposedly why he needs him, and the fact he treats Ford like his unloved pet, even in front of the police chief, reinforces it. But the kicker is Olmos's only two full lines in English in the entire film:
"You've done a man's job, Sir. I guess you're through, huh?"
"It's too bad she won't live! But then again, who does?"
Well we're convinced, but your guess is as good as ours as to how his presence will help Ryan Gosling on his mission.
This is not the first time the crazy levels of secrecy involved in producer Ridley Scott's replicant reunion have been voiced by stars of the sequel either. Earlier this year, The Walking Dead's Lennie James told Digital Spy:
"I'd never been on anything more secret than The Walking Dead until I was on Blade Runner – to the point where they offered me the job out of the blue and I said, 'I need to read the script', and they sent me 20 pages before my character arrived, and they sent me 20 pages after my character had gone.
"It was on an app that I could only open on one device, I couldn't take a screenshot, I couldn't save it and they said, 'You've got 36 hours', and I had 36 hours with it and then... it was gone."
The Keyser Soze of scripts? We're not sure we could be any more excited.
Matt is a journalist, audience strategist, editorial director and workflow consultant with over 20 years' of experience in the industry.
A former director of audience development and content strategy at Hearst UK, Matt was previously Editor-in-Chief of Digital Spy. There, he contributed features and reviews on TV, movies, consumer technology, video games and Lego sets, won BSME Digital Editor of the Year, and led the team to numerous awards including Campaign Consumer Media Brand of the Year and PPA Digital Content Team of the Year twice.
As Digital Development Director of the Hearst UK portfolio, he oversaw the central digital editorial teams including SEO, video, e-commerce and design, contributing to digital acceleration across all Hearst UK brands from Cosmopolitan to Good Housekeeping.
Before joining Hearst in 2015, Matt edited Future’s consumer technology lifestyle brand T3 and the UK arm of Gawker’s tech culture website Gizmodo, and was deputy editor at ShortList, the then biggest men’s magazine in the UK, interviewing the likes of Quentin Tarantino, Lord Sugar and Sirs Ridley Scott and David Attenborough in the process. LinkedIn
