For example: What does it mean to be human? Are the replicants any less human for having been manufactured? Do they have souls? When Roy Batty's internal batteries finally run dry, he releases the dove he has been stroking, and the bird soars upward, a soul ascending.

Batty also serves as a Christ figure. Late in the movie he strips down to shorts to pursue Deckard, and when his limbs go numb a sign that his biological clock is running down - he pierces his palm with a nail, hoping the pain will shock his body into behaving.

The replicants are desperate to confront Tyrell, the inventor/industrialist whose corporation manufactured them. In this they echo mankind's desire to know, understand and perhaps defy God.

Then there's the film's vision of the future, an ecological nightmare where weather patterns have been disrupted and many species are extinct (the wealthy buy artificial animals as pets). In the social pecking order of 2019, the poor scuttle about at ground level while the privileged look down from high rises. Corporations have as much or more power than the government.

All this makes the movie thematically rich but doesn't really make it satisfying, at least according to detractors like "Entertainment Tonight" film critic and historian Leonard Maltin.

"This film has never done it for me," Maltin said. "Watching it, I never feel emotionally engaged. I admire the production design. And it raises provocative thoughts. But in the end I just find it muddled."

One man's muddle, though, is another's complexity.

"I've seen `Blade Runner' 20 times and each time it's a different movie," said Robert Thompson, professor of popular culture at Syracuse University "It's different because I've changed. I've grown older, picked up more information and experiences. It's a new movie every time."

The film's genius, Thompson said, is that it doesn't provide any answers.

"It's like a great first draft of a thesis. It drops all of these complex time bombs, sets up thematic landmines. And then it never bothers to work them all out. The brilliance of the movie is that it never tries too hard to make sense. That's why it's perpetually renewable."

Not even the people who made the movie agree on its meaning. Hauer, for instance, always has believed that his often-murderous character is the film's true hero. He calls Deckard "a dumb character. He's not the hero. He's the bad guy."

In fact, a controversy has long raged among the faithful over whether Ford's Deckard is, unbeknownst to himself, a replicant. The film drops several tantalizing clues, such as the very old but seemingly unrelated "family" photos that decorate Deckard's piano and the mocking tone of the eccentric police officer Gaff (Edward James Olmos), who intimates he knows secrets about Deckard that even Deckard doesn't possess.

Finally, there's the question of which "Blade Runner" you're talking about.

The version that opened in theaters in `82 had been taken away from Scott by his producers after the test screenings. They had Ford record a hastily written cynical tough-guy narration, hoping it would make the dark story more accessible.

Those present at the recording session later claimed that Ford hated the idea and deliberately gave a lousy reading, hoping the narration would never be used. In recent years the actor has denied that, saying he did the best he could.

Also tacked on was a "happy" ending in which Deckard and Rachael drive off through a gorgeous natural landscape, determined to live whatever time they have away from the crush of civilization.

Scott was bitterly disappointed with that tampering and in 1992 brought out a "director's cut" version that eliminated the narration and hopeful ending and restored some other elements. But even that was a rush job that didn't fully realize his vision for the film, the director has said.

For that we'll have to wait until fall. Scott is completing work on a definitive cut of "Blade Runner" that will play in theaters in September and then be released as part of an elaborate DVD boxed set.

A spokesman for Warner Home Video declined to comment on the project, except to say that an announcement would be made this summer.

But Hauer said the set will contain at least three versions of the film - theatrical, director's cut and the newest version - and that more than a year ago he was interviewed for the special features to be included in the package.

Thompson, for one, doesn't think there ever will be a definitive version of the movie.

"`Blade Runner' was for Generation X what '2001: A Space Odyssey' was for the baby boomers," Thompson said. "It's perfect fodder for the age of the Internet, a movie open to infinite interpretations."

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