Director Scott favours this ‘Blade Runner’
This holiday season, director Ridley Scott and science-fiction-film fans both get to cross a long-hoped-for item off of their wish lists: an ultimate home video version of his 1982 hit Blade Runner.
In making the futuristic noir classic, which starred Harrison Ford, Scott was coerced to add a happier ending and Ford’s voice-over to the complex film about “replicants,” or androids, who wanted to become human.
Studio executives, Scott says, found the film “too oppressive or even non-specific, and wanted to see did (Ford’s character Deckard and Sean Young’s Rachael) have a life after the movie.”
Scott, 70, who has already earned best-director and best-picture Golden Globe nominations for his latest film, American Gangster, concedes that at the time, “I was not as experienced as I am now and kind of went along with the process of readjustments.” But after the fact, he realized that the ending with Deckard and Rachael headed into the beautiful mountain range “was always a problem for me. It was too sweet.”
For this 25th anniversary Blade Runner: The Final Cut, Scott oversaw an exacting digital restoration. He left off the original voice-over and happy ending, digitally tweaked some effects and restored a few extra bits of violence. Scott also reshot the death of Zhora (Joanna Cassidy), which was originally done by a stuntwoman with a bad wig, a fact that over the years grated on Scott and viewers alike.
This version, which played in some theaters and at film festivals, is just out in multiple editions, including a five-DVD “limited ultimate collector’s set” in a numbered plastic briefcase ($79). That set includes the final cut and four other versions of the film ó the original theatrical and international versions, the 1992 director’s cut and a “work print” ó plus a piece of film from the original movie, unicorn figurine, miniature car and photos.
Also available: five-disc HD DVD and Blu-ray ultimate limited editions ($100), a two-DVD final cut special edition ($21) and a four-DVD collector’s edition ($35).
All editions include a new documentary, Dangerous Days: Making Blade Runner, and a movie-length audio commentary by Scott, who considers this final cut his favorite version. After its digital makeover, Scott says the film looks as if “it could have been made this week. This isn’t some old walnut I’m dragging out of the sock drawer. It could have been released now.”
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