It took 25 years, but the makers of Blade Runner finally got it right. Preceded by at least six editions, five of them seen by the general public, this “final cut” is the optimal form of Ridley Scott’s 1982 masterpiece. Neither a complex revision nor a simple restoration, it’s a retooling that presents the project as it was originally conceived. Although some of the violence has been intensified and stretched out, new footage isn’t really the point. The focus instead is on redressing technical errors and making other helpful adjustments, giving the film a fully comprehensible narrative. For the first time every detail falls into place.
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Along with the equally pessimistic and misanthropic A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Blade Runner sets the standard for movies about androids in the post-Metropolis era. It presents a dark view of humanity where the artificial beings known as replicants (who tragically have a lifespan of just four years) command most of our sympathy. Like A.I., its roots lie in 19th-century literature—Frankenstein in this case, The Adventures of Pinocchio in A.I.—where mankind tries to produce an ideal version of itself, which suffers endlessly as a consequence.
In 1989 a sound reconstruction consultant named Michael Arick discovered a 70-millimeter work print of Blade Runner that had been shown at a sneak preview in Denver coincidentally on the same day (March 5, 1982) Philip K. Dick’s body was being cremated in Santa Ana. (It screened again in Dallas the next day.) At this point, the film had neither a voice-over (apart from one brief segment) nor a happy ending, and the mixed audience response persuaded Warner Brothers to add both. The new ending was furnished with outtakes from the opening sequence of The Shining.
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Directed by Ridley Scott
Written by Frampton Hancher and David Peoples based on the book by Phillip K. Dick
With Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Darryl Hannah, and Edward James Olmos.
