What's New in Blade Runner - The Final Cut?

tripper700 writes "25 years since its original release, a definitive version of Ridley Scott's science fiction masterwork Blade Runner, Blade Runner: The Final Cut, has been released. So what exactly has changed? And is it worth all the fuss? SFFMedia describes each change in detail. Is it just a patch up job attempting to cash in on a cult film? Or like an oil painter retouching a masterpiece, or a novelist polishing prose, is Ridley Scott simply trying to perfect his original vision?"

Riddle me this:

[imstanny]

If I never saw the movie, which 'cut' should I watch?

All I Really Care About

[His Shadow]

Clean up the video, go CD quality on the sound, and get rid of the dialog artifacts artifacts that were only in there to further the voice over, which I hate with a passion after seeing the first Directos Cut.

i saw it at the ziegfeld two months ago

[circletimessquare]

i don't remember many changes. dancer chicks in hockey masks, more unicorns running around

and?

doesn't f***ing matter what they changed in minutaie

if i love the film for the same reason so many slashdotters do, it's one of the best f***ing movies ever made, and the minutaie doesn't matter, the whole of its incredible existence does

and it really is best in the theatres. 17 inch crt monitors don't do it much justice. if you missed it in the theatre 2 months ago, all i have to say to you is

if only you had seen what i had seen with your eyes

or something like that ;-)

Re:Changed or not?

[murderlegendre]

I'm wondering if this is actually a change. In the original, it's a beautiful bit of ambiguity: Hauer slurs the word, so that it sounds halfway between "father" and "fucker", neatly summing up his feelings towards Tyrell.

I've watched this film thirty-plus times, and it sounds like 'fucker' to me, every time. Really not sure where people get this idea of a slurred / doubled pronunciation. Don't forget that Hauer is a Nederlander by birth and despuie all his work and training, isn't immune from occasional inflections.

FWIW, wikiquote "I want more life, fucker" points to an IMDB 'trivia' entry, which could have been added or edited by just about anyone. Personally, I just don't hear this..

Riddley Scott vs The Script Writer

[MrSteveSD]

It always seems to me that Scott was going against what the scriptwriter intended. He keeps adding in clues that Deckard is a replicant but the script really doesn't support that idea at all.

Re:Riddle me this:

[Papabryd]

I have to disagree. I watched the 1992 director's cut first and it's the version I've come to associate with "Blade Runner." The voice over is kludgey, awkward, and unnecessary. There only reason it's there is because the production went over budget and Ridley Scott lost control to the bondsman. Given control of the movie they decided that test audiences were getting too confused by the narrative and demanded a voice-over against Scott and apparently Harrison Ford's protest. The rumor is that Ford thought if he performed it poorly enough they would opt against using it. Obviously they went ahead and used it anyway. Granted this is just a rumor, but consider what the rumor is trying to say.

I think the voice-over ruins the subtlety of the movie and if you have the opportunity to watch it more than once, which I suggest you do if it turns out to be your cup of tea, new moments and discoveries will appear with each viewing. Hell I watched it for probably the 20th time last week and noticed something for the first time. In the scene where Deckard and Gaff check out an apartment they are let it by a landlord wearing some oxygen mask apparatus on his chest. And he's on screen for half a second!

The attention to detail and texture in Blade Runner is why it still holds together today, not just the sets and props, but the music, acting, and storytelling. I don't think the voice-over does anything to improve upon what Ridley intended, it ends up only marring a beautiful finish.

Re:That's nothing.

[MillionthMonkey]

I thought Tron totally rocked when I was a kid. It was full of stupid stuff, like the Master Control Program's AI, and the laser that digitizes Flynn and sucks him into the computer. The "kiss" scene was gross. (I've written plenty of "ugly chicks" that I hope aren't making out with anybody in the hidden cyberworld.) Even I knew that an arcade game that took quarters wouldn't be interfaced to the Master Control Program at Dillinger's headquarters (this was the early 80s). And while the "bit" was an interesting character, it wouldn't be able to emphasize no as "no no no no" in a tight situation. Talk about TMI.

But what a pretty movie it was, even if it was stupid. The old 3D graphics were actually pretty cool- it was a weird world full of square clouds and straight blue lines. You just don't see stuff like that anymore. The quality of today's CGI is so good and so photorealistic that anything produced now is unimpressive and boring. It's evolved into junk for commercials: whales jumping up out of freshwater lakes where financially secure guys are fishing, expensive cars performing risky ballet moves while cruising down empty superhighways, etc. It's sucked the magic out of almost everything you see- if it looks incredible, you know instantly you're looking at CGI crap. Soon, even pornography will be ruined.

I wanted to see Tron again but my mother didn't care for it, so I dragged my father (mainframe programmer) to see it. He hates movies. But he liked it so much he dragged me there to see it again so I saw it three times. END OF LINE

Re:It's hard to imagine *SPOILERS*

[east coast]

I can't tell whether the movie would hang together well without the voice overs because I can't get them out of my head.
 
IMHO, "I don't know why he saved my life. Maybe in those last moments he loved life more than he ever had before. Not just his life, anybody's life, my life. All he'd wanted were the same answers the rest of us want. Where did I come from? Where am I going? How long have I got? All I could do was sit there and watch him die." is the best line in just about any film ever.
 
This one line makes anything else in the film worth enduring (not that the film isn't good without the line) and is the crux of the entire film. I guess other people see it in other lights but it's hard for me not to see the entire film leading up to this one line. I just can not accept that this film is about anything outside of the questions that artificial life will dwell on in the future when we produce it. I think it's great that science fiction discusses these questions. All of the robot/alien junk is just crap in comparison to the hard questions that will arise from our journey from natural human beings into a synthetic society where anything goes. With the stem cell debate being what it is we are kinda starting to ask these questions today in a round about way.
 
Still, see the film for what it is but it's still fantastic that all of the crap about cops and killing skin jobs and the Tyrell corporation comes down to one beautifully made point about our inevitable future. These questions are neat to address in fiction but warns us of the moral puzzles we will have to solve in the future.
 
I'm left wondering everytime after the movie; what will we decide and who will we answer to when the question becomes more than hypothetical.
 
That's science fiction to me. Again, just my humble opinion.

Re:That's nothing.

[palegray.net]

I agree with you on the effect of overdosing the population with CG. I still remember seeing Jurassic Park in the theater as a kid, and having to pick my jaw up off the floor every few minutes (coupled with having to wipe the drool off my shoes from seeing all those shiny SGI boxes). I don't get that feeling from CG film sequences anymore. I actually get more of a kick out of browsing still-image sites like Digital Blasphemy [digitalblasphemy.com].

Yeah, it's kind of sad, but it was inevitable. Look at the bright side: we're getting closer and closer to realtime immersive photorealistic worlds. When I get to build my own universe, that will be cool.

P.S. John Arnold from JP is still one of my personal heroes :).

RIP Tron

[TaoPhoenix]

This was also a time when micro computing technology itself had no idea of its direction. (I just checked the release dates - it predated the Commodore 64.) It did exactly what it was designed to do - capture young minds.

It used techniques never seen before... and never again (after the aggrivation factor turned out to be immense.)

And ... it had the best closed-process phrase ever. (I have to inquire how much the license rights to that phrase are!)

And the opposing opinion...

[PCM2]

...it's pretty awful. Ford's voice is completely flat and it sounds like he's reading his script from the desk in his hotel room. The voiceovers themselves add nothing to your understanding of the film. They're along the lines of:

DECKARD: (while fiddling with his badge and gun) I'm a cop.

Deckard's flying car cruises through futuristic L.A. until it arrives at a large building, upon which he disembarks and goes to see his boss in the police department.
DECKARD: I was on my way to headquarters to meet with the chief.

(etc.)

Completely Awesome

[pi8you]

I'd been waiting for something like this to pop up(though I'm sure there's geekier places with the full and proper rundown elsewhere). I got to go see it last weekend and was hard put to pick out the changes from the Director's Cut aside from an extended shot here and there. I probably would have caught more, but I was far too giddy about a) finally getting to see it on the big screen and b) the fact that Ridley didn't f- things up like a certain other director revisiting his films...

/the only movie I actively rewatch
//still listen to the soundtrack frequently
///never seen the original theatrical release
////my first DVD and will be my first Blu-Ray

More info that isn't in this article...

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

According to an industry mag that I just took a peek at, there were two radical re-stagings of shots from the original production. First was the re-shoot of the "retirement" of Joanna Cassidy where the original shot was so horribly obviously a stunt double. The final moment where she gets hit was reproduced from 25-year-old production design and recreated to make the scene work. Even better was the through-the-window shot of Deckard in the noodle shop. The original cut had horribly de-synched picture and audio, so the restoration team had Harrison Ford's *son* stand in to say the intended lines. The image of his mouth doing the lines was digitally patched over the original footage of his father speaking to repair the scene.

Re:Riddle me this:

[jo42]

The movie stands up quite well without the narration.

Horse poop. You've already seen the version with the voice over, so you know what is going on in the director's cut. If you watch the director's cut for the first time ever, you have absolutely no clue WTF is going on. Only after watching the original, do you know what was going on in the director's cut.

IMO, the voice over gives the movie the right character. Someday soon, when the technology is there, we the fans will do our own version with Harrison's voice in a fan voice over cut.

Re:And the opposing opinion...

[MsGeek]

There was one good line in that freaking voiceover. Just one. Here it is:

Sushi. That's what my ex-wife called me. Cold fish.

There is another voiceover, however, and you will become acquainted with it in a whole movie's worth of deleted scenes. It's not bad.

Here, let me link you to something on YouTube:
Alternate version of Batty's death scene [youtube.com].

I still am a partisan against voiceovers in Blade Runner. But that's one beautiful rejoinder from Deckard to Batty's classic soliloquy. And dig what Gaff says at the end.

There are going to be some pretty spectacular fan-edits out there once this is out. It might wind up being that people can choose the edit of Blade Runner they prefer.

I am awaiting my 5 disk set breathlessly.

agreed, it is not 'father' and should not be

[_Shorty-dammit]

This actually disappoints me. He says "I want more life, fucker." He's there, pissed off that he's got an expiration date. And he expresses that anger, quite appropriately. Changing this line is quite pointless, and is indeed another Han-shoots-first moment that should never have happened. Why, oh why, do they have to do stupid things like this when restoring/touching-up old movies!?! Blade Runner is a classic, a masterpiece. The Director's Cut is just about perfect as far as I'm concerned. I was hoping it would eventually get the restoration treatment, maybe remove the wires from the vehicles as they floated up, things like that. But changing, what I think is, such an important piece of dialog like that is beyond aggravating.

Re:Riddle me this:

[wish bot]

Considering that the Directors Cut makes the whole "Deckard is a replicant" thing incredibly obvious, I'm not sure which one would be considered more condescending...

Lifespans - Nexus 6 vs. Nexus 7

[xenobyte]

Also from TFA: Equally, if Deckard really is a Nexus 7 created to work as an exterminator, why is he lacking the strength of the inferior Nexus 6 models he is chasing? He seems to spend a large part of the film being bashed to a pulp.

Well, the answer to that lies clearly in Tyrells words: "The light that burns twice as bright burns for half as long and you have burned so very, very brightly Roy." - In other words, the superior strength and durability comes at the price of a reduced lifespan.

Re:Stupid comment

[gbjbaanb]

worse, if you're going to make superhumans its ok to keep them locked up in a military campaign away from the civilian population. Roy was created to be capable of starting a revolution and overthrowing the government - this is why its such a big deal when they escape.

So if you want a Nexus 7 to go hunting them, you can't create it as powerful as Roy - you'd only be running the risk of 2 supermen running riot out there! So you create Dekkard as a bit of a wuss, if he realises what he is and tries to escape the damage is limited.

Dekkard isn't working as an exterminator primarily anyway, he's an investigator. Perhaps in Blade Runner 2 (or should that be "Blade Runners") we'd see the special forces troops in the background with the big guns ready to come in when Dekkard2 reports he's found them (or gets killed)

Incidentally, why doesn't Holden know Leon was a replicant in the beginning? Think that these are military creations, the military doesn't exactly let anyone know what's going on unless they have to. You can imagine the political turmoil when they first escaped, the military tried to find them quietly until they came to the attention of the civil authorities by killing Holden, questions were asked in special committee, a junior secretary in the defence department 'resigned', the media was given an order restricting reporting (to maintain public order), and only *then* were the replicants' files released to the police.