Blade Runner: The Final Cut (2007)

It seems like I've been waiting my whole life for this. Ridley Scott's sci-fi masterpiece Blade Runner is probably my favorite film of all time. It's an amazing visual accomplishment, probably the most amazing film just to look at, with fire-breathing smokestacks and monolithic super-skyscrapers forming a lurid vision of a future metropolis where manufactured replicants show more emotion than the world's human inhabitants.

Unfortunately, until two months ago, the only print of Blade Runner readily available was a crappy snapcover Warner Brothers DVD version of the Director's Cut that included a terrible scene-select menu and offered no special features or anything else of note. Seeing as how BR has an incredibly colorful (and contentious) behind-the-scenes story and like a billion different versions, this pallid representation was totally unacceptable. The only thing we BR devotees could do was plug our noses and go read Paul M. Sammon's exhaustive making-of book, Future Noir, for the gazillionth time.

Enter December 2007, as the release of Ridley Scott's Final Cut gave all of us dateless Blade Runner nerds a reason to squeal with joy. This new five-disc collector's edition provided us with everything that we needed: all four previous versions of the film; a brand, spanking new documentary detailing the film's creation; an incredible collection of never-before-seen deleted scenes, and just an assload of general BR-related extra junk. I got the Final Cut for Christmas but only this past week have I been able to finally dive in and watch it. It's certainly been worth the wait.

I'm going to try to run a week-long series of sorts detailing all the good stuff that's included in the new collector's set, but for today I'm just going to run through the Final Cut itself, and talk about some of the major differences that I thought had the most effect, for better or worse.

For those who have never seen the film, it takes place in Los Angeles, 2019, and stars Harrison Ford as a sort of specialized cop who runs around the city trying to track down four missing, murderous replicants. Replicants are human clones created for slave labor on off-world colonies. If they break ranks or try to flee, they are immediately labeled a danger, and these Blade Runners are sent out to kill them. The problem is that the only way to distinguish them from other humans is by administering a dubious personality test. Naturally, Ford also falls in love with a replicant and this leads to various thematic and plot-related complications.

The history of the film's release is long and complicated, but I'll give you sort of a nutshell version. The original theatrical cut was released in 1982, to mixed critical reviews and a none-too-impressed mainstream audience. While most agreed it was brilliant visually, many thought the plot was murky and the pacing deadly slow. At first, it had a reputation as sort of a flop, but it started to gain more attention upon its VHS release and developed a substantial cult following in subsequent years.

Then, in 1992, Scott went back and made a bunch of changes. He dropped Harrison Ford's awful voiceover narration, replaced the original ending with a new, less cheesy one, and inserted a brand new dream sequence that gave rise to the hackneyed (in my opinion) idea that Deckard himself was a replicant. This version was released as the Director's Cut, and it put BR back on the map, as it was regarded as a huge improvement and has since become the quintessential cut. Chances are that if you've seen the film, you watched the Director's Cut.

The new Final Cut is essentially the same as the DC, only with some footage lifted from other versions inserted here and there. I actually saw it in theaters on Friday, which was pretty awesome, as the film's incredible production design looks amazing on the big screen. Here is a list of some of the new stuff inserted for the Final Cut that I thought had a noticeable impact on the final product.

--Much of the visual design has been digitally retouched, and this is the Final Cut's main asset. If you watch the DC nowadays, it's obvious during some of the scenes (especially the final Roy Batty chase scene) that the cityscapes are just matte paintings inserted in postproduction. Now, though, a lot of these special effects have been cleaned up and it looks great, definitely enhancing the film's overall visual brilliance.

--A lot of the more notorious goofs from the other versions have been fixed in the Final Cut, including (thankfully) the ridiculous stolen shots that comprise Roy Batty's first appearance on screen (in one, you can see a thumb on Batty's shoulder even though he's supposed to be standing by himself in a cramped phone booth). A number of lines have been redubbed to fix continuity errors, several scenes where wires are clearly showing on the flying cars have been fixed, and Joanna Cassidy's face has been digitally re-inserted during her memorable death scene (a bunch of nerds complained loudly about the fact that it was clearly a stunt double in the original versions).

Perhaps the most famous flub in Blade Runner is also fixed. In the previous cuts, Roy Batty, as he is dying at the end, symbolically releases a dove to fly off into a clear blue sky, even though it is clearly night in the movie. Scott has gone back and digitally inserted a new computer-generated night sky background to fit the time of day. Unfortunately, it looks awful and they should have just stuck with the blue sky for symbolic value or something.

--A new, albeit very brief, CGI shot of the unicorn is added to the now-famous dream sequence, for reasons that aren't clear to me. It looks ridiculous.

--A number of rare scenes from both the notorious Workprint edition and the International Cut are included. The stuff from the Workprint (I'll talk about that version later this week) mostly consists of footage from the "Animoid Row"/Zhora scene (including weird go-go dancers wearing hockey masks), and it's fitted seamlessly into the original narrative. It's pretty cool.

The stuff from the International Cut I'm actually very surprised they even included, because most of it is just a bunch of graphic violence that the studio didn't want shown here in the States. The new IC scenes don't add much other than shock value for those who haven't seen them. Most of it is just unneccesary, like an absolutely disgusting shot of Roy Batty sticking a nail through his hand, or when one of the replicants breaks Harrison Ford's nose in decidedly unsanitary fashion. Tyrell's death scene is also hideously violent, taken straight from the IC.

--Maybe it's just me, but it seems like most of the outdoors scenes in the Final Cut have a faint blue tint to them, like they were retouched with a different filter for this new version. It's pretty distracting, and takes away from the visuals, if you ask me, but it probably isn't really too noticeable unless you're a rabid BR dweeb like me.

In all, the Final Cut really doesn't change my opinion of the film in any way. I didn't expect to be blown away by any of the changes, especially since I'd seen most of them in different versions already. A lot of the new stuff is cool, but merely cosmetic. The film's main flaws- confusing story, muddled themes, boring leading man performance- are still there. The story still takes a backseat far away from the visuals, and Harrison Ford's character is still a cipher.

I still love the movie and think it's an amazing technical achievement, but honestly, when I sit down to watch it in the future, I'm probably going to just pop in the Director's Cut again.

Once again, I'm going to try to do a week-long BR fest detailing my experience being bombarded by all the awesome crap in the five-disc collector's edition, so stay tuned. Tomorrow we'll go into the incredible deleted scenes. Until then, though, let's finish with the awesome Final Cut trailer.