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MovieMail's Review
The best special effects do not create moments, they create worlds. Films like Metropolis (1927), King Kong (1933), Forbidden Planet (1956), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968); and Star Wars (1977) create seamless environs that utterly immerse the viewer.
To the above, we can confidently add Blade Runner, Ridley Scott’s 1982 neo-noir masterpiece, which transplants the mood and tone of the 1940s detective thriller into the neon-soaked megalopolis of 2019 Los Angeles.
Harrison Ford plays the ‘Blade Runner’ of the title, an android-hunter who is brought out of retirement to hunt down and kill a band of replicants, synthetic humans who have returned to earth to beg longer life-spans from their creator. But it soon transpires that some replicants have been manufactured to believe they are human.
Whilst the basic storyline is straightforward, the film’s exploration of memory, identity and reality is profound, and has sustained 25 years of debate and intrigue. The controversy has been fuelled by the fact that the
film has gone through two major cuts: the original 1982 theatrical release, a 1992 director’s cut, as well as an unfinished workprint.
Thankfully, rather than complicating BladeRunner’s history by introducing a new revision into the mix, the 2007 final cut only serves to clarify and improve the already great 1992 director’s cut.
Continuity has been improved, editing has been tweaked, matte lines have been removed, and the strings holding up the flying cars have been cut (so to speak).
The only major change has been a re-shoot of a major action scene – replacing an obvious stuntperson with the original actress - and
the alteration of some minor lines of dialogue.
Completists will adore the new 5-disc DVD set which includes every previous version of the film. Owners of High-Definition players will be able to appreciate the superlative new transfer on the single-disc HD DVD and Blu-Ray releases.
The Final Cut is a definitive release that should draw a line under the production’s turbulent history. No film collection is complete without it.
Commentary by Ridley Scott, Commentary by Executive Producer/ Co-screenwriters Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, Producer Michael Deely and production executive Katherine Haber
Commentaries by visual futurist Syd Mead, production designer Lawrence G. Paull, art director David L. Snyder and special photographic effects supervisors Douglas Trumbull, Richard Yuricich and David Dryer
Documentary: Dangerous Days - Making Blade Runner - A feature-length authoritative documentary revealing all the elements that shaped this hugely influential cinema landmark.
Film Description
A work of towering imagination and extraordinary beauty, its terrifying central thesis is that although the defining characteristic of humanity is empathy, the future will be so soulless that only machines can experience genuine feelings. On another level, a hell of a return to form for the film noir thriller. So good for so many reasons.
This new 2007 version preserves the darker tone of the earlier Director's Cut, but cleans up the special effects, tidies up the dialogue and improves continuity. A genuinely worthwhile Final Cut of a truly great film.
