Blade Runner '82 cut

[Guest DVD Spree]

I FUCKING LOVE BLADE RUNNER.

 

I don't have to explain why, because everyone who loves movies loves it too. The thing is, I've grown up watching the pseudo "director's cut", and I'd never seen the original, narrated, studio-hacked theatrical cut.

 

Until last night.

 

Jesus God, that was just awful. AWFUL. The voiceovers completely KILLED it for me - I mean, what the FUCK were they thinking? I know that there was a certain degree of narration in the earlier scripts, but they were excised for good reason. Everything about them is bad - hiring Kibbee to write them when he wasn't even a writer on the show was retarded, and they just feel so completely out of sync with the subtle, cerebral tone of Fancher and Peoples' script. "Irving the Explainer" isn't even the half of it.

 

But the absoulte WORST part of it is Harrison Ford's delivery. Yeah yeah, he did it intentionally to deep six the narraton so they wouldn't use it, but it obviously didn't work (initially anyway), and it ultimately just sounds SO SO STUPID. As soon as he starts talking it's so jarring and out of place that it just halts the movie dead for me and kills all of the atmosphere. His tone and intonation is just completely wrong - it's too upbeat, and it actually sounds like someone doing a PARODY of film noir narration in a cheap B-movie. In fact, the first time the narration kicked in, all I could think of was...

 

 

And then...

 

 

What a joke. I wish to God I'd never bothered watching that cut, it's left such a bad taste in my mouth. I would, however, LOVE to hear Ridley Scott go off on a diatribe about how awful the narraton is, but it doesn't look like that's ever going to happen. FUCK BUD YORKIN for that, and fuck him for holding the film to ransom in the first place.

 

Sorry, I guess I just needed to vent.

[spiny norman 0]

I strongly disagree. The original cut is, in my opinion, far far better than the Director's Cut. I think the voice over adds to the atmosphere quite well. And the ending is far more suiting than the ending for the DC. Frankly, it sucked. I hated that. I much prefer the original version and am annoyed at how difficult it is to track down, as I would much prefer to own it on DVD than the other version.

[Jingus 0]

You LIKED the narration? You are officially the first person I've ever heard say that, and I've had a lot of discussions and debates about this movie in my time. It just sounds awful and tacked-on, Ford clearly had no interest in doing it, and the lines themselves were stinkers.

 

Also, the original ending? Why? It was a forced "happy ending" that the studio made them slap on at the last second.

[Guest DVD Spree]

Also, the original ending? Why? It was a forced "happy ending" that the studio made them slap on at the last second.

 

With footage from The Shining, no less. And the narration in THAT scene is possinbly the worst and most jarring of all. I swear, it's like a cheesy infomercial.

 

That said, it was cool to see the extra violence, "more life fucker", and to hear Vangelis' original/alternate music cues.

[Lil' Bitch 0]

There'll be a 5-Disc set coming out in the fall, with the Original Theatrical Cut, the International Theatrical Cut, the 1992 Director's Cut, and the new Final Cut. More news at Comic Con. Fucking shit, who wants to sit and watch FOUR different versions of the same damn film? I know Blade Runner's a classic and all, but that's kind of going overkill on one movie.

[2GOLD 0]

There'll be a 5-Disc set coming out in the fall, with the Original Theatrical Cut, the International Theatrical Cut, the 1992 Director's Cut, and the new Final Cut. More news at Comic Con. Fucking shit, who wants to sit and watch FOUR different versions of the same damn film? I know Blade Runner's a classic and all, but that's kind of going overkill on one movie.

 

I did it with DAWN OF THE DEAD when the super box set was released for it. Granted it came with three different versions and commentaries about the film so that made it easier. The fact is usually if you buy a movie you love, you are going to watch it more than one time. And if a film has multiple cuts, obviously you are going to get curious. So if you watch Blade Runner four times, you can see it four different ways and try to figure out what was missing.

 

I haven't bought Blade Runner on DVD yet since there seems to be a new cut of the film once a decade. Depending on the price, I might spring for this set and be done with it. After this cut, Scott and company can kiss my ass if they try to edit the damn thing AGAIN.

[Black Lushus 0]

I have the Director's Cut DVD from like 10 years ago...that's all the money this movie gets from me.

[cabbageboy 0]

Agreed. To be honest I tend to look slightly down on a film that has a bunch of various cuts.

 

That said, my god the original cut of Blade Runner sucked with the narration. It's funny because if you check out Maltin's book he gives Blade Runner *1/2, which is the review of that crappy original version.

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

I saw Blade Runner once, and that was enough for me. Not sure about what "version" it was, though. Some horse was running around, if that helps.

[Lil' Bitch 0]

Anybody get The Final Cut? How is it? Worth the double dip?

[Vanhalen 0]

It is very very good, especially the casing for it, the price is pretty reasonable as well for a 5 DVD set.

[NoCalMike 0]

Ok, so I picked up the 5-disc set for $19.99 on bluray...at Frys......what is the best cut to watch first? I have seen the theatrical release a loooooooong time ago, and I defintely don't plan on watching the movie five times just to see each version(I mean I eventually will but I imagine some time will go by between each viewing).

 

What should I watch first? I am leaning towards the Final Cut.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

I didn't notice much anything in the Final Cut that was different from the Director's Cut, which has always been my preferred version. I think there were like 2 seconds in a strip club that I didn't remember from the first few times I saw the movie. That one ought to be fine.

[mfn 0]

i've never seen blade runner. what am i missing?

[ZGangsta 0]

The five disk blu ray is 14.95 from Amazon right now. Down from $40.

[Lil' Bitch 0]

Just stick with the Final Cut since that's the version Ridley Scott wanted you to see back in 1982 instead of the retarded studio version.

 

i've never seen blade runner. what am i missing?

 

The only thing the versions other than the original theatrical really do is take all the subtlety out of the fact that

Harrison Ford is a replicant.

[Jingus 0]

That's not even close to what he was asking, MVP. Obviously mfn's never seen the movie at all. For the uninitiated, Blade Runner is a somewhat dark tale about a detective (Harrison Ford) hunting down rogue androids in a noir-ish city in the future. It's got a lot of subtext about what it truly means to be human, and some really, really beautiful visuals.

 

The only thing the versions other than the original theatrical really do is take all the subtlety out of the fact that

Harrison Ford is a replicant.

And I've never felt that was a Fact in any version of the movie ever. It's hinted at, but the hints are so vague and oblique that you have to meet the movie much more than halfway in order to come to that conclusion.

[mfn 0]

That's not even close to what he was asking, MVP. Obviously mfn's never seen the movie at all. For the uninitiated, Blade Runner is a somewhat dark tale about a detective (Harrison Ford) hunting down rogue androids in a noir-ish city in the future. It's got a lot of subtext about what it truly means to be human, and some really, really beautiful visuals.

 

The only thing the versions other than the original theatrical really do is take all the subtlety out of the fact that

Harrison Ford is a replicant.

And I've never felt that was a Fact in any version of the movie ever. It's hinted at, but the hints are so vague and oblique that you have to meet the movie much more than halfway in order to come to that conclusion.

 

Thank you. I think I'm going to go out looking for this soon. Sounds like something that I would be interested in seeing.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

What really strikes me about Blade Runner is the visual effects. Not even for the time, but I would rank it better than most stuff I see today on TV and film. I was stunned when I first saw it.

[Jingus 0]

The old-school models and matte paintings just plain looked better than most of today's CGI stuff. Aside from the George Lucases of the world, the vast majority of computer-generated effects simply look obviously fake and unreal in a way that the old practical methods didn't. I know that's been said a thousand times, but it's worth saying again. Or, to put it another way, which looked more real: the aliens in Aliens, or the aliens in Alien vs. Predator?

[RepoMan 0]

The old-school models and matte paintings just plain looked better than most of today's CGI stuff. Aside from the George Lucases of the world, the vast majority of computer-generated effects simply look obviously fake and unreal in a way that the old practical methods didn't. I know that's been said a thousand times, but it's worth saying again. Or, to put it another way, which looked more real: the aliens in Aliens, or the aliens in Alien vs. Predator?

 

I hate CGI. A big reason I hate episodes 1-3 is that EVERYTHING is CGI. I don't even think Lucas is that great with CGI. I honestly even think the old school Battlestar Glactica looks better than most CGI effects.

 

[Jingus 0]

It's not all bad; there are plenty of examples of CGI being used so subtly that people never realize it. Like back in the digital granddaddy, Jurassic Park, they used computers to replace the face of a stuntwoman who accidentally looked straight at the camera with the face of the actress she was doubling. Or in Serenity, where they fixed an airball punch in a fight scene to look like it had connected. The problem comes when they're creating entirely new characters and objects completely out of CGI and placing them in front of a real-world background, because whether it's Gollum or Optimus Prime, it still all looks pretty fake.

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

CGI is like anything else, there is good CGI and there is bad CGI. The problem is that there is a lot more of the latter than the former. But it is the same way with the old style special effects. CGI is an improvement, even if it doesn't always look like it. Look at the Terminator films for example. No one will be able to convince me that the T-1000 in T2 looks worse than puppet-Arnie in the first Terminator.

 

Where CGI suffers is in comparison to the real old epics. Like in the Star Wars prequels, we can tell that it is two cartoon armies fighting it out but in say Lawrence of Arabia it looks real because it is. When the Arabs storm Aqaba it looks more effective because those soldiers are really there. You can't fake that stuff.

[MrRant 0]

It's not all bad; there are plenty of examples of CGI being used so subtly that people never realize it. Like back in the digital granddaddy, Jurassic Park, they used computers to replace the face of a stuntwoman who accidentally looked straight at the camera with the face of the actress she was doubling. Or in Serenity, where they fixed an airball punch in a fight scene to look like it had connected. The problem comes when they're creating entirely new characters and objects completely out of CGI and placing them in front of a real-world background, because whether it's Gollum or Optimus Prime, it still all looks pretty fake.

 

I thought you were going to say the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park as while they were great then, they look really outdated today unfortunately. Still a good movie though.

[Lil' Bitch 0]

I have to give the CGI guys huge credit for the Blade Runner: Final Cut improvements. They've shown you can make good, believable modern CGI fit into an old movie and not ruin the experience instead of shitty / obvious CGI like George Lucas does.

[Jingus 0]

Yeah, that's my point, there are plenty of examples of CGI effects which were done so well that nobody even noticed them. That's the problem: nobody can remember those, obviously. Nobody saw that Lucas seamlessly corrected some really shady-looking original fx in the Hoth sequence of Empire, they're too distracted by all the new giant creatures which were obviously not a part of the old footage. And if nobody had ever told you about the guns-to-radios editing in E.T., really, would you notice?

[Black Lushus 0]

I don't agree with you at all on your negative comments on the Transformers CGI, jingus, but we've already had that discussion before. Transformers fanboy tendancies aside, that was an example of GREAT CGI use, IMO. I think they made it look about as realistic as it gets.