Blade Runner
Amazon.co.uk Review
When Ridley Scott’s cut of Blade Runner was finally released in 1993, one had to wonder why the studio hadn’t done it right the first time–11 years earlier. This version is so much better, mostly because of what’s been eliminated (the ludicrous and redundant voice-over narration and the phoney happy ending) rather than what’s been added (a bit more character development and a brief unicorn dream that drops a big hint about Deckard’s origins). Star Harrison Ford originally recorded the narration under duress at the insistence of Warner Bros. executives who thought the story needed further “explanation”; he later confessed that he thought if he did it badly they wouldn’t use it. (Moral: never overestimate the taste of movie executives.) The movie’s spectacular futuristic vision of Los Angeles–a perpetually dark and rainy metropolis that’s the nightmare antithesis of “Sunny Southern California”–is still its most seductive feature, another worldly atmosphere in which you can immerse yourself. The movie’s shadowy visual style, along with its classic private-detective/murder-mystery plot line (with Ford on the trail of a murderous android, or “replicant”), makes Blade Runner one of the few science fiction pictures legitimately to claim a place in the film noir tradition. And, as in the best noir, the sleuth discovers a whole lot more (about himself and the people he encounters) than he anticipates. The cast also includes Sean Young, Edward James Olmos, Daryl Hannah Rutger Hauer and M. Emmet Walsh. –Jim Emerson, Amazon.com
In the Box Set: It is a fitting testament to Blade Runner‘s enduring appeal that it should receive the red-carpet box set treatment in this Collector’s Edition, which represents a sizeable outlay not least in terms of shelf space. The chunky black box (about the size of the yellow pages) houses a slide-out tray containing the DVD, eight original lobby cards an original one-sheet movie poster, the draft shooting script and a movie image card with the corresponding 35mm film frame attached. As with all such sets the whole is rapidly diminished by removing its parts, presenting the dilemma of whether to mount the poster and pictures, or leave them pristine but unseen in their original state.
The DVD included contains Ridley Scott’s director’s cut version of the film, but offers no new features or commentaries which would have added considerably to the set’s desirability. The original draft shooting script by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples does, however, provide some fascinating insights in its moments of departure from the version that was finally filmed. Perhaps the most compelling example is Deckard’s final, decisive contribution to the “is he or isn’t he” debate: “I knew it on the roof that night. We were bothers, Roy Batty and I! Combat models of the highest order. We had fought in wars not yet dreamed of in vast nightmares still unnamed. We were the new people … Roy and me and Rachael! We were made for this world. It was ours!” –Steve Napleton
You can’t beat this film for originality, talk about ground breaking. Ford is fantastic and Hauer was made for the part. I recommend only watching this film in it’s original Directors cut version, the general release is spoilt by ford’s talk over. A must for everybodies collection, if you’ve never seen it you must have been living on Mars for the last fifteen years. Many have tried to copy this film and none have suceeded.
Rating: 5 / 5
There’s nothing else to say about this movie, a milestone in Sci-Fi moviemaking at the highest level. The celebrated set design of a breathtaking visual of the dark future is awesomely created by Ridley Scott. This definitive movie for Sci-Fi fans is however a letdown in its DVD format. I was hoping the transfer would be better than it is but the grains still exist. Talking about extras (or lack of it) is the sore point of this release. NOT EVEN A TRAILER! Saved however by the attached merchandise (lobby cards, film cell etc)
Rating: 4 / 5
What is there to say about a film which had and still has as much impact on the art as Blade Runner. I would have expected extras in the DVD included in this set as compared to the standard DVD ,but the book makes up to the void……as do the other extras. It’s a bit like taking part in the making of the movie and having taken a cut out of the trash can….
Rating: 5 / 5
I remember seeing this at the local cinema in ’82 and it was visually stunning, not many films have that effect but this still is the best film of it’s type to date. The film has been copied by so many pretenders and later efforts such as The Matrix owe so much to it’s simplistic understated brilliance.
Just watch and revel in it’s ability to show how a film should be made. But then again Ridley Scott always seems to deliver.
The Vangelis soundtrack is probably one of the best you’ll ever hear which just adds to the whole package. All I’d say is it deserves to be seen on the biggest screen possible with the volume cranked up to at least eleventy four.
Rating: 5 / 5
Philip K Dick wrote the seminal book “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” in 1968 and it was adapted into a movie in 1982. This movie was “Blade Runner”, a movie by Ridley Scott.
The movie centres around Rick Deckard, a cop, one of the elite Blade Runners tasked with finding run away androids known as “replicants”. The Blade Runner’s job is to ‘retire’ the replicant, i.e. terminate them. In the course of the hunt for a band of the very latest Nexus 6 series of replicants, Deckard meets Dr Eldon Tyrell the creator of the replicants and his niece Rachel. This meeting starts a chain reaction in Deckard causing him to question everything that he is and everything that he might become.
This movie asks certain specific questions of the viewer, namely:
“What constitutes humanity?” and
“If a ‘product’ passes the Turing test does that make it a truly conscious being?”
“How do we know our memories are real and not the ‘gifted’ implant of a manufacturing corporation?”
When taken in the context of the psychological questioning plot line this movie has the potential to be disturbing. When taken as a piece of art showing the desperate side of the remnants of humanity clutching at a dark and dying earth, you can see the genius of Ridley Scotts vision of an environmentally damaged world. When taken as a cop movie with a rogue policeman dragged from retirement to perform a task he hates, you’ll be entertained.
The casting is marvellous with Harrison Ford in his prime playing the perfect Deckard and the remarkable Rutger Hauer playing his best role as Deckards adversary Roy Batty, a combat model Nexus 6, the leader of the replicants. Sean Young’s Rachel adds a fragility that makes the production all the more poignant.
On the whole, a film I enjoyed, a setting that I appreciated and performances I applauded. This film is very much a must for all sci-fi movie buffs and enthusiasts.
Rating: 5 / 5