the true director’s cut Harrison Ford in Blade Runner Scott eventually and ironically voiced his dissatisfaction with the director’s cut, too - when it was being edited together, he was working on Thelma and Louise, and he felt he didn’t give it proper supervision. Because Edward James Olmos’ officer Gaff gives Deckard an origami unicorn, this seems to strongly suggest that Deckard’s memories are implanted rather than “real,” and thus he is a replicant. This new ambiguity was accomplished largely through the insertion of a sequence in which Deckard dreams of a unicorn running through a forest. But perhaps more importantly, several additions suddenly called into question whether Deckard is human - something the theatrical cut never gives much reason to interrogate - or is actually a replicant, created to hunt down other replicants. In the director’s cut, Deckard’s voiceovers disappear, as does the happy ending, restoring the intended ambiguous ending about Deckard and Rachael’s fates. in 1992, and it changed a lot about the film people had seen a decade earlier. It was released in theaters by Warner Bros. Blade Runner’s director’s cut took a tortured path to the screen, the minutiae of which is probably only interesting to die-hard Blade Runner fans in short, the new cut was “supervised” by Scott, though the actual edits were performed by film preservationist Michael Arick based on Scott’s notes. You might think a director’s cut would fix all those problems, but you’d only be sort of right. the one with the Deckard question Harrison Ford and Sean Young in Blade Runner
Combined with the too-neat “happy ending” mandated by the studio, the theatrical cut isn’t anyone’s first choice, including Scott. That said, the voiceover on the theatrical cut sounds bafflingly bad, and Ford’s listless delivery leaves much to be desired. This lends an extra sheen of moral ambiguity to everything that happens in the film. Blade Runner draws some visual and narrative cues from neo-noir - dark and moody lighting, light shining through window shades, a femme fatale, and a morally conflicted protagonist - while being set in a dystopian future (2019!), and the narration makes the neo-noir side really come through. But it also makes the film feel even more like a neo-noir detective movie, in the style of Raymond Chandler. One, it explains some of his character’s backstory, which could aid moviegoers who aren’t feeling up to a moody cinematic challenge. The theatrical cut also contains some voiceover from ex-cop and Blade Runner Rick Deckard (played by Harrison Ford), which serves two purposes. But that undercut Scott’s original intention to leave much about the film ambiguous, both philosophically and narratively. Ridley Scott was not a fan of the theatrical cut, which was put together by studio executives who wanted a happy ending to please moviegoers. the one with the voiceover Harrison Ford in Blade Runnerįirst up is the “original” or “theatrical” version - there are actually two of these, but the most commonly available one is the US theatrical cut, which is the version that people who bought a ticket to a US theater in 1982 would have seen. So to help you choose the Blade Runner experience that’s best for you, here’s what each of those three main variants has to offer. Each version has pros and cons each delivers a different viewing experience. However, there are three main Blade Runner variants that have been released for public viewing in the US and that you can watch at home. Blade Runner, on the other hand, has been cut and recut eight different times (that we know of). That isn’t as simple a choice as with most movies with multiple cuts - like, say, the Lord of the Rings films, where you can either watch the theatrical version or the longer “extended” edition, which has more scenes but preserves everything that’s in the theatrical version. Blade Runner 2049 isn’t a sci-fi masterpiece, but it’s trying really hard to replicate one