with the new movie coming about,

what are you thoughts and knowledge about anything

of the original or the book, the artwork, background, culture etc

I love movies like this with a lot of non speaking acting, dark and mysterious (same as Purple Rain) Star Was (Empire Strikes Back) especially the Cloud City feel/scenes

This film actually inspired Prince's 1999-Purple Rain eras music and look, he went to see this when it came out.

I love the whole unspoken background of the movie

the issues with wildlife and available meat for consumption

the new language and the types of mixed race people

the big dark city and wondering about life off planet

[Edited 11/9/11 11:54am]

I love movies like this with a lot of non speaking acting, dark and mysterious (same as Purple Rain) Star Was (Empire Strikes Back) especially the Cloud City feel/scenes

This film actually inspired Prince's 1999-Purple Rain eras music and look, he went to see this when it came out.

I love the whole unspoken background of the movie

the issues with wildlife and available meat for consumption

the new language and the types of mixed race people

the big dark city and wondering about life off planet

I've never seen it .

ahhh Gary Numan..

Fuck no, they're doing a remake?

Amazing movie, interesting to learn about the making, too. Been a while since I read the book but it's great, too. Different focus than the movie, of course. I love the original title "Do androids dream of electric sheep?". If a new movie goes more in the direction of the book, okay, but if they're doing an action movie? Ugh.

Phishanga said:

Fuck no, they're doing a remake?

Not a remake, a sequel: http://prince.org/msg/100/370238

This and Alien are my two favourite films. I've been watching them both constantly since VHS in 1983, and I don't plan on stopping anytime soon...

My favorite replicant

the Future by Prince always remind me of this fill or in the reverse,

the Future I wonder when it was actually written

Phishanga said:

Fuck no, they're doing a remake?

Amazing movie, interesting to learn about the making, too. Been a while since I read the book but it's great, too. Different focus than the movie, of course. I love the original title "Do androids dream of electric sheep?". If a new movie goes more in the direction of the book, okay, but if they're doing an action movie? Ugh.

Kosgrove also stated that it was highly unlikely that Harrison Ford would be returning, which is confirmed by today’s comments from Scott. This new Blade Runner may end up being a sequel in the loosest sense of the word. Kosgrove said that this new film is “a total reinvention” and will be created “as separately as possible” from the original pic. It’s highly likely that it may simply take place in the same universe as the original Blade Runner, but with completely different characters (which is what Prometheus’ connection to Alien is rumored to be). It’ll be a while before we find out for sure, but at least we now have a firm timetable for the new Blade Runner.

I came across this deleted scene from Blade Runner a while back featuring the visit Deckard makes to Holden in the hospital after he's been shot. I thought it was quite interesting as it sheds a whole new light on the Gaff character as we actually get to hear him speak a bit and have a sense of his relationship with Bryant. It also infers that Deckard actually got off with Zhora and did the nasty with her before he chased her down the street and shot her. And they say romance is dead. The inclusion of this one scene would have changed the feel of the whole film.

http://www.gavinrothery.c...scene.html

banter with Holden, over whether Deckard "fucked a washing machine and then turned it off"...

[Edited 11/9/11 8:36am]

[Edited 11/9/11 8:26am]

Blade Runner Props

These are original, screen-used props from Blade Runner that went up for auction a few years back. Wonderful to finally see clear photos of Deckard’s (amaaaaazing looking) blaster and the original Voight-Kampff test. My mother? Let me tell you…

One of the Holden-capsule scenes gives us a rare well-lit view of Deckard's outfit




Batty uses Sebastian's key cards to escape from the Tyrell building

muirdo said:

I've never seen it .

REPLICANT \rep'-li-cant\ n. See also ROBOT (antique): ANDROID (obsolete): NEXUS (generic): Synthetic human, with paraphysical capabilities, having skin/flesh culture. Also: Rep, skin job (slang): Off-world use: Combat, high risk industrial deepspace probe. On-world use prohibited. Specifications and quantities - information classified.

- New American Dictionary Copyright © 2016

I first saw Blade Runner during its initial Australasian theatrical run back in December of 1982. I had just turned 14. Had I lived in Denver, United States I might have been one of the (now lucky) few that got to see the workprint cut of the movie which was shown in 70mm to preview audiences before its official release in June ’82. This was the version that caused great headaches for the producers when disgruntled audiences expecting to see Harrison Ford in more of a swashbuckling hero mode à la Indiana Jones (Raiders of the Lost Ark had come out the previous year) were very disappointed in what they saw as an unpleasantly grim and overwhelming future about a loser cop who fails to come out on top, flailing around in a dark, impenetrable, ambiguous narrative.

Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard

What unfolded has become cinema history: the movie was tweaked, compromised, (voiceover narration added to facilitate easier audience comprehension of the plot and tagged-on upbeat ending) and released. It bombed.

Director Ridley Scott was rushed into delivering a “Director’s Cut” in 1991 which removed the dreary voiceover and optimistic ending, and inserted a brief moment of a unicorn running through a forest (seemingly lifted from Scott’s fantasy movie Legend) to give weight to the sub-text theory that detective Deckard (Harrison Ford) is actually a replicant himself.

Generally the "new" cut (basically the workprint tidied up) was well received by critics and audiences, but to add further fuel to the movie's cosmic fire, over the decade since its release it had garnered a huge and very dedicated cult following. The fans knew there was still more being withheld. Rumours of deleted scenes abound, different music, alternate takes. The rare workprint version became the elusive unicorn, something die-hard fans dreamt about. Anticipation built as the 20th anniversary of the movie approached, but the date came and went (due to legal wrangling).

Then finally, December last year, on the 25th anniversary of arguably the most visually influential and critically-polarised sf movie ever made, a deluxe edition of Blade Runner was released including Ridley Scott’s much anticipated Final Cut.

Rutger Hauer as Roy Batty

I got in there quick-smart and ordered one of the limited edition Deckard briefcase boxsets: five discs containing all five versions, a feature-length making of documentary, numerous featurettes, a 45-minute montage of deleted and alternate scenes, plus production design cards, a plastic "origami" unicorn and miniature toy Spinner. This was my Christmas present to myself!

Blade Runner is my favourite film of all-time. I acknowledge that it’s flawed, but it’s such a magnificent rough diamond. Over the years I’ve seen the movie in all shapes and sizes; the original theatrical cut, then again (and again and again ...) on VHS, later the rarer, more violent International Version on laserdisc, then the Director’s Cut at the cinema (which I later bought on DVD), and rather memorably last December, and to coincide with the DVD deluxe set, a very special HD-digital projection of the Final Cut at the huge Orpheum cinema here in Sydney (which brought all the die-hard fans).

Sean Young as Rachael

Watching the workprint - after so many years of knowing of its existence and wondering if I’d ever have the privilege - was such a thrill, I felt like a young boy in a toy shop. The brief introduction by Ridley Scott warned viewers that the picture quality wouldn’t be the best as he had to go back to the only surviving print of the workprint to do a digital transfer. He also warned of significantly different music during the movie’s last quarter.

The first major difference was the opening credit sequence where the name “Harrison” emerges above a horizontal red line and “Ford” emerges simultaneously below, the word “Blade” slices up, whilst “Runner” slices below. It has B-movie appeal. Then instead of the opening scrawl which accompanies all the other versions there’s a dictionary definition of what a replicant is (see top of post). Now this was very cool, and I much prefer it over the scrawl which I always had trouble with.

Darryl Hannah as Pris

What stands out immediately about the workprint is how dark it is. I’m not talking about the mood and tone; we already know that, but the picture quality. It’s very high-contrast with dense and saturated colour, but a lot of definition is lost. Normally that kind of compromise would be very frustrating, but because I know the film so well, I found the look of the movie utterly magical. Suddenly the movie had become more film noir than I had could have ever imagined. The blackness overwhelmed and created an expressionist appearance that embraced the movie’s dark tone with true deepness. While not intentional, this darker picture looked more dream-like, and ultimately represented Blade Runner as the ne-plus-ultra of future noir.

The workprint uses some of the more graphic violence (which surfaced in the International Version and later in the Final Cut), such as Pris (Darryl Hannah) lifting Deckard up by the nostrils. In the opening scene where detective Holden puts the Voight-Kampff test on Leon there’s a lingering shot of Holden after he’s been shot lying sprawled over a table with a large smoking hole in his back. The scene where Deckard uses the Espa machine to enhance a photo uses different photographic footage; in fact in the way it’s been shot and edited it’s almost an entirely different scene. When rogue replicant Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) confronts his maker Dr. Eldon Tyrell (Joe Turkel) he demands “I want more life, father!” In the theatrical releases and Director’s Cut he says “I want more life, fucker!” Scott re-inserted this important line in the Final Cut.

Gaff (Edward James Olmos) flies Deckard to his briefing

Depending on how well you know the movie you’ll be able to recognise some subtle and some more obvious differences. But most significantly was the different music cues. Vangelis’s sublime score is used more sparingly in the workprint, which creates a more sombre mood. Sound effect-driven cues are more frequent than music. During the famous love scene there is an entirely alternate piece of Vangelis music which shifts the tone of the scene and makes it less melodramatic.

When Deckard enters the Bradbury building in the movie’s last quarter to confront Roy Batty the Vangelis music is no longer used (most likely Vangelis was still composing and had yet delivered), instead what is used sounds like stock Hollywood thriller music utilising an string orchestra. It pales against Vangelis’s electronic score something chronic, especially during Batty’s “tears in rain” speech, but it’s curious to watch the action set to a different soundscape and to realise a) just how important musical style is and b) just how amazing the Vangelis score is.

Tyrell Building, Los Angeles 2019

Then while a battered and exhausted Deckard lies in a crumpled heap on the rooftop, after Roy Batty has saved his life, Harrison Ford delivers a short voiceover: “I watched him die all night. It was a long, slow thing and he fought it all the way. He never whimpered and he never quit. He took all the time he had as though he loved life very much. Every second of it...even the pain. Then, he was dead.”

Overall the use of less music and the darker picture quality adds a spare beauty to the film; the inherent loneliness is accentuated, the melancholic tone is heightened, the oneiric quality is intensified. It’s an accidental gem that glitters like c-beams in the dark near the Tannhauser gate …

You play beautifully

I have yet to watch the making of documentary or the featurettes (there’s a lot), but the 45-minute deleted/alternate scenes montage is an utter delight for Blade Runner enthusiasts. It’s like watching a condensed alternate Blade Runner movie, or to be precise, an extended trailer to an alternate feature version. Notable scenes include Deckard’s two visits to Holden hospitalised in an “iron lung” (the second one Holden bags out Deckard for sticking his dick in a replicant saying “You fucked a washing machine and now you’ve switched it off”), Bryant (M. Emmet Walsh) and Gaff (Edward James Olmos) watch surveillance of this second visit and make comments including a brilliant line from Gaff, “I spit on metaphysics”, plus more of Rachael (Sean Young) at Deckard’s apartment including the famous shot of her seated, head turned and legs splayed which featured in publicity stills but wasn’t in the final cut. There's a more erotic edge in the scene where Deckard steals a kiss from Rachael; his hands riding her dress up her thighs, then pulling her top down. There’s also two alternate endings using the incongruous footage of Deckard and Rachael driving out of the city along lush mountain roads talking about love and acceptance.

All those moments will be lost, like tears in rain ... time to die

I could go on and on talking about this movie ... Blade Runner ages like a fine whiskey and will continue to age beautifully, its palette and acquired taste becoming richer and more smokey as other sf films try in vain to emulate its transcendent visual and musical mood and tone. As much as I love Star Wars, respect 2001: A Space Odyssey, admire Solaris, marvel at Metropolis, and enjoy The Terminator … with Alien and Blade Runner Ridley Scott made the two greatest science fiction movies of all-time.

Amazing post, OldFriends4Sale! I have the box with the 5 DVDs myself, got to take it out sometime soon again.

Phishanga said:

Amazing post, OldFriends4Sale! I have the box with the 5 DVDs myself, got to take it out sometime soon again.

I'm going to go check mine out today...

Listen to the piano sound in the movie, the same as what we hear in Purple Rain

If they really do make the sequel in the same time frame as the original just a differen Blade Runner story that would be cool, but just follow the format of the 1st: less talk + more mystery

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the darkness at Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in the rain. Time to die"