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What's New in Blade Runner - The Final Cut?
tripper700 writes "25 years since its original release, a definitive version of Ridley Scott's science fiction masterwork Blade Runner, Blade Runner: The Final Cut, has been released. So what exactly has changed? And is it worth all the fuss? SFFMedia describes each change in detail. Is it just a patch up job attempting to cash in on a cult film? Or like an oil painter retouching a masterpiece, or a novelist polishing prose, is Ridley Scott simply trying to perfect his original vision?"
I thought Tron totally rocked when I was a kid. It was full of stupid stuff, like the Master Control Program's AI, and the laser that digitizes Flynn and sucks him into the computer. The "kiss" scene was gross. (I've written plenty of "ugly chicks" that I hope aren't making out with anybody in the hidden cyberworld.) Even I knew that an arcade game that took quarters wouldn't be interfaced to the Master Control Program at Dillinger's headquarters (this was the early 80s). And while the "bit" was an interesting character, it wouldn't be able to emphasize no as "no no no no" in a tight situation. Talk about TMI.
But what a pretty movie it was, even if it was stupid. The old 3D graphics were actually pretty cool- it was a weird world full of square clouds and straight blue lines. You just don't see stuff like that anymore. The quality of today's CGI is so good and so photorealistic that anything produced now is unimpressive and boring. It's evolved into junk for commercials: whales jumping up out of freshwater lakes where financially secure guys are fishing, expensive cars performing risky ballet moves while cruising down empty superhighways, etc. It's sucked the magic out of almost everything you see- if it looks incredible, you know instantly you're looking at CGI crap. Soon, even pornography will be ruined.
I wanted to see Tron again but my mother didn't care for it, so I dragged my father (mainframe programmer) to see it. He hates movies. But he liked it so much he dragged me there to see it again so I saw it three times. END OF LINE
I can't tell whether the movie would hang together well without the voice overs because I can't get them out of my head.
IMHO, "I don't know why he saved my life. Maybe in those last moments he loved life more than he ever had before. Not just his life, anybody's life, my life. All he'd wanted were the same answers the rest of us want. Where did I come from? Where am I going? How long have I got? All I could do was sit there and watch him die." is the best line in just about any film ever.
This one line makes anything else in the film worth enduring (not that the film isn't good without the line) and is the crux of the entire film. I guess other people see it in other lights but it's hard for me not to see the entire film leading up to this one line. I just can not accept that this film is about anything outside of the questions that artificial life will dwell on in the future when we produce it. I think it's great that science fiction discusses these questions. All of the robot/alien junk is just crap in comparison to the hard questions that will arise from our journey from natural human beings into a synthetic society where anything goes. With the stem cell debate being what it is we are kinda starting to ask these questions today in a round about way.
Still, see the film for what it is but it's still fantastic that all of the crap about cops and killing skin jobs and the Tyrell corporation comes down to one beautifully made point about our inevitable future. These questions are neat to address in fiction but warns us of the moral puzzles we will have to solve in the future.
I'm left wondering everytime after the movie; what will we decide and who will we answer to when the question becomes more than hypothetical.
That's science fiction to me. Again, just my humble opinion.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
According to an industry mag that I just took a peek at, there were two radical re-stagings of shots from the original production. First was the re-shoot of the "retirement" of Joanna Cassidy where the original shot was so horribly obviously a stunt double. The final moment where she gets hit was reproduced from 25-year-old production design and recreated to make the scene work. Even better was the through-the-window shot of Deckard in the noodle shop. The original cut had horribly de-synched picture and audio, so the restoration team had Harrison Ford's *son* stand in to say the intended lines. The image of his mouth doing the lines was digitally patched over the original footage of his father speaking to repair the scene.
IMO, the voice over gives the movie the right character. Someday soon, when the technology is there, we the fans will do our own version with Harrison's voice in a fan voice over cut.
There was one good line in that freaking voiceover. Just one. Here it is:
Sushi. That's what my ex-wife called me. Cold fish.
There is another voiceover, however, and you will become acquainted with it in a whole movie's worth of deleted scenes. It's not bad.
Here, let me link you to something on YouTube:
Alternate version of Batty's death scene.
I still am a partisan against voiceovers in Blade Runner. But that's one beautiful rejoinder from Deckard to Batty's classic soliloquy. And dig what Gaff says at the end.
There are going to be some pretty spectacular fan-edits out there once this is out. It might wind up being that people can choose the edit of Blade Runner they prefer.
I am awaiting my 5 disk set breathlessly.
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