If you're like me (poor sob if you are) you are a big Blade Runner fan. You have also, then, been extremely frustrated with the poor DVD Director's Cut version released in 1992. Next to zero 'extra features', no deleted scenes, no featurettes - nothing. The elimination of the annoying voice over was great, and the chopped ending gave it more edge; but, other than that - mediocre.
Now it seems Ridley Scott is going to release another (and final) version of the DVD in 2007.
Blade Runner keeps on replicating
7th version of cult hit on the way
02 June 2006. 01.00 AM
No matter what some sneaky replicant might tell you, there really is no such thing as a final version of Blade Runner, the 1982 Ridley Scott sci-fi thriller that rivals Star Wars for cult appeal.
It continues to be a work in progress, 25 years after filming began.
There isn't even a definitive answer to how many versions of Blade Runner actually exist, although Wikipedia counts six: the original American version (seen in Canada); the international cut (two minutes longer and more violent); two different work print versions (one of them in 70mm); the broadcast version (edited for profanity); and a 1992 director's cut (sans voiceover and with the Deckard-as-replicant clues).
The variations and character uncertainty were the result of second-guessing and bickering between Scott, studio Warner Bros., the estate of author Philip K. Dick and the money people backing the film. Like the blighted Los Angeles of 2019 the film vividly depicted, Blade Runner fell prey to a variety of ills: a ballooning budget (to a then-extraordinary $28 million), a threatened strike, a set fire and animosity between Ford and Scott and Ford and co-star Sean Young (really??!). In recent years, squabbling over ownership rights has held up plans for a proper special edition DVD of the film.
But now comes word from Variety that everyone has kissed and made up, both humans and replicants, and the Scott-approved Blade Runner: Final Cut is due out next year. This seventh and supposedly definitive version of the film (pardon our snickering over the word "final") will be timed to mark the 25th anniversary of the film's release, which was June 27, 1982.
A limited theatrical release of Blade Runner: Final Cut will be followed by a series of DVD releases in various guises, including a three-disc set that will include the original cut, the international cut, the 1992 director's cut and the 2007 "final" cut, along with the usual deleted scenes and sage commentaries.
When I interviewed Scott in 2002 for his war movie Black Hawk Down, we talked briefly about Blade Runner. He was working then on a three-disc DVD set that was supposed to have come out long before 2006. He referred to his 1992 director's cut as the "definitive" one; he appears to have changed his mind and now says he was rushed and didn't do the job he hoped to do.
He also let slip that he considers Deckard to be a replicant, after waffling on that point for two decades. That's why there could never have been a Blade Runner sequel, he said, because Young's replicant character Rachel was an inferior model to Deckard's and she would have expired before he did.
"I wouldn't know where to go with Blade Runner," Scott admitted. "Four years later she dies, and then what? And he's going to live forever, being a Nexus 7. That one is best left on its own."
