One of Maria’s favorite films was the Sci-Fi cult classic Blade Runner which debuted 25 years ago and which is now back on the big screen as the revised film BLADE RUNNER: THE FINAL CUT. The film originally opened to mostly mixed reviews in 1982, and has undergone many changes in the years since. To some it is remembered as the film with the dubious distinction as opening at the same time as Spielberg's E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) (which in effect rendered the film almost irrelevant in the public mind). But many have sworn allegiance to it not only seeing it as a “classic" but as one of the most influential science-fiction films of all time.
The film was originally a box-office and financial failure, receiving moslty negative reviews from film critics who called it "muddled and baffling" and from viewers who thought its vision of the future was too "dark and gloomy". It also didn’t help that at the last minute the studio forced the director to use a voice-over narrative throughout the film, (ironically making it more confusing), and that the biggest actor of the day, who starred in the movie, was unfortunately miss-cast.
The Movie was directed by Ridley Scott, who at the time was one of the hottest young directors having just finished his hit Alien (1979), and had the casting coup of the year in Hollywood getting Harrison Ford as the lead. Ford was between Star Wars films and had just completed the first of the Indiana Jones movies and was arguably at the height of his popularity.
The ambitious, enigmatic and visually complex film is a futuristic film noir, detective thriller with all the requisite parts - an alienated hero of questionable morality, a femme fatale, airborne police vehicles called "Spinners", dark sets and locations in a Los Angeles of 2019. Ford plays Rick Deckard a weary, former police officer/bounty hunter who is reluctantly dispatched by the state to search for four android replicates that have been created with limited life spans. Tthe film mixes in some Western genre elements as well, and is thematically similar to the story in High Noon (1952) of a lone marshal facing four western outlaws. These four genetically-engineered androids have escaped from a slave camp from an outer planet and are now driven by fear, having come to Earth to locate their “creator” and force him to prolong their short lives. The film's theme, (the quest for immortality), is weaved throughout as is the question of who is really human.
For sure, one element of the film that critics and fans univerisally agree on is its stylized and imaginative visual effects portraying a future Los Angeles that echos other classic Sci-Fi films: Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927), Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and a small Sci-Fi movie Maria loved Silent Running (1973). Since the movie opened, many films have attempted to duplicate the stylized look of Blade Runner, including Batman (1989), Strange Days (1995), The Fifth Element (1997), Dark City (1998), The Matrix (1999), and I, Robot (2004). (Of note, the film's screenplay was based on science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick's 1968 novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? another of Maria's favorite Sci-Fi books.)
The first of what became many "revisions" of the film occured in 1992-in the revised 'Director's Cut’ which was released to mark the film's 10th anniversary - it dropped Harrison Ford's mostly redundant voice-over and restored the film's original dark and contemplative vision. Many Blade Runner afficionados prefer the subtlety of the images in the restored version rather than the slow and monotonous tone of the earlier 1982 film with the voice-over. The 'director's cut' also substitutes a less upbeat and shorter, more ambiguous, non-Hollywood ending, and has inserted a new scene of a 'unicorn reverie' (an unused take from Scott's fantasy film Legend (1986)). Fans treat both films as separate entities in their own right: in the 1982 release, Deckard is human. In the 1992 director's cut, Deckard is a replicant, etc.
Now today there is the Final Cut Edition with director Ridley Scott going further to mark the film's 25th anniversary. This "definitive version" containa never-before-seen added/extended scenes, added lines, and new and improved special effects. Among the changes, the "unicorn" scene is made longer - to reinforce the idea that Deckard is a replicant.
So, if you have time to spend and want to see a "classic" Sci-Fi film check out Blade Runner: The Final Cut. It's in theaters today...and yes...it’s playing at the Ziegfed!
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