Blade Runner - Ultimate 5-Disc Collector’s TIN Edition

HARRISON FORD

IN

BLADE RUNNER - THE FINAL CUT

5-DISC ULTIMATE COLLECTOR'S TIN EDITION

VERY LIMITED SUPPLY

100% GENUINE REGION 2 (WARNER HOME VIDEO) DVD

WITH

LIMITED EDITION PACKAGING CONTAINS:

'Lenticular Image'

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'Art Cards'

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'A Letter From Ridley Scott '

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16-Page Photo & Contents Booklet

NOW OOP

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DELETED IN MANY PLACES

TRULY A MUST FOR ANY SERIOUS

SCI FI OR BLADE RUNNER FAN

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BLADE RUNNER - THE FINAL CUT

This is a long review and I apologise somewhat for its length but there was a lot to cover. This film has been out twenty-five years and the Director's Cut fifteen so I'm assuming that most people, by now, know the story and the various twists and turns of the plot, including a revelation made in the Director's Cut. Be warned, therefore, that there are numerous spoilers in this text.

It is Los Angeles in 2019 and over the bright lights of the city, the flames that erupt from chimneys and the smog that blankets the buildings, a Spinner flies towards the Tyrell Corporation pyramid that dominates the skyline. In an office within the complex, Holden (Morgan Paull) is interviewing Leon (Brion James) as part of a sweep of all the Tyrell Corporation's employees following the flight of six Replicants from off-world colony. Created by Tyrell, it is expected that these Replicants, who have been created with an in-built four-year limit to their lifespan, will have escaped to Earth and that the Tyrell building, like a child returning home, will be amongst the places they visit.

It is Holden's job, with the aid of the Voight-Kampff test, to discover who amongst the hundreds of people employed by Tyrell is a Replicant. The interview with Leon does not last very long. Holden discovers that Leon is indeed a Replicant but the knowledge does him no good. Leon pulls a gun from beneath the desk and shoots Holden twice, the second time into his back.

Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is called out of retirement by his old boss Bryant (M Emmet Walsh) to take on Holden's case of the six Replicants, asking, in his slur on the Replicants, that Deckard retire, or eliminate, these 'skin-jobs'. Deckard's first steps on the case are the same as those taken by Holden. He visits the Tyrell building, listens to Holden's interview tapes and carries out his own Voight-Kampff test on Rachael (Sean Young), Eldon Tyrell's (Joe Turkel) young assistant. But Deckard learns that Tyrell is already planning the next generation of Replicant, about to make his products live up to his motto of More Human Than Human. In a world starved of humanity, perhaps this is what humanity fears the most.

Writing about the original release of Blade Runner in 1982, Roger Ebert said, "The movie's weakness...is that it allows the special effects technology to overwhelm its story." Ebert would later revise his opinion with the release of the Director's Cut in 1992 and has since added it to his list of great movies but his reaction is typical of the first release of the film. Pauline Kael made a similar point with, "If anybody comes around with a a test to detect humanoids, maybe Ridley Scott and his associates should hide." The criticism surrounding the 1982 release of the film drew attention to this perceived lack of humanity, that amongst the smoke, rain and darkness, Ridley Scott had crafted a film that was all surface and no feeling, a blaze of neon in which the characters were all but obscured.

Differences Between The Versions

There are five different edits of Blade Runner included in this set, three off a branching version of the film - 1982 Domestic Cut, 1982 International Cut and the 1992 Director's Cut - the Workprint and the Final Cut. By now, it would appear that most people know the major differences between the original 1982 theatrical cuts of the film and those that followed them, being the loss of Ford's film noir voiceover and the happy ending but with the addition of the dream sequence. However, this list, though not comprehensive, describes the differences between the different edits, most of which has been taken from Paul Sammon's Future Noir.

Taking the original 1982 US Cut, or Domestic Cut, as the root of all the others, this features Deckard and Rachael driving off into the countryside together, fading into the swooping footage supplied by Kubrick from The Shining, as well as the voiceover Ford fought against. The International Cut of 1982 also features these but adds further violence and bloodshed in a few scenes, the murder of Eldon Tyrell by Roy Batty, the beating of Deckard by Pris in JF Sebastian's apartment and pushing the nail further through his own hand in the final chase.

The 1992 Director's Cut, overseen by Scott and Michael Arick, made some major changes to the film, including those listed above. The happy ending was now cut with Blade Runner stopping with the closing of the elevator doors rather than the Ride Into The Sunset. A 12-second dream sequence of a unicorn was now added. The violence of the International Cut was removed for this version but extra blimp dialogue was added during Deckard's wait at the White Dragon noodle bar. What was implied in the original cut, that Deckard might be a Replicant, is now made more explicit.

In 1990, Warner Brothers received a request to forward a print of Blade Runner to a 70mm-only festival in California. The thought they had sent a print of the International Cut but had, instead, issued the Blade Runner Workprint. The sense of surprise and excitement that greeted this showing reached Warner Brothers who, two years later, would authorise Ridley Scott to produce the Director's Cut. There are many differences between this Workprint and the other versions in the set. For a start the titles are completely different. The Alan Ladd Company logo is green-on-white rather than green-on-black, the familiar crawl is replaced with a dictionary definition of Replicant and the opening titles are an of-the-eighties rush of chunky red lettering, rakishly angled to suggest action.

The violence of the International Cut is missing, Bryant resolves the matter of the odd number of Replicants by saying two were fried in the electric field at the Tyrell building while Roy, having murdered Tyrell, beckons to a frightened Sebastian with a, "Sorry Sebastian. Come...come!" Various other shots are longer, such as Deckard finding Rachael in his apartment and a long crane shot of Deckard walking through the streets that follows his learning the origins of the snake scale he found in Leon's apartment.

The Final Cut is, as Ridley Scott says in his introduction, his preferred version of Blade Runner. Early this decade and then, once the legal issues had been resolved, mid-decade, Ridley Scott and Charles de Lauzirika went back to work on a new edit of Blade Runner, taking the time to complete the film as he had originally intended to. Unlike previous edits, all of the violence of the International Cut has been restored while the titles are the usual ones from all earlier edits barring the Workprint. Once again, Bryant talks about two Replicants being fried in the electric field while the producers have digitally corrected the lip-synching issues in the conversation between Deckard and Abdul Ben Hassan by having Ben Ford, Harrison's son, match his lips to the existing voice track and insert them over his fathers' mouth, even to matching Ford's scar beneath his lower lip. Similarly, the producers of this version have digitally inserted Joanna Cassidy's head on top of the stuntwoman who doubled for Zhora during her retirement, solving the matter of continuity.

The full-length unicorn dream sequence has been included, also with a different score, and Deckard is now awake during it rather than sleeping and, it is implied, dreaming about it.

DVD DETAILS

There are five versions of the film included in this set are quite variable. With the Domestic and International Theatrical Cuts branching off the Director's Cut, it's worth thinking of them as a single version, which reduces the differing cuts to three: Director's Cut, Workprint and Final Cut. The Workprint, unsurprisingly, looks the most shabby of the three with the state of the film stock varying from scene to scene. At times, it's reasonably sharp but, at others, it's something of a soft mush, most notably when Rachael first approaches Deckard at Tyrell's apartment. This Workprint is also presented in 2.20:1 as opposed to the 2.40:1 of the others and is framed slightly differently

Limited Edition 5DVD Box Set - Contains:

Disc One Contains:

• Ridley Scott's All-New 'Final Cut' Version Of The Film
• Audio Commentary By Director Ridley Scott
• Audio Commentary By Executive Producer/ Co-Screenwriter Hampton Fancher and Co-Screenwriter David Peoples; Producer Michael Deely and production executive Katherine Haber
• Audio Commentary By Commentaries by visual futurist Syd Mead; production designer Lawrence G. Paull, art director David L. Snyder and special photographic effects supervisors Douglas Trumbull, Richard Yuricich and David Dryer

Disc Two Contains:

• Dangerous Days: Making Blade Runner - A feature-length authoritative documentary revealing all the elements that shaped this hugely influential cinema landmark

Disc Three Contains:

• 1982 Theatrical Version - This is the version that introduced U.S. movie-going audiences to a revolutionary film with a new and excitingly provocative vision of the near-future. It contains Deckard/Harrison Ford’s character narration and the happy ending
• 1982 International Version - Also used on U.S. home video, laserdisc and cable releases up to 1992. This version is not rated, and contains some extended action scenes in contrast to the Theatrical Version.
• 1992 Director's Cut - The Director's Cut omits Deckard's voiceover narration and removes the "happy ending" finale. It adds the famously-controversial "unicorn" sequence, a vision that Deckard has which suggests that he, too, may be a replicant.

Disc Four Contains:

Bonus Disc - “Enhancement Archive”

• The Electric Dreamer: Remembering Philip K. Dick
• Sacrificial Sheep: The Novel vs. The Film
• Signs of the Times: Graphic Design
• Fashion Forward: Wardrobe & Styling
• The Light That Burns: Remembering Jordan Cronenweth
• Promoting Dystopia: Rendering the Poster Art
• Deck-A-Rep: The True Nature of Rick Deckard
• Nexus Generation: Fans & Filmmakers
• Philip K. Dick: The Blade Runner Interviews (Audio)
• Screen Tests: Rachel & Pris
• Deleted & Alternate Scenes
• 1982 Promotional Featurettes
• Trailers & TV Spots

Disc Five Contains:

• Workprint Version Of Blade Runner - This rare version of the film is considered by some to be the most radically different of all the Blade Runner cuts. It includes an altered opening scene, no Deckard narration until the final scenes and much more...
• Introduction by Ridley Scott
• Audio Commentary by Paul M. Sammon, author of Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner
• All Our Variant Futures: From Workprint to Final Cut - Featurette

EXTRAS IN THE BOXSET: