Blade Runner

Blade Runner is a 1982 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford, based on a 1968 novel by Philip K. Dick called Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The film, with its elements of film noir and cyberpunk, gained a loyal fan audience following a mixed reaction to its original release. Several versions of the film exist, with the biggest differences between the original U.S. theatrical release and Ridley Scott's preferred 'Final Cut' of his work, which appeared in 2007. The plot concerns the pursuit of several bioengineered 'replicants' by cop Rick Deckard, who is assigned to eliminate them in the dystopian streets of Los Angeles, 2019.

Story

See also Characters

Scott's vision of 2019 Los Angeles is of a city mired in squalor and pollution, with constant rain and decaying buildings abandoned by owners now seeking a new life in the off-world colonies. LA is a city of immigration, with a substantial population of East Asian people who have brought with them Japanese, Chinese and other languages. At the same time, LA is home to the Tyrell Corporation (motto: "more human than human"), that have made significant progress in creating artificial, bioengineered life in the form of human-looking 'replicants'. These individuals have become the slaves of humankind, performing dangerous jobs, military operations and various sleazy 'pleasure' functions. Replicants are banned on Earth outside the Tyrell Corporation, on pain of "retirement" (death), so when five escape to Earth　and attempt to hide among the human population, former 'Blade Runner' cop Rick Deckard is ordered back into service to hunt them down.

The 'true nature' of Rick Deckard

Warning: some spoilers follow

Rick Deckard, Blade Runner's main character, has attracted controversy over the years regarding his 'true nature'. In the re-released versions of 1991 and 2007, it is implied that Deckard himself is a replicant: the scene with the unicorn and Deckard's subsequent discovery of an origami one made by his associate Gaff suggest that Gaff knows of Deckard's unicorn dream, because replicants have implanted memories. This view is also supported by a scene where Deckard's eyes glow unnaturally for a moment, as the eyes of the 'true' replicants do from time to time in the film. Ridley Scott has also subsequently stated that his intention was that Deckard is a replicant, though this has encountered significant resistance from some quarters of fandom, and also from Harrison Ford.

Versions

Ridley Scott's early cut of the film was substantially modified for its eventual cinema release. Test audiences appeared to have difficulty following the story, so to address this a voiceover by Harrison Ford, in character as 'Blade Runner' cop Rick Deckard, was added to try to clarify what was happening on-screen. In addition to this, a more upbeat 'happy ending' made it into the released version, and a controversial scene involving Deckard dreaming of a unicorn was not included. The U.S. release was also substantially cut for violence, with those scenes surviving in the internationally-released version of the film.

In the years following the release, a 'workprint' version of the film emerged and circulated in unofficial forums. This version helped the film gain something of a cult following. It differed in a number of respects from the theatrical release and all subsequent editions of the film, having no voiceover other than at the end (with a different script used), placeholder music rather than the theatrical score by Vangelis, and a few scenes here and there that were modified or excised from other versions. A 'workprint' of the film was released in 2007 alongside Scott's preferred 'Final Cut'.

In 1991, a new version of the film known as the 'Director's Cut' was produced that was intended to resemble Scott's original vision, though Scott himself was not involved with this project. The 'happy ending' of the theatrical version was cut, the unicorn scene appeared again as a way of implying a controversial point about the true nature of Rick Deckard, and the voiceover was completely removed. In 2007, Scott completed his own version, known as the 'Final Cut', which was edited in a similar way: no voiceover, a cut to the ending that made the film's conclusion more down-beat, and the inclusion of a slightly different unicorn scene. The film was also extensively remastered, with state-of-the art computer graphics used to repair certain errors (such as the appearance of an incongruous thumb on Roy Batty's shoulder when the character is first introduced). Parts of some scenes were subtly reshot and mixed with original footage with the help of Benjamin Ford, son of Harrison, and Joanna Cassidy, who briefly reprised her role as Zhora to fix a scene where her stunt double was conspicuously identifiable.