Blade Runner: Another Cut

Blade Runner: The Final Cut, with Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Edward James Olmos, Daryl Hannah, Joanna Cassidy. (1982)

How many versions of Blade Runner are there? Anywhere between five and seven, depending on how you’re counting and who you’re reading.

It was released theatrically in 1982, and afterward rumor had it that the studio had taken final cut away from director Ridley Scott and made changes. By the late 1980s there was what was then called a “director’s cut” of the film floating around, now known as the “workprint version,” which I managed to see screened back in college. It was different from the theatrical version. It contained no titles, lacked the Harrison Ford voice over, and it there was no Vangelis soundtrack. Instead, this cut of the film had a mish-mash of sampled music which was presumably added by the director to set the mood and tone of his version of the film. I seem to recall numerous differences in how many of the scenes were cut, but it’s been 20 years.

Rumor also held that there was a version of the film which contained the fabled unicorn dream sequence, suggesting that Deckard was a replicant.

Fast-forward to the 90s, when the officially labeled “Director’s Cut” was released. It was similar to the workprint cut I had seen years before, but with the addition of the Vangelis score and the unicorn. But I suppose this cut was not definitive enough.

In theaters now is an incarnation called the “The Final Cut,” which arrives on DVD in December. I saw this at Seattle’s Cinerama and was stunned by the crispness of the print, the boldness of the sound, and the impressed with the overall presentation of the film on the giant Cinerama screen.

However, “The Final Cut” adds very little to “The Director’s Cut,” though footage that had been previously trimmed from numerous scenes has been restored here. A few of the effects shots have been tweaked, though not to the extent that Lucas revisited his effects in Star Wars. One of the most important changes, though small, is that the unicorn dream sequence has been recut a little differently, presumably to give it more weight than it had in “The Director’s Cut.”

Perhaps the biggest change is the snake-wielding replicant Zhora’s “retirement,” which was actually reshot for this version of the film, with Joanna Cassidy reprising her role. But the change is not so big that this version of the DVD is anything to rush out and buy.

Do, however, see it on the big screen, if you're a fan.

Question: whose eye is seen in close up at the very beginning of the film?