Film

Blade Runner: The Final Cut (1982)

Director: Ridley Scott

Movie review

From Time Out London

Granted a brief theatrical showing prior to its all-singing-all-dancing DVD release (the perfect Christmas gift!), ‘The Final Cut’ isn’t, content wise, radically dissimilar to 1992’s ‘Director’s Cut’ (ie no narration, no happy ending, hello unicorn), but the overall effect is astounding. A critical and commercial failure back in 1982 but hugely influential on two generations of filmmakers, video directors, and ad men, Scott’s masterpiece has, thanks to exemplary restoration work, never looked or sounded this good. Backgrounds are denser, colours richer, effects have been digitally cleaned and corrected, with newly shot footage of Joanna Cassidy replacing the stuntman in a wig who crashes through the shop window after Deckard (Harrison Ford) shoots Zhora in the back, and the blue sky that Batty (Rutger Hauer) previously released the dove into at the end now overcast and rainy. Dialogue has been tweaked too, fixing at least one major narrative inconsistency, while Sean Young’s voice sounds less metallic, more human than before. Ignore Scott’s perplexing insistence that Deckard’s a replicant in this version, and give yourself up to the film’s visual splendour. Bold, bleak and still brilliant.

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