Gizmos, Gadgets, Noir and Steampunk
‘A visionary steam-powered heavy metal fantasy. Gibson and Sterling create a high-Victorian virtual reality of extraordinary richness and detail’ Ridley Scott, creator of ALIEN
Amazon.co.uk Review
When Ridley Scott’s cut of Blade Runner was finally released in 1993, one had to wonder why the studio hadn’t done it right the first time–11 years earlier. This version is so much better, mostly because of what’s been eliminated (the ludicrous and redundant voice-over narration and the phoney happy ending) rather than what’s been added (a bit more character development and a brief unicorn dream that drops a big hint about Deckard’s origins). Star Harrison Ford originally recorded the narration under duress at the insistence of Warner Bros. executives who thought the story needed further “explanation”; he later confessed that he thought if he did it badly they wouldn’t use it. (Moral: never overestimate the taste of movie executives.) The movie’s spectacular futuristic vision of Los Angeles–a perpetually dark and rainy metropolis that’s the nightmare antithesis of “Sunny Southern California”–is still its most seductive feature, another worldly atmosphere in which you can immerse yourself. The movie’s shadowy visual style, along with its classic private-detective/murder-mystery plot line (with Ford on the trail of a murderous android, or “replicant”), makes Blade Runner one of the few science fiction pictures legitimately to claim a place in the film noir tradition. And, as in the best noir, the sleuth discovers a whole lot more (about himself and the people he encounters) than he anticipates. The cast also includes Sean Young, Edward James Olmos, Daryl Hannah Rutger Hauer and M. Emmet Walsh. –Jim Emerson, Amazon.com
In the Box Set: It is a fitting testament to Blade Runner‘s enduring appeal that it should receive the red-carpet box set treatment in this Collector’s Edition, which represents a sizeable outlay not least in terms of shelf space. The chunky black box (about the size of the yellow pages) houses a slide-out tray containing the DVD, eight original lobby cards an original one-sheet movie poster, the draft shooting script and a movie image card with the corresponding 35mm film frame attached. As with all such sets the whole is rapidly diminished by removing its parts, presenting the dilemma of whether to mount the poster and pictures, or leave them pristine but unseen in their original state.
The DVD included contains Ridley Scott’s director’s cut version of the film, but offers no new features or commentaries which would have added considerably to the set’s desirability. The original draft shooting script by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples does, however, provide some fascinating insights in its moments of departure from the version that was finally filmed. Perhaps the most compelling example is Deckard’s final, decisive contribution to the “is he or isn’t he” debate: “I knew it on the roof that night. We were bothers, Roy Batty and I! Combat models of the highest order. We had fought in wars not yet dreamed of in vast nightmares still unnamed. We were the new people … Roy and me and Rachael! We were made for this world. It was ours!” –Steve Napleton
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