It had been awhile since I had watched the original Blade Runner, so I dusted off the DVD of the Director's Cut and watched it this past weekend. The movie still holds up very nicely.
When Blade Runner was first released I wasn't sure what to make of it. I was nine years old when it was on theaters and I didn't get to watch it until a couple of years later when it was broadcast on TV. I was eleven or twelve before first seeing it.
I was fascinated with the scenery and the depiction of 2019 Los Angeles. I used to draw pictures of Blade Runner's dystopian vision of LA in my spiral notebook during 7th grade math class. I wasn't sure exactly what was going on in the story. Han Solo/Indiana Jones going after fake humans in a bleak future, that's about all I got. I didn't catch most of the subtext or the subtleties. The movie caught me off-guard. This wasn't the Harrison Ford I was expecting. It was dark and weird and haunting. But I liked it even if I didn't understand all of it.
This was the TV broadcast version with the later dubbed in narration which purists abhor. A happier ending was tacked on and there was no unicorn scene. The TV version was also edited for content and time. But I didn't know the difference.
Later in high school I rented the theatrical version at the video store. Then when I was in college they released the Director's Cut. I went to the theater to see it in 1992. No voice over narration, no happy ending and that weird unicorn scene. It was great. Years later I bought the DVD, which I still have. It wasn't until college that I began to appreciate the movie on a deeper basis.
I still haven't seen The Final Cut which I'm told is more about aesthetics than any real content change. My DVD version didn't hold up well in terms of High Definition on my modern flat screen TV. I might have to check out a Blu-Ray version.
I like all the versions of this movie that I've seen. What this movie really is is a classic film noir story in a futuristic setting. It has all the film noir tropes. The good guy has ambiguous moral standards, smoky dark locations, a mysterious femme fatale, a big complex conspiratorial system, and a complex bad guy. So even the hated voice over narration of the theatrical version doesn't bother me so much because that all fits the film noir tradition. I love film noir and this is a perfect example of what film noir is.
Of course it's much more than that. Sci-fi, mystery, love story...a lot in this movie. I'm nervous about this new one. I hope it doesn't screw up our ideas of Blade Runner. But of course, if it truly fits the Blade Runner narrative there will be a bunch of different cuts released over the next few years. Maybe I'll like one of those.
