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Blade Runner: The Final Cut
Reviewed By Rich Drees
Although it confused critics and audiences in its initial 1982
release, Ridley Scott’s science-fiction noir Blade Runner
remains, a quarter of a century later, not only one of the most
important films in the director’s filmography, but one of the most
important films of the decade. As the movie was rediscovered first
on video tape and then a subsequent “Director’s Cut” released in
1992, many became immersed in the complex themes the movie explores.
And now, director Ridley Scott has gone back to the film for a
third, and presumably final time, for Blade Runner: The Final Cut,
a digital restoration of the film which sees Scott taking the time
to fix a few minor things that have bugged him over the years.
In Los Angeles
of just a few decades hence, Harrison Ford stars as Deckard, a
retired police detective or “blade runner” whose specialty was the
hunting down and elimination of human-looking androids called
replicants who have been built to handle jobs too dirty or dangerous
for humans. Smart as humans, replicants have a habit of
intellectually growing beyond the parameters of their intended
design, gaining an autonomy that some would argue grants them their
own personhood. As replicants are illegal on Earth and are only
allowed off-planet in the “Outer Colonies,” Deckard is called back
into service when four replicants, lead by Rutger Hauer in a career
defining role, have illegally returned to Earth to ask their creator
how much time they have left to live.
Right away, one
is struck by the impressive restoration work done on the film. Every
frame has been digitally cleaned and the end result is a picture
quality that exceeds how the film has looked in any previous
release, either theatrical or on home video. Ironically though, the
clearer picture doesn’t dilute the film’s murky tone, but enhances
it. The audience can now see in greater detail the grit and
griminess that Scott and his production team, lead by noted futurist
Syd Mead, coated the film with, heightening the verisimilitude of
the rundown near-future Los Angeles.
Most of the
changes that Scott has made are to clean up small production errors
such as crew members accidentally appearing in the edges of some
shots or cleaning up a few spots were the film’s optical effects
betray the limitations of the visual effect technology of the time.
A majority of these tweaks are so minor that they’ll by-pass all but
the most rapid devotees of the film. There are one or two that are
fairly obvious, such as the improvements done to the scene where a
replicant played by Joanna Cassidy crashes through a series of plate
glass while being pursued by Deckard.
Perhaps the
only really disagreeable change comes right at the end when Batty
releases a dove he was holding as he dies. In the film’s previous
incarnations, we see the dove fly into a blue sky, even though it
had been raining throughout the scene. This was due to a second unit
camera crew shooting the shot of the dove rather quickly. The result
was seen by some as a continuity error, though others, including
myself, have viewed it as Batty’s life force/soul/what-have-you
transcending the dirty world he had found himself in. Instead, the
new shot with a digitally created background of the decaying Los
Angeles skyline that the dove flies towards takes something away
from Batty’s death and its deeper significance.
But while the
film has been visually messaged here and there, it still contains
the philosophical underpinnings that rise it above the multitude of
other science-fiction films. “More human than human” is the motto of
the film’s Tyrell Corporation and Blade Runner examines just
what it is that makes one human. Is it the accumulation one’s
memories and experiences? What if these memories were manufactured?
And what is the moral implication of creating artificial life to
serve as a slave class?
The future
society of the movie refers to the elimination of replicants
euphemistically as “retiring.” However, an argument could be made
that since they have begun to develop their own consciousness that
exceeds their original design specifications, the replicants are
alive and that “retirement” is simply murder.
It is these
questions that will continue to ensure that Blade Runner
remains not just a classic of its genre, but of all cinema. |
