Blade Runner is one of those films you never forget. I don’t remember how old I was the first time I saw it (I think I was around eight) but I do recall the reaction I had sitting in my living room taking it in with my parents. I didn’t quite understand it and didn’t really know exactly what was going on but I did know I had just seen something absolutely extraordinary. Over the next few years I would proceed to watch and re-watch that VHS tape over and over again, finally abusing it so much it became virtually unwatchable. 

Ridley Scott's classic returns to theaters in Warner Bros' Blade Runner: The Final Cut

In the succeeding years the lure of Ridley Scott’s troubled masterpiece has been discussed by cinephiles and scholars all over the world, the director himself getting in on the action in 1992 by helping to assemble a cut of the film close to what he’d originally intended ten years prior. Getting rid of the narration and axing the studio-imposed happy ending, this new cut was a revelation, a new generation of filmgoers discovering the film – some for the very first time.

But even that version, while far superior to the one that preceded it, still wasn’t quite right, the producers keeping hold of many of the key pieces of excised material which could bring the epic back in line with what Scott had really wanted. Now, a quarter century after its first release, the director has finally crafted Blade Runner into the picture he first envisioned, all of the pieces and excerpts once held by the producers finally reinserted into the film making this anniversary release truly a long-in-coming “Final Cut.”

And let me be one of the first to say it was worth the wait. While the differences between 1992’s cut and this new one are relatively minor, the digital remastering done to the film and the minor tweaks here and there (including a couple of re-shoots of key sequences) are an absolute revelation. It’s a bit of a cliché to say, but this is one of those rare instances sitting in the theater where I was blown clear through the back wall. If Blade Runner (recently named one of AFI’s Top 100 motion pictures) was a masterpiece before it is even doubly so now, and for anyone who loves cinema this reissue is a thing you absolutely cannot miss.

For those who have not seen it, based on the classic novel by Philip K. Dick Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Blade Runner is set in the dystopian urban wasteland of Los Angeles, 2019 and follows the exploits of Detective Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) assigned to terminate four illegal synthetic human beings called Replicants. Their leader Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) is out to meet his maker, he and his friends unleashing a bit of unintentional brutal chaos as they do so. As the hunt for the fugitives intensifies, Deckard finds himself drawn to a mysterious woman (Sean Young) while also dealing with surreal memories leading him to question both his mission and his identity.

I don’t really need to rehash what has been said multiple times before (although I’d love to write a thorough essay on the film at some point), but what I will reiterate is just how monumentally influential this picture has been over the years. From a visual standpoint this one is up there with Metropolis and Citizen Kane in how it changed the cinematic landscape. It is hard to imagine sci-fi pictures as diverse as The Running Man, The Matrix, Minority Report, Strange Days, V for Vendetta or even Independence Day existing as they now do if this one hadn’t come first.

But Blade Runner is more than just a visual marvel, and as amazing as it looks completely restored and digitally enhanced it is Hampton Fancher and David Webb Peoples’ remarkable screenplay that holds the most resonance. It’s melding of Raymond Chandler gumshoe noir with Dick’s trademark dour cybernetic musings is borderline magnificent, the themes of alienation and identity so inherent in the novel nearly popping right off the screen. The film is a brilliant amalgamation of sci-fi splendor and modern day strum and drag, Scott melding it all into a poetic symphony so intoxicating and spectacular it’s easy to see why the picture hasn’t lost a single bit of timeless resonance. 

“Blade Runner: The Final Cut” will be playing in select theaters across the country between now and the end of the year. The film will be released on DVD and HD DVD on December 18 in three different editions. Check our DVD section for reviews, interviews and more information coming soon!

Film Rating: êêêê (out of 4)

Additional Links:

-  Blade Runner Theatrical Trailer