Steven Boone over at The House Next Door has seen the latest -- er, "Final" -- cut of what may now, 25 years after its debut, be "Ridley Scott's" "Blade Runner," in the new version premiering at the New York Film Festival. Above all, Boone was wowed by the digital presentation:
"The Final Cut" is remastered from original 35mm elements and transferred to High Definition digital video at 4K (4096 horizontal pixel) resolution. Projected in HD at 24 frames a second for this year's New York Film Festival, this "Blade Runner" has no visible grain, dirt or scratches, stuttering frames, reel-change "cigarette burns" or soft-focus moments when the film gets loose in the projector gate. Funny how I thought I'd miss all those things, their "organic" qualities, but this restoration gives us a pristine image without sacrificing warmth. The picture even fooled our editor, who at first thought he was looking at a 35mm projection. This "Blade Runner" removes every barrier to getting lost in Scott's fire-and-rain Los Angeles short of presenting it as interactive theater.I saw the original version first-run in 70 mm at Seattle's Cinerama Theater in 1982, and grain was evident, probably for a couple reasons: 1) many of the visual effects involved multiple, non-digital exposures; and 2) the film wasn't actually shot in 70 mm, but was blown up from 35 mm.
According to an extensive, multi-sourced Wikipedia article on the film, the 1990 version advertised as a "Director's Cut" and shown at the Nuart in LA and the Castro in San Francisco was actually a 70 mm workprint. (In the days before digital, effects were often done in 70 mm, even for 35 mm releases, for better optical quality.) Scott approved the 1992 Director's Cut, but wasn't entirely satisfied with it. Wikipedia offers comparisons of the various versions, citing the primary changes as:
* The removal of Deckard's explanatory voice-overIt was apparent from the beginning that the voiceover was a big problem -- and Harrison Ford (who didn't get on with Scott, much less the studio execs who were calling him in to read narration) has said he did it badly and begrudgingly, hoping they wouldn't even be able to use it. (It's that cringe-worthy at times.) Scott, however, says he wasn't taken off the picture, and that he completed the original release version after it tested badly with audiences.
* The re-insertion of a dream sequence of a unicorn running through a forest
* The removal of the studio-imposed "happy ending," including some associated visuals which had originally run under the film's end-credits.
But the movie was a theatrical flop anyway, producing rentals of only $14.8 million at roughly the same time "E.T." was on its way to zooming past $300 million. According to a definitive piece by Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times Magazine (September 13, 1992), the film may have died then and there. But the new home video market extended its commercial termination date:
"Blade Runner's" availability on video kept it alive in the eyes of the always loyal science-fiction crowd, and gradually, over time, the film's visual qualities and the uncanniness with which it had seemed to see the future began to outweigh its narrative flaws. Scott says he saw the interest rise, "And I thought, 'My God, we must have misfired somewhere; a lot of people like this movie.' " And not just in this country. In Japan, where the film had always been successful, "I was treated like a king," art director [Snyder reports. "The fans would be too in awe to even look at you." The film's look began to show up in art direction and design: Terry Gilliam's "Brazil" and the stage design for the Rolling Stones' Steel Wheels tour were influenced by "Blade Runner." And when laser discs appeared on the market, "Blade Runner" was one of the films that everyone just had to get. It became Voyager's top-selling disc immediately upon its release in 1989, never losing the No. 1 spot.(Are spoiler alerts now becoming unfashionable because we should just assume everybody's seen the movie or knows the ending? I don't care. This is one.)
In Sunday's New York Times ("A Cult Classic Restored, Again"), Scott says of Ford's character, Deckard: “Yes, he’s a replicant. He was always a replicant.”
The clue to Deckard’s true nature comes in a scene that was cut from the original release and only recently unearthed by Charles de Lauzirika, Mr. Scott’s assistant and the restoration’s producer, In the film, Deckard falls in love with Rachael (played by Sean Young), a secretary at the Tyrell Corporation, the conglomerate that makes replicants. She discovers that she’s a replicant too. Her memories of childhood were implanted by Tyrell to make her think she’s human.House Next Door publisher Matt Zoller Seitz, however, says the movie isn't so definitive on that score:In the last scene of Mr. Scott’s version, Deckard leads Rachael out of his apartment. He notices an origami figure of a unicorn on the floor. A fellow cop [Gaff, played by Edward James Olmos] has often left such figures outside replicants’ rooms. In an earlier scene, Deckard was thinking about a unicorn. Looking at the cutout now, he realizes that the authorities know what’s in his mind, that the unicorn is a planted memory, that he’s a replicant and that he and Rachael are both now on the run. They get into the elevator. The door slams. The end.
I didn't get any of this from the new cut. And I also don't see how it makes any sense at all that Deckard could be a replicant given that the most advanced models have four-year lifespans, and Deckard's association with the police department seems to have lasted longer than that. Or is Deckard's "long history" as a blade runner something that Gaff and the rest of the LAPD have collectively agreed to pretend is real?I can't weigh in on this yet, having not seen the new cut, but in the 1992 version I thought we were intended to understand that Deckard and Rachel were both Replicants. Even the narrated 1982 version ended with:
[Deckard picks up paper unicorn. ]In 1982, we naturally assumed the issue being addressed here was Rachael's "termination date." The new version (without that scene) might cast that same question in a new light, since neither Deckard nor Rachael knows for sure when either of their termination dates might be. Just like humans. But producer Bud Yorkin, talking about the changes made to "Blade Runner" for the first theatrical release, told the LA Times Magazine in 1992:Gaff (memory): It's too bad she won't live. But then again, who does?
Deckard (voice-over): Gaff had been there, and let her live. Four years, he figured. He was wrong. Tyrell had told me Rachael was special: no termination date. I didn't know how long we had together. Who does?
"Is he or isn't he a replicant? You can't cheat an audience that way. It's another confusing moment," Yorkin says. And so the unicorn dream was never used, and a new, more positive ending line -- revealing that Rachael was a replicant without a termination date-was written. To indicate the joy the happy couple had in store for them, scenes of glorious nature were to be shot and added on, but attempts to get proper footage in Utah were foiled by bad weather. Instead, contact was made with Stanley Kubrick and, remembers Rawlings, they ended up with outtakes from "The Shining": "Helicopter shots of mountain roads, the pieces that are in all the 'Blade Runner' prints you see everywhere."But Matt is right: We should always trust the art more than the artist. It's what's actually on the screen that matters, not what the filmmaker may have said he intended afterwards, or between versions. The central issue is not who is a Replicant and who isn't. It's that we know that they know that we know what it's like to be aware of one's mortality. The Replicants, of course, have always been metaphors for the human condition. (Do they dream of electric sheep?)
Again, from the original version:
Roy Batty: I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain. Time to die.Who can? Who does?Deckard (voice-over): I don't know why he saved my life. Maybe in those last moments he loved life more than he ever had before. Not just his life, anybody's life, my life. All he'd wanted were the same answers the rest of us want. Where did I come from? Where am I going? How long have I got? All I could do was sit there and watch him die.
Thank you for the spoiler-alert...
What if I told you I was waiting for Scott's DEFINITIVE cut to see the film? No? Okay....
What a great film that 25 years later we're still debating what's going on in it. Rather than put in my two cents about that let me just say that when I saw it upon release 25 years ago I was amazed by the fact that no one was wearing matching tunics, togas or vests. And that it was raining, actually raining in a sci-fi film. And that the future was filled with commercialism, corporate advertising and crime. Sci-fi films haven't gone back to the Logan's Run model since. Although I do so dearly love sci-fi where everyone's wearing tunics, togas and vests.
"Is he or isn't he a replicant? You can't cheat an audience that way."
It's scary to see how people working in cinema has no clue about cinema at all.
This whole Deckard/replicant idea is new to me. And I thought I was a fan of the movie's nuances......
I am really going to have to think about this for a while. Time to pull out my Criterion laser disc for one more viewing. I will look for more clues, I guess.
The fact that Deckard may be a replicant doesn't really bother me. In fact, that would make the end of the movie even more ironic. Both of them living on and on...... I wonder if they would both figure it out when (and if) they started outliving people aroung them.....
I still love the movie. Always have.
I've never really thought the idea of Deckard being a replicant was justified by the film- nor does it really add to the story.
Sure, the idea that he might be "retiring" his own kind has some appeal, but the theme more seems to be of the "non-human" replicants finding their humanity and Deckard learning to appreciate humanity more through them. That's a better lesson to learn if he's supposedly "more human" than they are. If he's the same, it's redundant.
Of course Cameron uses this as the ending of T2 as well. If a machine can learn to be human, why can't we?
Replicants aren't machines, of course. They're not just advertised as "more human than human"- their impending mortality almost certainly makes them so.
Doesn't it seem aesthetically lazy to announce an interpretation of your own film? Now the "literalists" will use this as proof, while everyone else will be stuck reconciling his words with his movie. Too bad, he shouldn't have said anything.
I agree with all of those who stated, or even implied, that the potential in the work for ambiguity on this subject is much more interesting than Mr. Scott's long stated belief that it's answered simply in the text. Nor do I agree with Mr. Scott (or with Paul M. Sammon, who wrote the excellent Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner) that the director's cut, at least the glorified workprint released in 1992, takes away that ambiguity.
I strongly agree with the opinion that it's not what the artist says but what his art says that is important. It matters very little to me what the creator says is happening once his creation has reached a point of maturity and can form logic with its own parameters. I also can't find any real reason to conform to other people's opinions on what it says.
Blade Runner is one of the primary examples of why I only take my own interpretation as valid to me. It's further helped by the fact that the three forms of media where it shows up all have different versions of the same story. The film version even has different versions of itself!
I expect great things from this finalized edit.
I personally like both previous versions for what they are. Sure the voice over is a little cheesy, but ah well; guilty pleasures.
And the added value of Dekard (possibly) being a replicant isn't redundant. I think its an argument against smugness as it pertains to classifying human life. Who among us hasn't been trapped by faulty reasoning, thinking we can neatly place ourselves and others like us on one side of a line, only to have an epiphany that, if seen from another perspective, we're on the other side (or that there is no line)?
I was so blown away by the original when it came out (and so unaware of the industry's/wider world's response to it) that I can't believe this was poorly received at the time. You mean everybody didn't love it? Huh?
Looking forward to loving another version.
The Deckard-as-Replicant element is something Scott tried and failed to make work. The only indication int he film that Deckard may be a replicant si when Rachel asks him if he ever took the Voight-Kampff test himself. I have always taken Gaff's Unicorn-Origami thing as more of a quirky habit of Gaff's than proof of Deckard's true nature. The final scene, where Deckard discovers the unicorn in his apartment, seems more like an indication that Gaff let Rachel live because she is going to die soon anyway, as the narrated version suggests. The unicorn vision only adds a bit of confusion to the flick. The only reason anyone thinks the unicorn vision has anything to do with Deckard's supposed Replicant nature is that Scott is going around telling everyone it does.
I just hope this decade's "Final" cut has finally fixed the problem of the missing Replicant (6 Replicants escaped, one got "fried running through an electrical field", leaving 5 alive. But Roy, Leon, Pris, and Zhora is only 4).
The best part about this whole thing is that we actually get to see the breaking point of Ridley Scott and he hasn’t made anything worth watching since. According to the cast/crew interviews I’ve read, everyone was told that Deckard was NOT a replicant, but that he wanted to add vaguery and nuance to the replicant as metaphor for the human condition. But then again they all walked around in shirts say “Will Rogers didn’t know Ridley Scott.” Well, now Ridley is pulling a “Lucas” or a “Spielberg” by destroying his previous work that was perfectly fine with over-processing. Another example where directors with the ability to do what ever they want isn’t such a good thing. Working with in constraints of time, space, ability, actually enhance movies to a large degree because they make movies focus and adapt to a situation, which is the real skill of film making. In fact outside of the reversal of studio pressured/forced alterations, these changes largely make NO sense.
First he adapted the movie from a book he admittedly didn’t understand and these elements that he is forcing now would actually fit better in the book with is insane than the movie. As for the whole issue of the 6th replicant, it wouldn’t have gotten off as a theory if Scott hadn’t pushed it on us, because NOTHING in the movie suggests with any strength. And it doesn’t matter what he intended if he ham-fisted its incorporation in the movie, which you would have to conclude given his current stance and the director’s cut. The numbers fail to add up, yes, but there was a 6th replicant in the script and it makes less than 0 sense that Deckard could have incorporated himself into life on earth that fast. This is a goof. We only see Gaff when there are replicants around, so we can’t discern if he leaves his origami figures everywhere or just by replicant’s rooms. Much of Gaff’s comments made lack a reference point, so any normal person (ie not Ridley Scott) would assume they were about Rachel and not Deckard because we already know she is a special replicant and the comments about her could be wrong. Then we see the unicorn origami at Deckard’s which confirms he went there when Rachel was there. If you want to unicorn to mean that Gaff knows what memories were implanted that would assume conspiracy on such a large level that would only fit in a Philip K. Dick book and not a Ridley Scott movie.
Does it count as a spoiler alert if I've already seen the movie, yet completely misunderstood it? I'm a big Philip K. Dick fan and I will watch the new cut, but the deeper meanings just zoomed past my head on first viewing a few years ago. Considering the fanfare, the source material, and the artists involved, I'm just going to blame my own cranial density on this one and watch it again.
Responding largely to Joss, but I fail to understand the emotion people can bring up in cases such as this or E.T. in which a newly "enhanced" version is merely added to the pantheon. Both of these have also come at a time and in packaging that also includes fully restored original versions that had previously been altered, in one manner or another on most previous home video formats.
The Star Wars issue is more complicated, as Lucas declared those the only real version and kept the original versions off the home video market for 10 years, only to seemingly compromise with new DVDs that included video versions of the originals that weren't even as good as the previous video release. That's problematic.
Here? I don't know. The release and various versions have always remained controversial. The DVD set will include 3 versions that have existed prior to this one.
I find this continued exploration potentially fascinating. I love my set of various versions of Dawn of the Dead. I'm looking forward to exploring the DVD set. I think it's a wonderful way to examine all the ways one can view material and how editing and post-production can affect the results.
Ultimately, I don't know what version I'll prefer, and I don't have more than optimism that this version will be as good or better than the idea of a perfect version that floats around in my head. But perhaps the things it improves, and possibly the things it makes worse, will at least add to that vision and I only consider that a good thing.
Joss, ouch.
To say that Scott hasn't made a good movie since. There was certainly a lull, but "Thelma and Luis", "Gladiator", "Matchstick Men" and the forthcoming film with Crowe and Denzel might disagree with you. Also the fact that he produced "The Outlaw Jesse James...", which has so many similarities to "Bladerunner" that it might also be a different director's cut, shows that he's remained diverse and at the top of his game.
The first version I ever saw was the original (with vo and all) and it changed the way I looked at movies. I salivate for another way to look at it, so this new version is welcome. Just so long as Deckard fires first, I'll be happy.
I agree with Jim, replicant or not, the movie still makes it's point nicely.
What is the comparison of a director reworking previous works? Is it live music? No. For instance Dylan or Springsteen never really left a lot of the songs they've reworked, but this is a film he hasn't touched , or probably seen, for years. These ideas and concepts have sat in his head all this time fermenting and he remembers the film not as it is, but as a memory. He wants to change the memory, but instead he is changing the film. Yes, this is another way to look at how small changes in film can have large effects, as we’ve already seen with the first two versions. Usually we are left to only speculate…how much better would Minority Report be if Tom Cruise didn’t chase his eyeball down a ramp or if Spielberg didn’t add the ludicrous happy ending? I just don't want it to become a Tony Scott film rather than a young Ridley. At least I'm glad he isn’t hunting down and destroying the other versions like a freakin’ blade runner.
As for his post-BR work, it is at times tolerable, but listing movies doesn’t prove anything (unless maybe it is GI Jane). He’s made about 13 movies since then and you named the best received three by far. Gladiator is bloated, Thelma and Louis has been destroyed by others far smarter than me but I actually felt far dumber at the end, and if Sam Rockwell tells me he’s sorry one last time I just might, maybe, not see it coming when he steals my money.
Complain all you want, but the fact of the matter is that this version exists because of fan demand. People have been whining for a new DVD of Blade Runner for years. This may be the only reason the film is getting a solid re release. So what, if Scott has developed new ideas about a film? Since the original versions are readily available, I just don't care.
What people SHOULD be concerned about is when films are remade by other directors (Dawn of the Dead, Assault on Precinct 13) and then the more recent versions are the only ones shown on cable. Think of the original Heartbreak Kid that's now out of print on DVD, while the Farelly Brothers are stinking up multiplexes with their remake. Which Heartbreak Kid do you think most people will be able to see in the next 20 years? Now, Blade Runner is getting a mass rerelease on disc with each different version on it, all by the same director.
Be grateful this isn't a version literally directed by Tony Scott. Shudder, he's remaking The Warriors, isn't he?
Fer crying out loud. Of course it makes sense that Deckard is a replicant. It is after all a film noir and the deepest darkest secret requires to be owned by the protagonist. It's his relationship with the femme fatale that reveals his own true nature. Get with the program people!
For the curious types, it is playing in Los Angeles, in a theatre. The info is at my little blog.
Joss, A list of well received movies that have done well at the box office. Personal likes or dislikes don't come into account when looking at how relevant, influential or popular a director is. Because for awhile, no one went to see his movies.
Didn't anyone else notice a tell-tale sign that Deckerd is a replicant in the first theatrical cut? We see during Rachael's interrogation that her eyes, in certain light, have a gold and luminous quality - - decidedly non-human. Later, there is a shot in Deckerd's apartment with Rachel in the foreground and Deckerd in the back and slightly out-of-focus. His head is turned towards her at an angle, and the same gold glow can clearly be seen. The subsequent "director's cut" merely confirmed what I figured out in 1982.
Still, I guess I have to buy the damned movie AGAIN! Gladly.
BRANDON,
Deckerd is the other missing replicant.
Well, the trouble is the interview that Scott gave Sammon in the "Making of.." book where Scott says there's a Nexus-7 and that's what Deckard is.
So...Deckard is an advanced replicant, whose had history with the LAPD longer than the existence of the Nexus-6's? It doesn't make sense. There's no mention of Nexus-7's in the opening crawl--just the advanced Nexus-6's...the unicorn origami referred to Rachel's uniqueness...("Tyrell said she was special"--plus,that's where the unicorn dream figures in) if Deckard WAS an advanced replicant, why did Batty defeat him so handily (no pun intended)?
No, the character arc is "A human sheds his cynicism and regains his humanity and value of life by seeing the examples of the non-humans he's sent to kill," not "A non-human regains his...something or other...and sees the value of inception by seeing the examples of the other life-forms like him he's sent to kill." Wha...? Scott is a confused person sometimes.
And for everyone who're so steeped in ambiguity...next, you're going to tell me there's a God or something...because well, there COULD be...!
Gaff leaves the first paper in the office room of Deckard's Captain and that was not a unicorn for sure.
Surely, if the police had picked a replicant detective to catch some fugitive replicants, they would have picked a replicant detective smarter and tougher than the fugitives. In the film Harrison Ford's character is consistently outwitted and outfought by the people who he is supposed to track down, and he doesn't do any substantive detecting. Unless the plan was for Harrison to fail, thus discrediting the idea of using replicant detectives!
" "Is he or isn't he a replicant? You can't cheat an audience that way." "
Scott and Ford obviously didn't want to pander to audiences that needed to be told explicitly everything that was going. The reason why they both hated the Deckard commentary
I remember the 1992 version having a scene where Deckard's eyes glow...
@J.Greg
"Later, there is a shot in Deckerd's apartment with Rachel in the foreground and Deckerd in the back and slightly out-of-focus. His head is turned towards her at an angle, and the same gold glow can clearly be seen."
Wow, I thought I was the only person who noticed this.
When I saw the first theatrical release of the director's cut in '92, I thought it was very obvious that Deckard was a replicant. I had no problem connecting his unicorn dream with the origami unicorn left at his door. Add in the glowing eyes and it's a total no-brainer.
The glow that is noticed in this scene is known as the "red reflex." You've probably noticed something similar in a cat, but guess what we ALL have it. It is the relflection of light off the retina, and you see it everytime enough light reflects off your retina, as a doctor does with an opthalmoscope.
In the words of the Scott-man in reference to that scene, "that kickback you saw from the replicants' retinas was a bit of a design flaw. I was also trying to say that the eye is really the most important organ in the human body. It's like a two-way mirror; the eye doesn't only see a lot, the eye gives away a lot. A glowing human retina seemed one way of stating that."
Seriously, let me have my ambiguity. At least in this instance the muddle makes more sense.
Sorry, Deckard as a replicant just doesn't make sense. He would not have been accepted as a cop. Even science fiction (like fantasy fiction) has to have some internal consistency.
I love this movie in all of it's versions. I was awed by the "future" city the first time I saw it in the theater. I hid in the balcony seats after the first showing was over and watched the 9:00 pm show too. When it became available to rent on VHS my buddy who worked at the "Movie Store" (actual name of the store!) stole a copy for me. We watched it over and over, it was just that kind of movie. When the Blade Runner Laserdisc became available it was soon added to my meager collection. And of course I purchased the "Unrated" version on DVD. Through all of this the one thing has remained consistant. Viewers, like most of you reading this, become instant movie critics. Not the good kind either, the "just add water" variety. Of course it is much worse now that there are blogs and places like this where people can express their "long standing" views on Deckard and Rachel. Most of whom have probably seen the movie once and just like to pretend they are long time Blade Runner buffs.
(It is the main reason I watch it alone now, I like to watch it again every few years and really don't want to hear what people think about what the director was trying to show, what the writer intended or what was cut because the movie execs chopped it all up and re-wrote this or that. Or whatever your cousin who worked as an extra said!)
There of course is the one person who brings up the "6th escaped replicant", who didn't pay attention to the movie. The Deckards eyes "glowing" people really irk me, as that is not the intention of the effect! errrr. I can't go on! I'm going to go pop some alprazolam, watch Short Cuts and chill.... Psssst it's Xanax.
The "glowing eyes" thing is so widespread in this movie it's ridiculous. Seriously, everything that exhibits it has already been established in the storyline of the film as a replicant (well, except Deckard...obviously :). If you want the most obvious example, watch the close-up shot of Tyrell's owl (1992 version).
If that doesn't do it for you, i don't know what will.
I saw it too, beautiful, right here. My thoughts.
http://philzine.wordpress.com/wp-admin/index.php?page=stats
PJ,
So Deckard wouldn't have been accepted as a cop, but it's okay to have a receptionist Replicant. If "more human than human" is what they're going for, wouldn't the best experiment be allowing one to kill it's own kind. Everything else after that makes complete and total sense. The performances clue you in on this: Bryant's observing Deckard as he shows the profiles of the missing Replicants and Deckard's reaction to killing in general shows that he is more human than the humans in the film, making him...a Replicant! Screw the red eyes, watch the performances! Buyaa!
I just want to state for the record that I prefer the voice-over. Ford's grudging, tired, half-hearted narration works, IMO, because it is in character! Decker hated being a blade runner and he was tired from having his butt kicked repeatedly. Sorry, having seen BR in a theater in 1982, the VO will always be a part of the movie for me, especially the narration after Roy's death. I think most people who bemoan the narration are just parroting critics, and wouldn't have said anything had it not been reported so negatively.
And yes, if Deckard is a replicant, why is he always getting his arse kicked by other replicants? Shouldn't he be super strong like them?
To paraphrase Sir Alec Guiness:
GET A LIFE. IT'S A F****NG MOVIE.
Starting to sound like an out take from Galaxy Quest. I hope everyone watches Bush and Cheney with the same piercing intellect. "I see dead replicants."
I think the more interesting circumstance is where the protagonist, who naturally assumes he is human, begins to doubt his very nature. The fear that one's reality might be totally unfounded strikes at the core of what it means to question the purpose of life. Certainty is for cartoons. What if Deckard was truly human, but began to lose confidence in that fact?
Deckard's actually being a replicant does not seem to add anything to the story other than an ironic, if logically flawed, twist. Deckard's self-reality being thrown into disarray, however, is a much more compelling conclusion. Perfect faith in either reality (human or replicant) can only lead to perfunctory non-adventure. It's the uncertainty that draws one to the horizon.
On the subject of whether Deckerd is a replicant, has anyone noticed how much the first Blade Runner who appears in all version of the film, Holden, resembles Deckerd, both in looks and in Harrison Ford-ish mannerisms?
Incidentally, there's a small dialogue change in the Final Cut that fixes the continuity error involving the six escaped replicants.
I never thought of Dekart as a replicant but I like the idea; after all, we're probably all replicants with implanted memories anyway, and if we were what difference would it make? One bad thing about the Internet is it gives everyone the power to be a crabby old critic. Even me! :0)
Of course, if Tyrell was trying to make replicants 'more human than human,' is it not conceivable that a newer model (nexus-7 vs. 6) would either not possess inhuman strength or at least be unaware of it?
And also, as far as the police not trusting a replicant, why the hell not? The cops could get killed chasing the replicants, so why not give the creepy new guy the assignment. And doesn't it just look like Gaff is dying to ask Deckard out for a beer sometime? Can't you feel the love?
I have been trying to locate the the original blade runner, not the director's cut can you help me.
thanks
To Ronald: The new deluxe 4-disc "Blade Runner: Collector's Edition" has all the released versions collected. The 5-disc "Blade Runner: Ultimate Collector's Edition" tosses in the workprint version as well (which played for a week at the NuArt in Los Angeles before Scott had it pulled).