Blade Runner: 8 Versions, New Perspectives

A film having an early cut, a theatrical release, and an international cut is normal. But eight versions of a movie released to the public? Something went wrong.

The editing on Blade Runner showed an almost obsessive level of detail.Blade RunnerThe film's quality didn't depend on which version you watched. Some versions are better; others are worse, but the story stays the same. Ridley Scott only had two films when he made these edits, so he could not demand final approval like he can now.Blade Runner’sProducers feared that no one would understand the movie.So, they cut the film until it looked more like the sci-fi adventure movie audiences wanted.They chopped it up until it looked more like the sci-fi adventure movie audiences wanted.

The Work Print (1982)–This is exactly what it sounds like.: A test print shown to early audiences, available only in 1990, and wrongly called the "director’s cut." It has one voiceover narration, placeholder music everywhere, and rough effect shots.

The Four-Hour Cut (1982)– This version is almost legendary. It seems it was only shown to studio staff and never seen again.

San Diego Sneak Preview Version (1982)– This is basically the same as the US theatrical release, but it adds three extra scenes not found in any other version.

US theatrical release (1982)– The version that went to theaters in America seems like a total betrayal of Ridley Scott's artistic goals. Film company executives cut it behind his back, and it dropped the ambiguous tone he aimed for (Deckard is human). This version uses unused aerial footage fromThe Shiningthat was used when Deckard and Rachael leave Los Angeles. It also includes a voiceover from an annoyed-sounding Harrison Ford, who wraps things up neatly.

International Theatrical Release (1982)– The international version is almost the same as the US theatrical release, but it is much more violent. The most intense scenes show Roy Batty giving himself stigmata.

US Broadcast Version (1986)– Imagine aBlade Runnerdevoid of all violence, sex workers, and coarse language. Watch this version if you choose. Good luck finding it without a time machine or a VHS library.

The Director’s Cut (1992)– This is not actually a director’s cut, but it is close. Film preservationist Michael Arick cut the film with notes from Ridley Scott. This version adds the first appearance of the unicorn in Deckard’s dream. Gaff leaves him an origami unicorn at the end, pointing toward Deckard being a replicant. This version finally removes those annoying voiceovers.

The Final Cut (2007).The actual director’s cut came out in 2007 as "the final cut." It plays like the peak version of Blade Runner.Blade Runner.The director’s cut includes the unicorn dream. The international cut keeps the ultra-violence. Voiceovers are gone.

People argue Ridley Scott removed his original ideas from early cuts. Losing the unicorn dream removes the film's ambiguity. The original and international theatrical cuts take out major clues showing Deckard is machine. Scott still kept visual cues. The origami unicorn shows Rachael's uniqueness. When Deckard sees "family photos" after learning Rachael's memories are fake, this still makes people doubt Deckard's identity.

Even in later cuts, whereDeckard’s humanity.is questioned, the movie offers no simple answers. Watching Blade RunnerBlade Runner. Remember this: the film’s answer about Deckard being human is not the main point. The film asks what makes someone human to think about.

You can always askHarrison Ford.He always saw Deckard as human, saying, "I felt the audience needed an on-screen person they could connect with as human.

Scott had other plans. He secretly added clues hinting at Deckard’s replicant nature. Ford was surprised. When they shot the origami unicorn scene, the star yelled, "Goddammit, I thought we said I wasn’t a replicant!"

Gaff, another detective and an opponent of Deckard, speaks the line that most questions Deckard’s humanity. Gaff hints Deckard is not human with origami and lines about Rachel, Deckard’s replicant love interest.

In the director’s cut, Gaff has a line about Deckard’s crises that undoes the film's ambiguity. After Deckard kills Batty, Gaff calls out, "You did a man’s work, "but are you a man?"? It is hard to know who is who around here."

Adding this line to the director’s cut but cutting it for the final cut suggests Ridley Scott felt this line killed a dead unicorn.

Every first-time.Blade Runner.viewer asks the same question: what is wrong with that unicorn? Why is it only in some versions, and why did Ridley Scott make it so important?

The unicorn shows Rachael's unique nature; she does not know she is a replicant. This creature remembers a past that never happened. Later cuts (director and final) use the unicorn dream to hint that Deckard shares Rachael's origins, implying his memories and dreams were implanted like hers.

Scott states the unicorn is not the main part of the dream sequence; it is everything around the unicorn.Everything around the unicorn.The unicorn is important in the list 'Blade Runner: 8 Versions, New Perspectives'.

Critics should notice the green landscape. My original thought was never to show a green landscape during.Blade Runner. We only showed an urban world. Then I thought, since Deckard playing the piano offered a dreamlike shot, why not show a unicorn? A forest? This image clashes with the rest of the picture so much that even three seconds will make the audience see they are watching a daydream.

Editing alone did not cause the problems forBlade Runner. The film faced a difficult path to the screen. Pre-production involved heavy rewrites, and production included on-set tension.On-set tension..

During scripting, Ridley Scott struggled to create an ending that gave the audience release without breaking the ambiguous tone he set. Scott also had to stick to the source material (Philip K. Dick’sDo Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. Scott and his writers moved further from the book with every script draft, and Scott dealt with Dick’s dislike of the adaptation.

The shooting script, which got rewritten while filming went on, provided the story's final closure.This offered the most closure on the story.. The script's closing shot shows Deckard and Rachael leaving Los Angeles with Gaff pursuing them. Before the credits, Deckard puts Gaff's tinfoil unicorn on his dashboard, signaling he is a replicant.

To getBlade Runneroff the ground, Ridley Scott and producer Michael Deeley faced constant hurdles in pre-production. They secured enough deals for the film's money but this created chaos in the editing room.

As soon as they finished casting,Blade Runner, Scott and Deeley lost their funding. Filmways, an independent company that promised $12 million, pulled out when production costs rose to $20 million., so producers had to ask for help from the film world. They secured a $20 million budget using money from Warner Bros., Run Run Shaw, and, producers called in favors from the film world. They secured a $20 million budget from Warner Bros., Run Run Shaw, andJerry Perenchio, aproducer became chairman of Univision. Perenchio and his partners assumed control.Blade RunnerThis would be a big science fiction action movie, like Star Wars.Star WarsIt became a subdued film, not the contemplative one.

During principal shooting, the production needed more money for effects, pushing the budget to $28 million. Perenchio and his partners provided the cash, but they disliked it. This extra $8 million gave them a bigger share in the film, which let them cut the US version their way. They wanted a big sci-fi action movie, and they wanted more people to understand it, so the final product felt rushed and.happythe ending of the film.

Almost every major movie gets shown to a test group who shares their thoughts on the (often incomplete) film. When the work print of Blade Runner played,Blade RunnerHarrison Ford played in sneak previews in Dallas and Denver in 1982. Viewers turned in comment cards saying theydid not understand the film's themes, and that the ending was too depressing. Ridley Scott said that after these two viewings, everyone who worked on the film panicked and started damage control.

Scott made another cut where he tried to simplify the film too much. Then, the financiers made their own cut and told Scott to shoot a new ending. The unicorn disappeared, but the origami remained. Suddenly, Deckard and Rachel drove into a forest, and Harrison Ford was stuck in a booth recording stiff narration that was,the film’s editor said, written by a committee.

Once a happy ending seemed needed,Ridley Scott rushedto get footage of Deckard and Rachael driving into a lush area. Harrison Ford did not like being called back for reshoots, though he admitted he was "delighted that we were shooting something during the day."

If that aerial footage looks familiar, it is because it is—it is unused footage from The Shining.Theatrical cut uses footage from The ShiningScott asked Stanley Kubrick for help to get the swooping shots of mountains and forests. Kubrick gave some convincing shots, but after he agreed, "Scott hadseventeen 2000-foot rolls of helicopter footage within two hours.”

This voiceover includes a racial slur, besides being generally awful.

Harrison Ford's narration is notoriously badreally, really did not want to record the voiceover that ended up with the theatrical cut of Blade Runner.Blade RunnerHe explained to Vanity Fair that "I was required by my contract to record that narration, which I found awkward and uninspired."Vanity Fair"I was obliged by my contract to record that narration, which I found awkward and uninspired."

Ford reportedly thought the narration would not be used because it was "bloody awful." Unfortunately, it was used. The result is so bad that Ford has even been accused of trying to sabotage the voiceover, though he denies it.

After some quick re-editing, audiences finally saw Blade Runner.Blade Runner on June 25, 1982—a good release date for a summer blockbuster.The film released on June 25, 1982, a prime date for a summer blockbuster.The film made $6.1 millionThe film opened strong in its first weekend, but its performance lagged because it followed closely afterE.T., Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and The Thing, all sci-fi films that did well at the box office.Blade RunnerIt looked like a failure.

The film eventually earned $32 million from a $28 million budget. It remained Harrison Ford’s least successful science fiction/adventure film.

How did audiences learn there were more cuts of Blade RunnerMichael Arick, then Warner Bros.' film preservation and asset manager, found out more than people thought. In 1989, Arick became the director for film preservation and asset management for Warner Bros.He found a 70mm printof the film in a United Artists theater vault. Arick feared a private collector would take the film. He ordered the film transferred to the Warner Bros. vault right away.

A year later, the manager for the Fairfax Theater asked for a 70mm version of Blade Runner to show at their spring classic festival. The version Arick found was the only one available. This version proved to be the work print, lacking the opening crawl, happy ending, or narration except for Deckard mentioning Batty's death.

No one had seen the print before it played. The audience reacted to this "new" version of the film.After the screening, Arick showed the work print to Ridley Scott. This started the long process of recutting Blade Runner.

The work print version of Blade Runnerreceived good reviews after showing at the Fairfax Theater film festival and later in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Thus, Warner Bros. decided to release the film across the country.

Ridley Scott learned of this. He took action. Though he liked the work print was closer to his vision than the rushed theatrical cuts, it missed his original plan. The version also had temporary music in some scenes, and the effects were not done in this version.

Scott told Warner Bros. he would publicly reject the film if it spread without meeting his standards. Warner Bros. agreed to a compromise: if Scott made a cut he liked, that cut would be re-released in theaters in 1992. If he could not make anything substantially different from the work print, Warner Bros. would release that version regardless of Scott's approval.

After Warner Bros. challenged Ridley Scott, giving him one year to make a director’s cut or make the work print the final version of Blade Runner, he and Michael Arick worked to make the best version they could in the time given.

During this whole situation, Scott was also shooting Thelma & Louise and getting ready to film 1492: Conquest of ParadiseHe could not drop everything to re-edit a movie already causing trouble, sohe handed the re-editing reinsto Arick, who reworked the film using Scott’s notes.

Arick cut the voiceover, removed the happy ending, and added the unicorn dream. Arick could not find the original unicorn footage, so he used a duplicate shot of an alternate angle. The 'director’s cut' lacked perfection, but it moved closer to Scott's initial vision.

When starting work on a special edition ofBlade RunnerIn 2000, Warner Bros. contacted Ridley Scott. They asked him to cut a version that best showed his original vision.

To achieve this, and make the best version possible, the new post-production team sought out many original elements ofBlade RunnerThey sought film, original effects, the music, everything. Some material stayed in England; some was in the Warner Bros. vaults. Most material was marked for destruction at Preferred Media in Burbank, CA. Luckily, the company never received the final order to destroy the material, so it sat in Preferred’s vault for 12 years.

When the re-edit started seriously, they had to fix inconsistencies, keep certain shots, and restructure the film while keeping the basic elements ofBlade Runnerthat fans like. Some shots stayed as they were. Others, like Batty’s release of the dove before his death, got digitally reworkedto fix major inconsistencies in the film.Harrison Ford often acts like he does not care about the movies he stars in. He has a love-hate relationship with the

Harrison Ford acts like he doesn't care much about the movies he stars in. He has a love-hate bond with thefranchise, and he stays sharp in interviews. This shows he does not care which version of his robot detective movie you watch.However, Ford actually seems to enjoy the final cut of

Ford actually likes the final cut ofBlade Runnerthe removal of the voiceover was a needed fix for the theatrical cut:“I think about it often because I recall how many filmmakers took inspiration from that film and how much it shaped a certain style of visual storytelling. How strongly the effect has been on our culture... [It had] a huge influence on our culture and my life.”With so many versions of

Blade Runner

you might ask which version fits the sequel,Blade Runner 2049. Blade Runner 2049According to the sequel writers, Michael Green and Hampton Fancher (who wrote the first film), there is no correct version to watch. Green statedShould you watch the version where Deckard and Rachael drive into the countryside, happy? Or should you study the versions where Deckard and Rachael enter an elevator toward an unknown future?

Writers of the sequel, Michael Green and Hampton Fancher (who wrote the first film), say there is no correct version to watch. Green toldio9, “The truth is, it doesn't matter. They are all interesting on their own. He also said it is “unfortunate” that audiences feel they will not get [the ending].Blade RunnerIf you watch one version over another, any are worth seeing. Not knowing the version puts you into the conversation.Blade Runner.