Blade Runner - The Final Cut (SPOILERS)

[Temis the Vorta]

Am I the only one who thinks there are WAY too many versions of this film?

I just got the boxed set of all the versions for Xmas, and no, there aren't too many versions. Clearly the director's cut is the "right" one but it was educational reviewing the others to discover:

1. How godawful annoying those voiceovers really are (yes, they do insult the audience's intelligence, and yes, they are written in a painfully clunky style so no wonder Ford was appallled at what he was expected to say).

2. How completely the original US ending with Deckard and Rachel running away together through the beautiful woodlands RUINS THE MOVIE! Why would Deckard be "happy" that Rachel was a special version who would live a long time when he's just realized he's a replicant too, and there's no reason to believe he'll share Rachel's long lifespan? Ending the movie only seconds after Deckard's realization prompted by Gaff's unicorn leaves the story intriguingly open-ended and is very cool.

Does he now realize he might love Rachel for "artificial" reasons? Does this reinforce their relationship because they are now both fugitives? How long will either of them live (deleting the scene about Rachel's long life means we can't assume anything.) Their newfound love might last only a day. Loved that!

Without the director's cut to use as a comparison, the flaws in the original aren't nearly as obvious.

(And I've heard that he did a deliberately bad job on the narration as a protest for having to do it at all, but that may be apocryphal.)

Sounds pretty unprofessional of him, but considering how badly the narration was written, can't say I entirely blame him.

SO... maybe in the "Director's Final Cut" Deckard is a replicant, but in the other versions, he's not?

The scene with the unicorn (how could Gaff know Deckard was dreaming of unicorns unless those tendencies had been implanted?) was in both the final cut and the US version, so he's a replicant in both, but with that oddball ending for the US version, it's like they were trying to backtrack and deny what the unicorn scene was implying.

Deckard's ironic expression and very slight nod after picking up the unicorn was confirmation that he was thinking "yeah, I've always kind of known..." There were other clues, such as his prominently displayed family photos, which suggest that he was trying to shield his subconscious from what he already knew to be the truth. He had to have sort of known instinctively, or else he could have dismissed the unicorn as a bizarre coincidence.

 

[T'Baio]

As to the auteur theory, my opinion is that the writer is always the number one artistic contributor, followed by the producer, the cinematogropher, the art director, and the composer. Then comes the director.

Do you even know what a director does?

 

[Christopher]

As to the auteur theory, my opinion is that the writer is always the number one artistic contributor, followed by the producer, the cinematogropher, the art director, and the composer. Then comes the director.

Do you even know what a director does?

In Hollywood feature films, the writer is very, very, very far from the number one contributor. As far as feature filmmakers are concerned, writers are hired help, nothing more than contractors. The producers and director decide what they want to happen in the film, and they hire writers to put their ideas on paper. Sure, the writers may have some ideas of their own, but the director and producers decide whether they like those ideas or not, and if they don't like something, they'll tell the writer to do something different. Often, they'll hire two or three or ten different writers to do various drafts and will pick and choose the parts they like among them and hire another writer to stitch all those unconnected pieces together into a whole like Frankenstein's monster. Writers have zero power in feature filmmaking in the United States. They're treated as interchangeable and disposable. This is why so many movies are so incoherent.

The director is not the sole auteur, but he or she is definitely the person ultimately responsible for the decisions made in the filmmaking process, along with the producers. The others stj mentions all make crucial contributions, but they answer to the director and producers and have the responsibility to try to give them what they ask for.

The place where directors are low on the totem pole is series television. Since directors are usually freelance, coming in to do one episode at a time and then moving on to other shows, they aren't part of the core creative team. TV is unlike movies in that it is much more of a writer's medium, and the head writer or "showrunner" has the same kind of ultimate creative responsibility for a TV series that a director does for a feature film.

 

[Timby]

Ridley Scott's contributions aside, Blade Runner only works for me if its ultimate theme is of Replicants -- robots -- ultimately showing the cold Deckard what it means to be truly human.

Outside of that, it's a cold movie with a somewhat weak script but astounding production design, aesthetic and overall direction.

 

[stj]

The guy on set giving instructions to cast and crew is the director. Part of the confusion of the auteur theory applied to today is forgetting that. If the director orders rewrites or does storyboards or edits the film, he is acting as producer or art director or film editor. The director is only the primary artistic creator if the film is improvisational. If the scriptwriter doesn't give many camera directions the director has a lot more creative input. It's true that these functions are commonly also exercised by directors. They are also sometimes exercised by a star actor.

But directing as such is not such a major contribution to the movie as an artistic work. Again, that is why most directors do not have an oeuvre with consistent style, thematic material and quality of execution. Fritz Lang was definitely a gifted director but never did anything to rival his work in Germany because first, he wasn't working with wife and writer Thea von Harbou, and second, in the US studio system he didn't exercise the producer roles in art direction and so on. Also, most highly regarded directors are hyphenates---they are writer-directors, producer-directors, even artist-directors (Alfred Hitchcock and Tim Burton come to mind.) Empire Strikes Back was directed if I recall by Irwin Kershner. There is very little artistic contribution by Mr. Kershner, even if by all reports he is an estimable gentleman.

Most of all, the statement was about artistic contribution, not power. Im Anfang war das Wort, Goethe notwithstanding!

edited for German typo

 

[Kryton]

Am I the only one who thinks there are WAY too many versions of this film?

You are not. And frankly, I'm no fan of ANY of them.

 

[God Magnus]

The voice over was good, despite what Harrison Ford said in retrospect. This is because he's a professional and couldn't actually make it so cheesy it would reflect badly on him and the film.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way. While I enjoy the Director's Cut and Final Cut, the version I fell in love with was the one I saw in theaters as a kid - narration and all. When I first saw "Director's Cut" it was so jarring not having it in there! And yes, I know Ford did a bad job (in his and many fans' eyes) but I thought his droning, exhausted tone matched the character perfectly.

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

The narration, while clunky, is over-slated. There are only six lines of narration in the whole film.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

The voice over was good, despite what Harrison Ford said in retrospect. This is because he's a professional and couldn't actually make it so cheesy it would reflect badly on him and the film.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way. While I enjoy the Director's Cut and Final Cut, the version I fell in love with was the one I saw in theaters as a kid - narration and all. When I first saw "Director's Cut" it was so jarring not having it in there! And yes, I know Ford did a bad job (in his and many fans' eyes) but I thought his droning, exhausted tone matched the character perfectly.

Agreed... it never bothered me in the least. It gave the film just that much more of a "classic Sam Spade style" sort of feel... film noir, you might say. And I loved that. Ford may have been annoyed when reading it, but this fit the portrayal of the character quite well, I thought... world-weary and all that.

I just view that part of the theatrical cut to be an additional insight into the same set of events. Sort of like listening to a movie today with the commentary track on. It's the same film, but you find out other things that way.

 

[Harvey]

In response to the discussion of the director's input, and the auteur theory, I don't quite agree with stj's ranking of the positions, but there's no doubt in my mind that far too often too much credit is handed to a director when credit is not due.

That said, Ridley Scott does deserve the credit on Blade Runner because of his absolute influence (both creatively and as a decision maker) on all aspects of production. Perhaps this means he was a producer (IMDB lists him as an uncredited co-producer).

Of course, you could react against the auteur theory to the extreme, i.e. Pauline Kael's "Raising Kane" book, which attempts to give all of the credit for Citizen Kane to the co-writer, Herman J. Mankiewicz. A mistaken backlash, especially in the case of that film, as much of the scholarship since has shown.

 

[Christopher]

There's no question that every motion picture is a collaborative effort, and anyone who claims to be a sole "auteur" is an egotistical liar. However, although many contribute their ideas and talent to the whole, it's usually the director who has ultimate control, contributing to every decision and being primarily responsible for the content, style, and feel of the film. As with most everything in life, the truth lies between the extreme interpretations. The director's the head of the team, but can't do it alone.