Blade Runner: The Final Cut - Page 44

Guaranteed future Razzie: "Worst sequel, prequel, remake, or rip-off".

+1

I have no problem whatsover with the making of quality prequels or sequels, but any *remake* of the original story w/same characters would indeed be incredibly stoopid wouldn't it.

Did you play the old adventure game from Westwood? It wasn't bad at all.

However I don't expect much from these new movies, and hopefully they'll be spin-offs that have as little to do with the original story as possible.

This doesn't surprise me at all; in fact, I am surprised Blade Runner wasn't made into a TV series sooner.

The article clearly states they can't remake the original, and why would they anyway? It would be like remaking Star Wars, utterly ridiculous.
I actually would like to see a movie based in the same universe as Blade Runner as long as it keeps the dark moody atmosphere (and a M Bay director does not get his hands anywhere near it!).

By no means am I putting down you or your opinion, but that "dark, moody atmosphere" can not be recreated. The stars were aligned for both Ridley Scott and Vangelis.
It's 2010 all over again, IMO.

"It's 2010 all over again"

EXACTLY!

I absolutely love 2001 and wouldn't spend $.05 on 2010. I bought (cheap) one of the blade runner sequel books, and never got past the first 100 pages or so.

Still need to pick this up on blu. I have the five disc DVD + suitcase...

Joel

Hate to bring this thread back from the dead but its better than starting a new one......My question for this film/blu-ray is as follows:

I just recently finished viewing this along with all 4 other versions on HD DVD (turns out The Final Cut didn't playback on my HD player) Anyways, this title seemed to have a hiss like sound attached to it while watching in my HT. Before anyone says anything, my system is fully calibrated, also I have never encountered this problem before with any other title. Has anyone else had this issue with this title? It's not in-front of your eyes distracting but it is annoying upon an average viewing. When I switched from regular Dolby track to the True-HD track it definitely sounded cleaner but still had the little "hiss" sound.

Thanks all!

Not sure--did it ever stop raining for any scene in the movie?

Rain man, runner.

The better to hide the visual effects and sets with, my dear...

Hide? Some of the best sets and models in movies?

I think they say on Dangerous Days that the rain and night time setting was actually to hide the fact that the sets looked cheap. They look incredible in the film but that's down to how Scott shot.

Well, this is where we started: I dunno about charles' question and was just guessing at the reason for his "hiss".

Yup, that's why they look like some of the best model and set design shots ever next to 2001... they pulled the wool over your eyes with movie magic. It's the same with Aliens. Cameron had to hide the fact that it was actually a fairly low budget film... so tons of rain and fog and shadow. And it mostly took place at night. Ya gotta do what ya gotta do. In the end, it's the finished product up on the screen that counts. Pretty good, eh?

I'm noticing sound distortion on my TOWER CENTER SPEAKER at the beginning of the Final Cut. I believe it's when the plumes of fire are coming out of the stacks (basically that first intro to the movie). I have separates and have ample power and quite capable speakers. I have a PS3 slim and I'm just a little frustrated with this b/c this is the only part of the movie that does this, and I like to demo the beginning anyway. I'm going to try the Director's Cut and see if it does the same thing.....anyone???

Nope, have you seen the Trumbell Hades cityscape? that thing is stunning

The supplements have some day time photos of the exterior sets (which were the ones that needed 'hiding' rather then the interior sets) and not surprisingly they did not have the same moody look as in the film.

I've seen all the versions and despite the critics backlash against the narration I never minded it. I had that version on VHS from way back and a girl at work and I were talking about our favorite movies and she told me her husband loved Blade Runner too but lost his copy of it and she had never seen it so I gave them my VHS. After she watched it and brought it in she said her husband swears I had a different version of the movie than he had. That's when I learned of the infamous narration original version. After seeing the versions without it (and with a unicorn and now with a few extra scenes) I can say I don't miss it because I heard it before and know the thoughts Deckard is having from that so I don't need to hear it now. Would it have changed the way I perceived the story if I had never heard it? Maybe. Maybe I spend a little more time figuring out the ending? Not a big deal to me - I watch to be entertained, not unwrap a riddle like Inception.

To be honest I just love the movie at face value and always have. The dark future, the mish mash of culture and language that became city speak, the slow pace (it was called Blade Crawler by one LA critic upon release), and the clash of 30s style detective against the future backdrop with Gaff and Bryant - it just has this organic feel that no other movie had given me. Now if only the neon umbrellas could be removed... *sigh*.

But to your point, when dropping an audience off in a movie with no context or characters setting up the situation other than some run-up text, the narration was helpful to set the scene much like short stories often need before jumping right in with a key plot point and the interview with Leon. The ending narration may have pointed the viewer too much in one direction and treated the audience sorta dumb, but the ending is so open to interpretation I didn't see any problem with it (and apparently I have missed the boat completely on the fact Deckard is supposed to be a replicant himself all these years until I read Scott spoiled the debate and said he indeed is). http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/12/blade-runner-2-ridley-scott_n_1961799.html

I actually went back and watched the old version with it just to see if it was that distracting or annoying and I found it neither. I think critics just like to be critical (read me previously griping about pace and CGI in Prometheus). The happy ending with them driving in the mountains? What was so bad about that? Too much clash with the depressing tone of the movie? Adding a Unicorn to Deckard's dream? I never understood that until reading up;

Okay... I never made that connection so now I feel a little less sharp of a movie goer that used to pride himself on foreshadowing and picking up clues.

So my long winded reply would be I liked it fine at the time, but now that I've seen the movie finally in HD in the final cut edition and know the plot so well, I don't miss it. The narration probably helped more of the general public understand what was going on, but the most loyal and critical viewers of this movie are turned off by this treatment so the net result is no gain. The long term cost is negative I would say so I can't argue with it's removal. "Great movies" seem to require a bit of work on the part of the smart audience. There's a fine line between treating them smart and letting them figure things out though and treating them like lab rats making them run a maze to figure out the real story (and avoiding plot holes).

The problem with the voiceover is that it mostly just describes what we can see happening on screen, so there's no need for it. The intrusion of Deckard's voice onto the scene where the spinner car first flies over the city to Tyrell's building drowns out the music and just kills the sense of awe and wonder in the visuals. Also, Harrison Ford hated being forced the record the voiceover, and did so in the most deliberately flat and monotonous voice he could. You can tell. He sounds bored and exasperated to be reading the lines.

The happy ending contradicts everything we'd seen in the movie up to that point. If there was really a pristine, sun-dappled forest just on the outskirts of town, why did most of the populace have to flee to the offworld colonies? Why would anyone live in that miserable, smoggy, perpetually raining city?

And that final bit of voiceover ("Hey, remember how I said Replicants only live four years? Well, not Rachel! She's a special Replicant with no termination date, and we're going to live happily ever after!") is a massive cop-out and a slap in the face to the audience.

- All of the voice over wasn't completely removed though, just parts of it. The ending with Roy still had it and the end exiting the apartment still has it.

- I don't know how or where I heard it or got the idea but I swore they were driving in Canada well away from the sewer that was future LA, but again I don't know where I got that, nor does it change the point you're making except it wasn't just outside of town. Also, in the original release when Roy releases the doves as he dies, they flew up into a blue sunny sky - implying things weren't always crappy which opens the door to the sun came out for the drive.

- I'm pretty sure he didn't say "we're going to live happily ever after" but rather just ended with the driving and him narrating "Tyrell had told me Rachael was special, no termination date. I didn't know how long we had together. Who does?" which by the way, insinuates that Deckard thinks he's human because he will die while he knows she will live on but whatever time they have left they will make the most of it.

As for the slap to the face, it may have seemed like that but I think intention was lost as the movie just went from gloomy (symbolic conflict) to sunny (symbolic resolution) as Deckard found happiness/love and the killing was over - I mean the death of Roy with dove flying off shows us this and Deckard even says it.

Apparently it didn't play well to the majority and that's fine. I chalk it up to minor execution and editing flaw if anything, not a major story flaw.

:shrug:

The workprint is still the best verson

According to the supplements they wanted to have the dove fly off in the same lighting/environment but it could not take off wet, so they just put in the blue sky shot in to get the scene done with. As for the driving scene, I for some reason assumed it was Washington state.

I still have my original version on BETA cassette tape. Yes I used a Sony Betamax back in the day and still have it today and yes it still works !!! Yeah I guess you are right, after seeing it with the voice over and then years later watching without it you know what is going on so it is not needed. The version I have on DVD does not have a voice over when Roy Batty dies. The dove flies off and there is just Vangelis' score in the background. I did not really like the ending with the sunshine in the sky and them driving off. I prefer the dark ending that made you think of what type of future they will have together.

Wow! Sorry to to bump such an old thread, but I finally got round to picking this up and had just a few thoughts re PQ on this edition (which will probably be old news to most folks here).

 

PQ is sort of variable on this transfer. Sometimes the detail is pretty decent. Other times it looks pretty noticeably smoothed-over and a bit too edgy. The bitrate is also too low to properly render the detail and grain that's there. Not a huge fan of the color-correction on this either, which tends to alternate between a rather garish cyan and somewhat muddy amber. Contrast/chiaroscuro is pretty good though. And RS approved the transfer, so I guess this is how he wanted it to look. (FX shots of the Tyrrel "pyramid" look pretty good.)

 

Enjoyed revisiting this old film, even though I'm not totally in love with the way this BD looks. Maybe I'll try to find a good deal on the 30th Anniversary Colletor's edition though, to check out some of the other versions. (I did sort of like the theatrical version with the narration and "happy ending", even though Scott and Ford probably didn't want those.)

Edited by ADU - 5/28/13 at 6:31pm

I'm not the biggest proponent of the Final Cut, with it's green cast. It destroys the dimensionality imho. I much prefer the Director's Cut in PQ terms. It's much more dimensional and the PQ is still more than good enough for me.

 

Completely agree LC. I have not seen the other HD versions of BR yet, but the CMY (cyan, magenta, yellow) palette on Final Cut does seem to sap some of the life, depth and richness out of the picture imho. RS approved the transfer though. So it's possible he found the color on previous versions a bit too "pretty" for a neo-noir picture like this, and wanted somethin a bit different. (Or maybe he fell prey to the "teal & orange" craze which has been so popular on SF films lately.)

 

I much prefer the look of the Director's Cut of Legend, which was made from a more contrasty answer print, with color shifted more towards the RGB primaries. Shadow detail is a bit more crushed, but there's a tremendous sense of depth and dimension to the picture on that. And it also has very nice grain and detail... So perhaps I'll like the DC of BR better as well.

 

I think BRFC might have been more palatable (pun intended) to me though if the bitrate had been a little higher.

Ridley Scott is all about the teal and orange. See also the Blu-rays for Alien, Gladiator, Thelma & Louise...

^ Haven't seen the last two on BD yet Josh, but Alien has a great sense of depth to it. I'd agree that it's been "tweaked" a bit, but not as much as BRFC imo.

 

I believe BRFC was transferred from negatives btw, which frequently seems to obfuscate (ie "muck up") the original color of a film. Not sure how Alien was done.