Ridley Scott just can't leave a lead turd alone. According to scifi.com, Blade Runner: Final Cut will be released to video in September for four months only. It will then hit the theaters in 2007 for the 25th anniversary; the special edition dvd will follow with the "remastered director's cut of the classic SF movie Blade Runner" and the other three versions of the film (yes, Grasshopper, the original theatrical release will be on dvd).
Full story at: http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?category=0&id=36328
Maybe I'm a barbarian for suggesting it, but I rather liked the theatrical release. The novel only suggests that Deckard is an android as an allegorical device to make us question our own actions. Are we human or merely humane? In the end, Deckard realizes the errors of his way and makes at least a fumbling attempt to be more human, to live as human as he can.
Ridley Scott decides for us in claiming that Deckard is indeed an 'andy,' and I think he misses the mark. Yes, Blade Runner is the grand-daddy of all cyberpunk. Yes, it's supposed to have a more bitter ending than one would expect. But the original release's ending is not happy: Deckard and Rachel book it with the knowledge that 1) they have little time left together because her batteries are nearly run dry, and 2)Deckard will live the rest of his life stuck on the post-nucular hellhole that the Earth has become as an outlaw.
But gee, Mr. Bosch, doesn't the fact that they will be together suggest that it's a Romantic kissy kissy "you had me at Voigt-Kampf" ending? Like a cyberBonnie and Clyde, they'll burn their double-ended candle in the wind until the man shoots them down?
No. It's a Pyrrhic victory at best, and that's what makes it cyberpunk. It's Gaff saying, "Hey, Deckard, you have fun poking Teddy Ruxpin for a couple of years, but don't bother coming back because you're dead to me." It's Deckard replying, "Well, at least I won't put any more holes in my soul this way." That's the way this thing should end.
It's worth noting here that the one of the many drafts of this screenplay had a final shot of Deckard looking in his rearview mirror at Gaff's squadcar closing in. At least that would have helped the movie make some kind of sense. Maybe if Scott had actually read the book....
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