'If Only You could See What I've Seen'

Finally got around to watching 'Blade Runner: The Final Cut' a few nights ago and wow...just...WOW. It had been in the Netflix que for a while and then sat around the house for a week or two. The last time I actually watched the film in it's entirety was on Betamax back in the 80's and, by this point, I remembered the Marvel comic adaptation (online HERE) more than the flick itself...so what was a few more weeks, eh?

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Between seeing the flick in it's digitally remastered, definitive 'Final Cut' by director Ridley Scott and, more importantly, seeing it at an AGE where I can actually appreciate it...I was glued to the couch, not wanting to miss any of visual treasures found within. This is an absolute classic and a complete feast for the eyes. When the day arrives where we actually have a house w/ room for a massive widescreen HD TV...this will be one of the first films I watch on it.

As the film was just as much a hard-boiled film noir detective story as it is was a sci-fi adventure, it ended up a little too high-concept at the time for film goers who expected 'Star Wars'...receiving 'Mike Hammer' meets '2001: A Space Odyssey' instead. Regardless, while frustrating a lot of audiences upon it's theatrical release in 1982, 'Blade Runner' casted a pretty wide net of influence on the films that followed it. From live action sci-fi and, even more so, classic works of Japanese anime ('Akira', 'Ghost in the Shell')...you can see the film's visual influence in nearly every frame.

Set in a dirty, run-down Los Angeles of the (then) near future, 'Blade Runner' follows the efforts of a jaded police detective named Deckard (Harrison Ford). Deckard's job is to kill (AKA 'retire') rogue, human-like androids called Replicants. These Replicants, originally manufactured to act as soldiers, laborers and sex servants, were given implanted human emotions and memories to make them seem more realistic. It also ends up giving them a heightened sense of their own mortality in a pre-set, 4-year lifespan. Thusly, handfuls of them end up running and blend in w/ regular human society, in the vain hope of saving themselves. This story centers around five in particular, played excellently by Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Joanna Cassidy, Daryl Hannah and classic movie bad guy, Brion James.

Anyhow, a number of different versions of the film have appeared including the original theatrical cut, the international cut, the much sought-after 'workprint' version and the rushed 'director's cut' that stunningly didn't even include the director's input. The film is still amazing in any format, but it's the definitive vision of Ridley Scott (and the many technical tweaks to achieve it) that makes the 'Final Cut' special. The film also underwent painstaking frame-by-frame digital restoration to remove unwanted age-related image defects and the soundtrack remixed and remastered to take advantage of the latest surround sound technology.

While most of the changes end up being subtle to the viewer, the overall enhancement to the film's aesthetic is breathtaking and worth checking out whether you've seen the film before or not. I cannot emphasize enough how good this is...it holds up 20+ years later and still looks better than a lot of CGI FX megafilms of today. Rent, or better yet, BUY it now...you'll be much cooler for doing so. Believe that!