Blade Runner: Director's Cut and Final Cut SEs

[eerik]

Amazon.com has uploaded the back cover.



First two discs are exactly the same as in the old set, third disc will combine the workprint BD and two DVDs from the old set with the new image gallery. Totally worthless if you already have the old 5 disc release.

[Roger Ryan]

What is worrisome is that the back cover makes no mention of special features beyond the "Dangerous Days" doc, the "work print" cut and the "1000+ stills gallery". Supposedly, everything from the 5-Disc set is on here, but I'm wondering why "...and more!" wasn't added to the back cover copy. The "Variant Futures" doc, the 50-min. "Deleted Scenes/Outtake" feature that is effectively an alternate cut of the film and the Cronenweth appreciation are some of the best things on the original set.

[flyonthewall2983]

Someone on Blu-ray.com who recieved the new edition has said all the special features are intact from the previous one.

[captveg]

What eerik said was correct: unless you want the new Image gallery and/or must have the Workprint and bonus on one Blu-ray disc instead of a 1 BD and 2 DVDs, there is no point in purchasing this set if you have the 2007 release.

[The Narrator Returns]

And apparently, the Workprint cut has been upgraded to an AVC encode with DTS-HD MA soundtrack, due to the move to a dual-layered disc.

[knives]

Had to post this. Pretty damn impressive.

[hearthesilence]

What is worth searching out is the documentary contained on Disc 5, "All Our Variant Futures", which runs nearly 30 minutes and details the differences between all of the edits and how green-screen effects were employed to "fix" problem moments in "The Final Cut". Surprisingly, this additional doc offers fresh insight even after you've sat through the seemingly exhaustive "Dangerous Days" documentary.

I've had the five-disc version since it came out, but I never bothered exploring the two BD's featuring the other cuts nor the extras that came with those discs. Now that I'm upgrading to the UHD, I figure might as well unload the set, so I finally took a look at the "All Our Variant Futures" doc, and it is indeed quite good. It's too bad they didn't transplant that to another disc on the UHD set, but they apparently wanted to re-use the 2007 disc masters. (For me, ideally the UHD set would have replaced the standard BD of the "final cut" with the BD of the workprint, thus saving the "All Our Variant Futures" doc in the process.)

Anyway, the biggest takeaways from it:

• It took a few years to gather all of the elements, and we're lucky they got them because the bulk of it was scheduled to be "junked" in 1988. Instead, it sat in limbo on pallets for over 12 years because the department never got the final authorization to do so. Thank heavens for bureacracy!

• They started work in the early '00s, but things came to a halt in 2002. It's not explained why, but around 2005, they suddenly got the green light and it was full speed ahead. Thanks to the delay, what was considered "state-of-the-art" had advanced considerably, and some things they did wouldn't have been possible just a few years earlier.

• The restoration producer - thankfully a fan who calls Blade Runner his "favorite film" - made a list of continuity errors that needed to be addressed, which is SOP on modern day Hollywood productions anyway. Ridley Scott looked through the list (rolling his eyes at a few), and they clearly had to draw a line. As Roger Ryan alluded to, the biggest fix was the head of an obvious stunt double - they brought in Joanna Cassidy, applied some make-up and a little bit of costuming, then had her mimic the stunt double's movements in front of a green screen. After brushing out the stunt double's head (creating a "headless" scene), they pasted in the newly shot footage, then changed it with various digital tools until you had a perfect match. Cassidy was shown the results (as well as clips from intermediate stages) and she was pretty stunned that doing this was not only possible but pretty much flawless.

• The biggest surprise was that scene where Harrison Ford's lips read off different dialogue than what was finally picked. They couldn't find any matching alternates in the ADR recorded for that scene or from any other archival stems, so given the success of Cassidy's head transplant, instead of finding matching sound the producer decided to match the lips. But "Ford's probably busy...but I know he has sons?" Surprisingly, one guy knew Ben Ford from school, and he had a restaurant nearby (which closed in 2014). Before they even shot it, they show him getting his jaw made-up (i.e. his father's scar applied to his chin), and immediately you can see his profile is an exact match. (When we see him earlier from the front, the similarity is much less.) This becomes more apparent on-set when they do a 50/50 superimposition of him on-camera with the scene in question.

EDIT: Found this screengrab:



As you can see, no one's going to mistake him for his father, and IIRC this is how you first see Ben Ford in the featurette. But when they film/videotape him from the side, the resemblance from the nose down and around the jawline is startling. So again, very fortunate that the resemblance to his father was very much there from the angle they needed!

• I had no idea the famous dove shot was such a shitty mismatch. After Roy dies in the rain, he releases a dove, and when we see it fly off into the sky, there was originally NO VFX over a clear, blue daytime sky. They created a bunch of new composites and Scott picked the one he liked best.

• The biggest change may have been the sound mix. The picture restoration created a lot of holes in the soundtrack, particularly when they took out the voiceover. They found reels, but those had problems, from damaged or deteriorated spots to missing elements (one section was completely blanked or destroyed for reasons unknown), so they basically had to create a lot of new sound from scratch or fill in places that were now too sparse (again, mostly spots that had originally been mixed with voiceover - it's likely they kept sound effects to a minimum as to keep the voiceover track clear).

[flyonthewall2983]

It’s incredibly fortunate that they completed it when they did, when the tech could make these improvements look more seamless.

[beamish14]

• I had no idea the famous dove shot was such a shitty mismatch. After Roy dies in the rain, he releases a dove, and when we see it fly off into the sky, there was originally NO VFX over a clear, blue daytime sky. They created a bunch of new composites and Scott picked the one he liked best.

I'd never thought of the dove shot being the result of limitations at the time. I have always taken it as being a symbolic representation of Batty and Deckard acknowledging the precariousness of life, with the perpetual rain temporarily being suspended to show their clarity.

The Final Cut is something that I saw once during its theatrical release but have no desire to revisit. I just cannot tolerate what was done to Jordan Cronenweth's perfect cinematography, and the continuity errors are part of the film's DNA.

As an aside, I actually ate at Ben Ford's restaurant in Culver City, Ford's Filling Station, which closed a number of years ago. A really nice, tasteful decor, and the exterior was designed to resemble a 1950's gas station. It had less than 10 dishes on the menu, all of them steak-based, if I'm not mistaken. I think everything was at least $50 a plate.

[hearthesilence]

I just cannot tolerate what was done to Jordan Cronenweth's perfect cinematography....

As an aside, I actually ate at Ben Ford's restaurant in Culver City, Ford's Filling Station, which closed a number of years ago. A really nice, tasteful decor, and the exterior was designed to resemble a 1950's gas station. It had less than 10 dishes on the menu, all of them steak-based, if I'm not mistaken. I think everything was at least $50 a plate.

Picturing this under the beverage listing:



What did they do to Cronenweth's cinematography? VFX and continuity tweaks aside, I thought they generally left it intact.

Truth be told, I never grew attached to the earlier iterations - except for a casual, unattentive viewing of the misnamed "Director's Cut," the Final Cut was the first time I really watched the movie with close attention, so it's tough for me to warm to any of the past mistakes.

[Michael Kerpan]

I suspect I can't use UHDs until we get a new TV. Our Sony player should be okay but I'm pretty sure our Samsung plasma TV has too old a version of HDCP.

[beamish14]

What did they do to Cronenweth's cinematography? VFX and continuity tweaks aside, I thought they generally left it intact.

Truth be told, I never grew attached to the earlier iterations - except for a casual, unattentive viewing of the misnamed "Director's Cut," the Final Cut was the first time I really watched the movie with close attention, so it's tough for me to warm to any of the past mistakes.

It's a victim of that revisionist teal vomit look, which is very prominent in the first third, if I recall correctly. I saw a 35mm print of the '92 cut some time later, and it was like a breath of fresh air.

I do remember smiling at finally being able to see the dancing women wearing hockey masks, which had appeared as a still photo in Paul M. Sammon's Future Noir

[hearthesilence]

It's a victim of that revisionist teal vomit look, which is very prominent in the first third, if I recall correctly. I saw a 35mm print of the '92 cut some time later, and it was like a breath of fresh air.

I checked with DVD Beaver, and I see what you mean - it stands out in the opening interrogation and when Decker is back at the police station for the first time in the film, but it doesn't look bad to me elsewhere. I'm guessing the scenes drenched in blue light will probably be nudged towards teal, going by the tinier caps that have no counterparts to compare to. But compared to, say, the new digital restorations of Ran and Je t'aime, je t'aime, what's applied here doesn't bother me so much.