More human than human is our motto...

Blade Runner: The Final Cut made its way to Dallas this week. When it first premiered, I wasn't even a decade old. I'm not even sure I was aware Blade Runner even existed that summer (and probably wouldn't have been that interested in it anyway at that point in my life). Instead, like most kids my age, I was wrapped up in E.T. mania and eating Reese's Pieces every chance I got that year. Some years later with the advent of VHS and the influence of a couple of members of this Kool-Aid Gang, I eventually got the urge to watch Blade Runner. It has since become a true favorite of mine that has continued to be engrossing with every repeat viewing. E.T. now seems like a distant fond memory--a classic movie of my youth that has just sort of stayed there. Over the years, though, Blade Runner has grown to a true work of art that will live with me for sometime to come. 25 years after its initial release, I'm still trying to wrestle with the central theme of the film--what it is that makes us all truly human. Blade Runner presents a bleak future where the world seems so polluted and crowded as if humanity is being choked out of existence. The only people in the film who care about life and seem truly human at all, end up being replicants. The Final Cut release puts to rest any doubt about Deckard--he's the most human character in the movie, and even he's a replicant.  It's our recognition of our mortality that truly makes us what we are, and no one seems to understand that more than the "skin-jobs" who are literally facing death with every minute they breathe.

Despite it's age, this new version of Blade Runner plays like a modern new release.  The special effects and the cinematography seem almost ageless.  Even Harrison Ford, with his short cropped hair, fits in with the modern trends of fashionable men today.  Sean Young is mesmerizing, which makes me baffled as to how her career turned out to be so unimpressive over the years.  News was that the entire film was re-edited, re-touched, and even re-shot in some places (which I'll have to admit, I had a hard time picking out other than the Zhora chase scene which has now eliminated any remnant of the John Hall from Hall and Oates-looking stunt double of the original cut).  The Vangelis musical score is beautiful, and sounds completely fresh in the big screen setting.

Although Blade Runner: The Final Cut comes out on DVD later this month, I think it's a shame that it's not getting a wider release in the movie theaters.  If it's out near you, be sure to make time to catch it at least once.  This is the definitive version.