Then again, these are the critics that probably got "Driving Miss Daisy" an Oscar for best picture...

So if you didn't remember or still need an idea for a last minute stocking stuffer, Blade Runner: The Final Cut came out on DVD this week. As I've already posted about before, I think this is the definitive version of a great film, but I guess many out there don't share the view that this movie was all that good. According to this article from Slate, which follows how this sci-fi classic went from being considered laughable kitsch to true film art, the initial reaction to Blade Runner when it first came out in theaters back in 1982 wasn't that flattering:

Reviews, however, were overwhelmingly negative ("A film that has neither strong characters nor a strong story," wrote Janet Maslin in the New York Times; "It forces passivity on you," Pauline Kael tsked in The New Yorker), and audiences were baffled, sometimes even hostile.

Even some modern audiences that never saw any version of the film before this newest release didn't like it:

My wife had never seen Blade Runner, and it held her rapt until the penultimate scene. Here, the most godly of replicants, played by über-Nord Rutger Hauer, bays primitively at the moon before subjecting Harrison Ford to a poetic oration about mortality. "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe," says Hauer, clutching a white dove to his naked breast. "Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die." At which point, Hauer releases the bird, and it flies in slow motion toward the sky. At which point, my wife laughed uncontrollably

I thought that scene was pretty nice. Oh well. What do I know?

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.

Han shot first and Deckard is a replicant--why is Harrison Ford involved with all these editing controversies?

Thanks to Ain't It Cool News, I found out about these new clips from Blade Runner: The Final Cut. Not too much there, but I'm sure a couple of you reading might be interested to give it a look. Interestingly, Joanna Cassidy pulled out the original costume to reshoot her chase scene. However, with a combination of wearing contacts today and the low-resolution of the video, I couldn't really make out how the reshot scene was different from the original. Is it less obvious that Zhora was just a stuntman dressed up as a woman crashing through those windows?

And since I have Wander and Firecracker George here, answer me this: The unicorn in Deckard's dream is supposed to be a clue to the audience that he's a replicant. Why? What's the significance of a unicorn? I'm sure I could figure out the answer if I gave it more time in my brain, but I figure one of you could give me a more thoughtful answer.

Separating the genuine fans from the posers...

Holy crap! Look at this thing! Wander already told us about the upcoming release of Ridley Scott's definitive version of Blade Runner. Well, this is the DVD box set that will be released afterwards with FIVE versions of the film. FIVE!

Now that's what I call obsession. I'm not sure I would want all of those cuts, but then I was never the kind of guy to go digging through the imports section at Tower Records looking for every known mix of a Depeche Mode song either.