Blade Runner Ultimate Sweetness (SPOILERS)
All right, so I am on vacation for the rest of the year. But I worked hard anyway... on the monster, insane, 5-disc version of Blade Runner that I have been waiting for. Spoilers below; Ultimate Blade Runner geeks may want to beware...
I saw the Final Cut at the Arthouse the other day, and I was really not all that rocked by the fixes. The fix to Joanna Cassidy was great, and the fix to the dove-release shot was great. Other than that, though, a lot of the obvious errors were left.
Sebastian's lip-flap when talking to Pris and Batty, The jump-cut of Leon slapping the gun out of Deck's hand (OK in itself but caused a continuity problem with the steam in the background), the Abdul Bin Hassan lip-flap scene, and those were just the ones I saw sitting there in the theater. Also, Batty said "I want more life, father". Yeah, we get that he's his father. So I set the Final Cut disc aside and went right to the extras.
The Monster DVD set is so insane, it has five versions of the film, but then Ridley Scott shot and reshot so many takes and alternates - along with deleted scenes and FX outtakes - that they were actually cut together into a SIXTH version of the film, which you have never seen even if you have seen the Workprint (which is restored and also included). That was about the craziest thing I have ever seen. I put the Workprint on (hitherto the Holy Grail of Blade Runner), and by comparison it was totally lame. And it looks like I'm not the only person who wanted to watch Deckard and Holden in the Hospital ;)
And then there was the documentary Dangerous Days. It lays down the law from the first damn frame - with a shot of something SO COOL, YOU CAN'T EVEN TELL WHAT IT IS! Some kind of Fresnel lens looking down a hallway - I think - with some kind of cyber-readout on the side. It's peppered throughout with more outtakes and deleted stuff; it's out of control. You actually get a sense of the insane amount of footage Ridley Scott shot. There's even a Replicant dog hanging out across from the owl! Batty eats a fuckin' electrical cable to get more life!
Overall, it's a bit more diplomatic than Future Noir was, but there's so much more information about everybody who was involved, from P.K. Dick through Jordan Cronenweth and Douglas Trumbull. And Syd Mead! ! ! Another guy I worship.
It is so great that it even contains a scrolling list of all the AWESOME films released in the Greatest Year For Movies, Ever: 1982.
I am today a happy camper.
I saw the Final Cut at the Arthouse the other day, and I was really not all that rocked by the fixes. The fix to Joanna Cassidy was great, and the fix to the dove-release shot was great. Other than that, though, a lot of the obvious errors were left.
Sebastian's lip-flap when talking to Pris and Batty, The jump-cut of Leon slapping the gun out of Deck's hand (OK in itself but caused a continuity problem with the steam in the background), the Abdul Bin Hassan lip-flap scene, and those were just the ones I saw sitting there in the theater. Also, Batty said "I want more life, father". Yeah, we get that he's his father. So I set the Final Cut disc aside and went right to the extras.
The Monster DVD set is so insane, it has five versions of the film, but then Ridley Scott shot and reshot so many takes and alternates - along with deleted scenes and FX outtakes - that they were actually cut together into a SIXTH version of the film, which you have never seen even if you have seen the Workprint (which is restored and also included). That was about the craziest thing I have ever seen. I put the Workprint on (hitherto the Holy Grail of Blade Runner), and by comparison it was totally lame. And it looks like I'm not the only person who wanted to watch Deckard and Holden in the Hospital ;)
And then there was the documentary Dangerous Days. It lays down the law from the first damn frame - with a shot of something SO COOL, YOU CAN'T EVEN TELL WHAT IT IS! Some kind of Fresnel lens looking down a hallway - I think - with some kind of cyber-readout on the side. It's peppered throughout with more outtakes and deleted stuff; it's out of control. You actually get a sense of the insane amount of footage Ridley Scott shot. There's even a Replicant dog hanging out across from the owl! Batty eats a fuckin' electrical cable to get more life!
Overall, it's a bit more diplomatic than Future Noir was, but there's so much more information about everybody who was involved, from P.K. Dick through Jordan Cronenweth and Douglas Trumbull. And Syd Mead! ! ! Another guy I worship.
It is so great that it even contains a scrolling list of all the AWESOME films released in the Greatest Year For Movies, Ever: 1982.
I am today a happy camper.