Released in late June of 1982 (December 16th in Australian cinemas, just in time for Christmas and during a Summer which was characterized by bad droughts) Ridley Scott's Blade Runner has certainly run the gauntlet of emotions in the 30 years since its release.
1982 was certainly an incredible year for genre cinema and only this year has seen it be matched in terms of the variety of genre product in cinemas and the quality of it for not only did we get Blade Runner we also got the Man from Snowy River, First Blood, Star Trek 2 the Wrath of Khan, Summer Lovers, Tron, Rocky 3, Conan the Barbarian, E.T. and John Carpenter's remake of the Thing to name as some examples, not to mention Mad Max 2 getting its theatrical release in America.
But what did Blade Runner do for me some of you might ask, what made it stand tall in my mind, well surprisingly it was not the film's extraordinary visual design or special effects work, no it was the performance of Rutger Hauer as Roy Batty, the replicant who wants more life that made the movie for me which harks back to an old rule of mine that if a film has a good villain that I have fun watching, then that film no matter what the genre is will get a tick from me and Hauer's Batty certainly ticked that box and when his famous "Tears in Rain" moment comes (the line written by Hauer himself) it's hard not to feel your heartstrings get tugged when it comes, truly a terrific performance.
The Discs:
The 30th Anniversary set comes in a 3 disc box set that might look large in the pictures but is actually somewhat small when you hold it in your hand, the contents are the 3 discs in a case, a flip sided booklet containing some beautiful drawings and photos (each has its own side) and another replica of a Spinner but this one is based from a concept design scrapped for the one used in the film and which got its own replica in the 07 box set.
Speaking of which, some of you might be asking "Is there much difference between the 07 set and this new set?" well to be honest no not really, it's mainly a reorganizing of the contents of that set so that the extras are on an actual Blu-Ray disc instead of being split across two DVD discs as they were in the 07 set.
The Video:
The Video quality on both of the feature discs (one disc is for the Final Cut while the other is for the three archival versions) is pretty much the same as they were on the 07 box set which is sad to say really as those discs could've done with a new authorizing process using a new encode and DTS-HD sound mix that could be spread across a dual layered Blu-Ray disc (the 07 set came out in the early days of Blu-Ray when we still had the format war so only a 25GB Blu-Ray disc was used.)
Nevertheless, the Final Cut looks really good and benefits from both the restoration the film underwent when this cut was being put together and the Blu-Ray format allowing for more space on a disc, the film's many night scenes look terrific and the shades of light really shine which helps to draw you into the world of the film and also makes it hard to look away while watching.
The archival versions haven't had as much restoration work done to them as the Final Cut has but are sourced from the very good remastering work done in 2006 to help wet the appetite of fans for the Special Edition release the following year, that disc looked very good and had a nice natural feel to it and that shows here as well.
The Audio:
One nice change on this new disc of the Final Cut is that this time the default sound mix is the Dolby TrueHD track whereas on the 07 set it was the standard Dolby Digital 5.1 mix that was the default track and viewers had to pause so they could change to the TrueHD track manually which can be a pain in the bottom.
As for the TrueHD mix, it's simply terrific and really highlights Vangelis's beautiful score, you can really hear the textures of detail he layered into each track and wonderfully fills in the speakers, the dialogue is nice and clear and the sounds are nicely represented though the mix does sound a bit quiet at times so you may have to have your sound up slightly higher to listen to it but still its a great sound mix.
The archival versions have only a Dolby Digital 5.1 track on them and sound pretty good though are limited somewhat by their source but still these are pretty good mixes overall and they get the job done.
The Workprint:
Yes folks, the infamous work print of the film that was first shown at sneak previews prior to its release in 1982 and was shown around the US in 1990 to big crowds, it's also the only part of this disc that differs from the 07 set.
Those differences are that it has had a new encode and has a DTS-HD sound mix (neither of which the Final Cut got which sounds silly) and they really make this version shine brightly, the new video encode is terrific and really highlights the details in the sets and effects and the DTS-HD mix actually sounds better than the Dolby TrueHD mix the Final Cut got as its clear it's been mixed at a higher volume, I really wish the Final Cut had gotten this treatment but it's clear why this happened for just the work print.
The Extras:
Yes, the reason the work print got a new video encode and DTS-HD sound mix is that it shares its disc with a whole pyramid full of extras, all but the following come from the 07 release but we also get a long overdue extra that was shamefully left off the earlier release.
Stills Gallery: Yes folks, Blade Runner finally gets some Still Galleries, these were originally intended to go on the 07 release but disc space concerns saw them dropped and here now they're finally here and there's plenty to go through so let's get browsing.
The Galleries section is split into 8 sections; "Storyboards", "Abandoned Sequences", "Ridleygrams", "Syd Mead Galleries", "Mentor Huebner Gallery", "Costume Designs", "Graphic Designs" and "Visual FX and Animation."
One forewarning though is that after going through a gallery the disc may lock up on you but a press of the menu button on your remote will see you safely back to the main menu.
So now first up we have the Storyboards section and there are 9 sequences to be found here, needless to say the work done here is quite beautiful and remarkably detailed, these boards were clearly done by professionals and fans of this process will find a lot to like here.
But my favorite gallery has to be the "Abandoned Sequences" one and we find 5 scenes that were drawn but never shot, some of these were talked about in the "Dangerous Days" documentary and it was nice to finally see the abandoned opening of Batty and the other replicants escaping from off world to Earth in search of Tyrell, it looks like a great sequence but I'm also glad it didn't open the film as it wouldn't have felt right and promised a more action like tone that the final film doesn't have but still it's really cool to see it here in full.
Next we have the "Ridleygrams" and these are Ridley Scott's own doodles for some scenes in the film and again these are quite cool to see as it gives you a look inside Ridley's process in terms of creating scenes and its very cool to see them here.
The next gallery is for Syd Mead's amazing drawings he did for the film, these split into three sections "Vehicles", "Environments" and "Technology" and the drawing here is just extraordinary in terms of the detail, the colors and the sharpness of the lines, it's just beautiful stuff, we also find some more abandoned scenes such as the location of the real Dr. Tyrell and the Snake Dance, neither of which were filmed.
Next we have a small gallery of Mentor Huebner's work and the sketch work here is remarkable, many many many pencils were clearly used to create these drawings and if you look closely you can see the initial Deckard based off Dustin Hoffman who was considered for the role at the time, again great stuff.
Next we have both Costume and Graphic Design galleries and these look at the costume ideas for the characters and the graphic designs for logos and magazines seen in the film, a real highlight was seeing some of the magazine covers that aren't seen very much in the film, my favorite being "Kill Weekly", Gordon Bennett that was a weird one.
And now we come to the last Gallery in this set which regards the Visual FX and Animation and this is a very nice gallery that shows how some of the iconic FX shots were created and how some of the models were built.
As great as all this material is there are in fact some galleries still missing that were dropped from the 07 release and those were the Unit Photography, Book Cover and Marketing and Merchandise Galleries, these are a somewhat sad loss but I didn't really miss them that much as the galleries we got were that good.
As for the rest of the extras well they come from the 07 release though what doesn't is the commentary track recorded for the Workprint by Paul Sammon a noted film historian but I didn't really miss this track as the extras here helped to fill in the gap its absence left.
As for the other extras well they are the following:
- The terrific "Dangerous Days" documentary which covers the making of the film and the legacy its gotten over the years and has almost everyone involved in the film interviewed including Harrison Ford (which is contrary to a comment UK Film Critic Mark Kermode made recently that Harrison hasn't talked about making this film which is not true as he does so here.)
- The making of feature regarding the Final Cut including the re creation of two key sequences one of which involves Harrison's son Ben
- The Enhancement Archive (hidden under the Access menu heading which some mistook for BD-Live features) which contain many features including tributes to Dick and Jordan Cronenweth, a slew of Deleted and Alternate Scenes (which contains most of the stuff from the theatrical versions), some vintage featurettes and trailers plus much more and all of it is really well done unlike most extras which can leave you bored rather quickly.
The Objections:
Yes folks, I do have some objections to this release though they are minor and its mainly that I wish the Final Cut and the disc with the 3 archive versions had gotten new video encodes, a DTS-HD sound mix and were presented on their own dual layered Blu-Ray disc with the extras put on their own dual layered disc and presented in HD as its clear watching the Dangerous Days doco that it was originally intended to be shown in HD but instead its only shown in SD and it's a shame that's the case as the SD presentation is not the best for it or the other extras and a HD presentation for them would've made them shine so very very brightly.
The Verdict:
All in all, the question is as such, is this new 30th Anniversary Blade Runner Blu-Ray box set worth buying for fans and the answer is yes, it's not an emphatic yes but it's a yes all the same, mainly for the beautiful art galleries and the reorganizing of the extras onto an actual Blu-Ray disc instead of having them on two DVD discs and is well worth picking up at the right price.
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