DVD Review - Blade Runner: 5 Disc Collectors Edition

Ridley Scott’s Sci-Fi classic Blade Runner, was first released in 1982 and stars Harrison Ford as detective Rick Deckard on the trail of 4 Replicants, who are now illegal on Earth thanks to a bloody rebellion in space, the film also stars Rutger Hauer as Roy Batty, the leader of the Replicants who wants more life as his 4 year lifespan is nearly up, with help from a snake scale however, Deckard is hot on their trail.

Blade Runner has many controversies and ambiguities about it and I won’t mention those here, but the main reason the film works for me is the blend of visuals and story, the visuals are truly out of this world, Scott and his team have created one of the most realistic and original worlds in the history of the movies and its one that still holds up strong to this day but its not the only reason I like the film, Blade Runner also has a great story behind it that doesn’t drag, most films today go a good 20 to 40 minutes beyond their natural running time so it was nice to see a film shorter than 2 hours, it is also a simple tale of love, life, death and detective work: 5 out of 5.

As for the A/V Quality on this set, the brand new Final Cut looks absolutely outstanding, the look of the film has been beautifully rendered and will be a true feast for your eyes as opposed to the fake CG look that’s in many films today, the 5.1 sound for the film is also very well done, there’s no artificial sounds added into the mix and it really helps make everything sound natural and true to the films age.

And now, the extras breakdown for each of the discs.

Disc 1: Blade Runner – The Final Cut

On Disc 1, we have a brand new Final Cut version of the film, this has some tweaks, enhancements and restoration work applied but it is not like the Star Wars reissues, it actually matches with the 1982 photography very well and fixes nearly all of the major continuity problems which makes this the most satisfying version of the film, it is truly the vision Ridley had for the film and I am most grateful to him for sharing it with us.

The disc also comes with three commentary tracks, detailed below:

Director Ridley Scott: Ridley sits solo for this track, the first of three and it is a good start, Ridley talks about all sorts of stuff such as the design, genesis, production, music and actors involved in the film as well as a couple of plugs for his recent film American Gangster, now in Cinemas, this is a good commentary track and fans will definitely appreciate it.

Executive Producer/Co-Screenwriter Hampton Fancher, Co-Screenwriter David Peoples, Producer Michael Deeley and Production Executive Katherine Haber: All four sit in groups of two (writers and producers) for this second track, I actually enjoyed hearing this track a little more than Ridley’s track, as there was some nice comments from Deeley regarding the release of the film and the friendly banter between Fancher and Peoples over the various script drafts, in my opinion, Peoples kept a lot of Fancher’s ideas and rewrote them as well as adding his own which is what eventually became the film we see now.

Visual Futurist Syd Mead, Production Designer Lawrence G. Paull, Art Director David L. Snyder and Special Photographic Effects Supervisors Douglas Trumbull, Richard Yuricich and David Dryer: The third and final commentary is probably my favourite of the three commentaries on the disc, the designers and effects men give endlessly great stories about how the world of the film was created, Blade Runner, along with Return of the Jedi, is one of the last great non-CG Sci-Fi films, so this track was a real treat for me and I’m sure for fans of this film.

Disc 2: Dangerous Days – Making Blade Runner

Disc 2 holds a single extra, a 3 and a half hour documentary titled Dangerous Days, directed by renowned documentarian Charles de Lauzirika, who also did the 2-disc Aliens and Top Gun DVDs, this is a terrific documentary on almost every facet of the film, from genesis through to the films doomed release and later resurrection on video, Dangerous Days also offers a lot of alternate takes of fan favourite moments and takes of scenes that were deleted from the film altogether, Dangerous Days also has nearly every single person involved with the film still alive doing interviews (missing as far as I know are Vangelis, who did the music and William Sanderson, who played J.F Sebastian, both sadly declined to be in the documentary) and they all have great stories to tell about the movie, especially Hampton Fancher who has a touch of the eccentric about him, this documentary will delight fans and is one not to miss.

Disc 3: Enhancement Archive

The third and final disc I will review is called the Enhancement Archive; it contains additional documentary material as well as some nifty deleted scenes and promotional features, which are now detailed below in three sections (Inception, Fabrication and Longetivity) as is the disc as a whole.

Inception:

Featurette – The Electric Dreamer: Remembering Phillip K. Dick: This is a 15 minute look at the life and work of author Phillip K. Dick, who wrote the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? On which Blade Runner is slightly based, there are some nice retrospectives from family, friends, authors and scholars as well as some vintage material with Dick himself, fans of Dick and his work owe it to themselves to see this rather nice tribute.

Featurette – Sacrificial Sheep: The Novel vs. The Film: This featurette looks at the differences between Dick’s novel and the film, Paul Sammon, who is a scholar on the film, says it’s the finest Dick adaptation yet it is also very far removed from the original material, there are some interesting opinions expressed in this piece and it is one of the best on this disc.

Audio Tracks – Phillip K. Dick: The Blade Runner Interviews: This is a series of 14 audio tracks recorded by Sammon and he questions Dick in what is very fair quality audio interviews, the interviews themselves are quite good, ranging from inspirations behind his book, his initial resistance to the film and eventually being won over by the footage shown to him, again, these will be a big treat for Dick fans.

Fabrication:

Featurette – Signs of the Times: Graphic Design: This featurette takes a look at the graphic artwork for the film from the illustrators, I actually thought that the main design feature on Dangerous Days was better than this featurette but it was a good watch.

Featurette – Fashion Forward: Wardrobe and Styling: One of the best features on this disc looks at the fashion wear for the film, the best story in this one is Harrison changing Deckard’s costume (He was originally going to wear a hat), it also looks at the hair and make-up styles made for the film, a great watch.

Featurette – Screen Tests: Rachael and Pris: This feature looks at the original screen tests for Rachael and Pris, introduced by the casting director, you also see new interviews with the actors testing for their various parts, this is an interesting look at the casting process and fans will enjoy this a lot.

Featurette – The Light that Burns: Remembering Jordan Cronenweth: Jordan Cronenweth was the cinematographer on Blade Runner and passed away in 1996 from Parkinson’s Disease, this feature is a tribute to his life and work from the perspective of his friends and family as well as those who worked on the film, this is the best tribute on the DVD and recommended to fans of the film and of Jordan himself.

Deleted and Alternate Scenes: Probably in a tie with the promotional features as my favourite extra on this set, the Deleted Scenes are assembled from many alternate takes, including an alternate voice over that was written by Ridley Scott’s team rather than the WB narration used in the initial version of the film, there’s also scenes such as the infamous Holden hospital scenes that were deleted altogether that appear here as well as two different versions of the infamous happy ending of Deckard and Rachael driving off into the country, a must watch for fans.

Longetivity:

1982 Promotional Featurettes:

#1 – On the Set: This is one of three promotional features Warner Brothers put together to promote the original release of the film, this one is a general EPK feature on the production and contains interviews from members of the cast and crew, this is a good special and I really enjoyed watching it, hopefully fans will feel the same way.

#2 – Convention Reel: This feature was probably made for a sci-fi convention reel and is introduced by a much younger Ridley Scott and has input from younger versions of crew members, this along with the other promotional specials are a good watch.

#3 – Behind the Scenes Outtakes: This, the last of these 1982 specials is a near 9 minute silent reel at the production of Blade Runner, I actually enjoyed this particular feature quite a bit, as you got to see a first hand look at the sets for the film, one for fans.

Trailers and TV Spots: Presented here are 4 trailers marketing the original and re-release versions of the film including a preview of the Dangerous Days documentary as well as a single TV spot from the 1982 release, personally, as a big fan of this section, I enjoyed this section a lot and also enjoyed the changing marketing styles from the 3 and a half minute 1982 trailer to the more musical 1992 trailer and finally the fade cut style for the 2007 trailer, again, a great watch.

Featurette – Promoting Dystopia: Rendering the Poster Art: This is probably my favourite featurette on this disc as it interviews the great poster artists Drew Struzan and John Alvin (who are quite possibly the two greatest poster artists in the industry), both talk about how they did the poster for the various versions of the film as well talk about poster art as a whole and how its changed over the years, one thing I loved seeing in this feature was the Australian poster art for the film, so a thumbs up for that one and this extra.

Featurette – Deck-a-Rep: The True Nature of Rick Deckard: This is a rather interesting featurette as cast, crew and admirers talk about Blade Runner’s greatest controversy: is Deckard a Replicant or a Human?, although the answers range from yes, no and figure it out yourself, my answer is no, as for my money Deckard is clearly written as a human and the whole question of could he be a Replicant was just an overtone Ridley added so he could have his own “Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father” style twist in a later film if it got made, but fans should enjoy this feature.

Featurette – Nexus Generation: Fans and Filmmakers: This is the final feature on this bonus DVD and it is also one of the creepiest, here fans and filmmakers talk about the impact the film left on them, especially the girl who devoted one of her arms to tattoos from the film, which is a little creepy for my taste as well Mark Romanek, who directed One hour photo, who redecorated his apartment to look like the style of the film after seeing it, but there are some good comments to be seen here, such as those made by Frank Darabont, who made The Shawshank Redemption, again this is a good watch.

The Other two Discs:

The other two discs in this set contain the initial versions of the film, including the workprint, rumored to be lost for many years, although I personally don’t have a lot of interest in these versions (there aren’t a lot of differences between the various versions in this set and a good majority of their material appears in the deleted scenes), I am happy to see them included as well as remastered for fanatical fans.

Lost Opportunities:

Despite the amazing work that went into these DVD’s, there were two slight disappointments I had with it.

The first was the loss of the image galleries, when Blade Runner was originally announced, it was to contain image galleries on the Marketing, Unit Photography, Artwork and Covers of the original book, sadly these had to be dropped and I was disappointed to not see them as Blade Runner was a film that cried out for a few art galleries, but Warner Brothers have rarely done image galleries for their films and the other outstanding material on the disc set makes up for their absence.

The other was not to see the 4-disc alternative released in America reach Australian shores, I personally would have much rather seen this than the 5-disc set that we got twice over, on its own and in a special briefcase edition, as I was not fond of paying up to $100 or $150 for a movie made in 1982 and the 4-disc version had everything I was after in terms of disc content including its use of John Alvin’s amazing poster art for the film and a much cheaper and more satisfying price, these are only minor complaints though as what we do have is quite good.

Final Thoughts:

Blade Runner is a favourite of mine and although I am not fanatical about it in the way I am with Star Wars or Mad Max or Hot Fuzz, I greatly enjoyed the effort that went into this DVD, Warner Home Video, Ridley Scott and Charles de Lauzirika deserve enormous thanks for what they’ve done, and I’m sure other fans will appreciate it as well.