Blade Runner

Twenty five years after Ridley Scott's visionary reworking of Philip K. Dick's novel flopped at the box office (and was subsequently reborn as one of the pre-eminent cult movies of the past three decades), Scott delivers what he promises is his final take on the compromised classic. The setting is the near future, where the only escape from a planet-wide urban blight is the promise of the off-world frontier advertised on ever-present floating billboards, but five Replicants (slave clones with genetically stamped short shelf lives) have returned to Earth in search of themselves. Harrison Ford is a throwback to the classic Hollywood PI in a futuristic film noir, a rumpled loner detective sent to hunt down escaped Replicants in the polyglot cultural stew of the rain-slicked streets in the ground-level slums. Much of Dick's original story is discarded, but the densely realized street subculture looks more prescient than ever, and Scott's sensibility turns the pulp story into a dystopian odyssey. The original release featured dreary voice-over narration and a happy ending that made hash of the whole polluted planet premise. A work print discovered in 1990 inspired a 1992 "Director's Cut" version, sans the narration and happy ending and featuring a unicorn dream. This "Final Cut" is full of minor adjustments (with subtle reverberations) and major corrections (Scott reshot the death of Zhora to get rid of a glaringly unconvincing body double), and the digital enhancements both refine the special effects and deliver a sparkling image. The remixed sound adds a new dimension to the experience.

The "Final Cut" is available in three special editions, each with three commentary tracks (Scott solo; a producers track featuring Hampton Fancher with co-screenwriter David Peoples and others; and a "visuals" track with visual futurist Syd Mead, production designer Lawrence G. Paull, effects supervisor Douglas Trumbull and others); the excellent documentary "Dangerous Days: The Making of Blade Runner," an obsessively exhaustive three-and-a-half hour production featuring all-new interviews with the cast and crew (including Ford, who hasn't talked about the film for decades); and an unprecedented collection of previously unseen rehearsal footage, outtakes and alternate takes to illustrate the remembrances. The "Four Disc Collector's Edition" also includes the original theatrical version of the film, the extended international version, and the 1992 "Director's Cut" (on a single disc that uses seamless branching), plus a bonus disc of featurettes, deleted and alternate scenes, an archival audio interview with Dick, and other supplements. The "Ultimate Collector's Edition" features an exclusive fifth disc with the rare work print version of the film, and it comes in a "Deckard" plastic briefcase with collectible gewgaws.