Supposedly this is really, truly the last release of "Blade Runner". If so, this is worth picking up. One of the greatest scifi movies of all time. Period. I listened to Ridley Scott on NPR yesterday, and he says he's finally completely happy with this cut of "Blade Runner". He's cleaned up the soundtrack, the sound, and most of all, the video. Scott says he wasn't able to fight the studio over the years for the first few cuts, to his great shame and disappointment. Hence, the first version with Harrison Ford's voiceover narration (which both Ford and Scott hated doing), the happy ending, and the suggestion that Deckard is human. I'm not sure, but i think the final cut loses the voiceover. It definitely adds back the suggestion that Deckard is a replicant himself (Scott thinks he is, but Harrison Ford, ironically, argues that Deckard isn't a Replicant).
Read the IGN review at the link below. It's long, but worth the read. It might be fun to shell out the extra dough for five-disc version instead of the two-disc set, so that you can actually see all the different versions and make your own decisions in the great "voiceover or no voiceover" debate. Either way, for those who love this film, you gotta buy this. For those who've never seen "Blade Runner"--you gotta buy this. A classic, with so much that influences film making to this day, a great retro/future look, fantastic acting (especially by Rutger Hauer). IGN review gives the film a 10 out of 10, and gives really high marks for audio and video presentation. I may have to delay buying "Planet Earth" in favor of this.... *********************************** http://dvd.ign.com/articles/841/841607p1.html Quite prescient, this Bryant fellow, don't you think? Sci-fi fans have been looking for that definitive Blade Runner magic ever since many of them first laid eyes on this groundbreaking movie way back when. That it took a whopping 25 years for this film to be finally done in a manner that befits its director Sir Ridley Scott's vision is a cinematic travesty. As any fan of the movie can attest to, Blade Runner's long-running saga of home video release delays, poor quality video transfers and the existence of an incredible six different versions of film (not counting Scott's latest version, dubbed "The Final Cut"), only helped to compound the problem of the movie not getting the true recognition that it so richly deserves. In fact, the film only received a lukewarm response from most moviegoers when it was first released in 1982. Many did not understand the complex story (even with the last-minute addition of a voice-over narration holding the audience's hand) and for what it was worth, it had to go up against the phenomenon that was E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial that fateful summer. Having a dark and almost despondent story certainly did not help its case when compared against the sunnier feel-good fairytale of E.T. It was only years later that Blade Runner began to garner considerable attention when it was released onto the home video market. With the popularity of VHS growing during the '80s, a whole new generation of sci-fi fans got the chance to experience Blade Runner for what it really was and many soon realized the genius of Ridley Scott's dystopian view of the future.... ... Without a doubt, Blade Runner secures its place among the top five sci-fi movies of all time. Its marriage of two genres, film noir and science fiction, proves to be a happy union, foreshadowing the emergence of the cyberpunk culture as a legitimate film genre -- evidenced by the popularity of The Matrix trilogy years later. Its dark and complex subject matter may have turned off audiences when it was first released in 1982, but just like the best films, it has been able to stand the test of time and has emerged on an even stronger footing. This latest feature-laden box set of Blade Runner is the best homage anyone can pay to a now-classic sci-fi film. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
