Blade Runner [Director's Cut]

Rating:
Summary: I like Blade Runner!
Review: I think Blade Runner is one of the all-time great science-fiction movies of all time! I especially like Darryl Hannah as an Android.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful to look at, but highly overrated
Review: I had high expectations before viewing "Blade Runner" -- it's based on "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep", one of the Philip K. Dick's best novels, and is well-liked by many people whose taste I respect...However, after watching it, I must say that it doesn't live up to the hype.

Visually, the film is gorgeous -- the omnipresent brown haze, the narrow, bustling streets, the giant video advertisements, Terrell Corporation's massive headquarters -- all create a believable, if none-too-pretty future.

Beyond the visuals and music though, there's not much here. The plot is simple -- replicants on the loose, cop hunts down replicants, cop fights replicants to the death. Replace replicant with "terrorist" or "murderer" or "bank robber", and you have nothing more than a pretty straightforward, uninteresting police movie. There's nothing wrong with a straightforward genre movie, but it needs to have some kind of intensity, which Blade Runner is completely lacking in. The characters are all flat, the plot goes from point A to point B without any kind of twists in the middle, and the potential philosophical issues having to do with ethics and identity and the nature of the human (all of which are explored in some depth in the original novel) are superficially skirted over.

Some reviewers have stated that the original version is superior to the directors cut. At some point, I would like to check out the original version, and see how it compares. Generally, voice-over narration in movies bugs me, but in this case, I think it would add to the film.

I do recommend that you check out P.K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep", on which "Blade Runner" was loosely based. This has everything the film is lacking -- likeable, sympathetic characters; philosophical depth; manic, intense plot. It's one of Dick's best, and I recommend it highly! Maybe one day a good movie will be made based on a PKD novel or story, but in the meantime, we can just read his books over and over again!

Rating:
Summary: Not Enough
Review: Ok. First, There is not a lot of content to this DVD. It would get a better rating if the directors's cut also had the non director's cut on the same DVD. Secound, The sound is not good. In other words you will not get good sound effects from your surround system. I got little sound out of my rear speakers which muffles the SS experience. This is a @9.99 DVD. Great Movie-Bad DVD

Rating:
Summary: The Directors' cut is Yuk!
Review: I have read many of the reviews here of the greatness and the glorious descriptions of the Directors cut and I just do see how anyone could write such positive things about a movie that had its heart and soul torn from it. The theatrical release is so much better than the directors' cut that they are not even in the same league. The directors' cut is dry, hard to follow and just leaves to with the feeling he did not have a clue in how to tell this story.

When you watch the theatrical release, you get so much more information with the narrative added. The narrative is done in a slow, mono tone type of voice that helps paint even a darker picture of the times and what man has done with his scientific know how. Blade Runner is one of the finest science fiction movies made but the Directors' cut looks and sounds are like taking the world's finest works of art and painting mustaches on them!

Stay with the theatrical release, you will find yourself enjoying it repeatedly. I can hardly wait for the theatrical release to come out on DVD. Save you money and buy that release, you will not be sorry.

Rating:
Summary: Studio Got Lazy On This One
Review: Warner Bros. shouldn't have released the Director's Cut by itself. They should have released a Criterion Collection containing the Director's Cut, as well as the Original Trailer, the extra violence only seen overseas, the footage cut from the Workprint (such as the Holden in the Hospital scene, and Zhora's snake dance) and maybe a Director's Commentary since almost every other Ridley Scott DVD has one! The fact of the matter is that there are way too many extra features never before seen to produce a DVD as bare-bones as this one is. Personally i would love to see the trailer, the hospital scene, and the extra violence but unfortunately this basic DVD is all that's out there.

Rating:
Summary: Most are wrong ...
Review: Most think the scene of a unicorn in the Director's Cut is "idiotic" ... people, you have to *watch* the movie -- especially with the narrative missing! One of "them" waiting for Decker makes a little unicorn from aluminum -- thus hinting that "they" know what Decker is thinking ... which in turn indicates that Decker himself might not be human. There are other scenes which hint to that ... The depth of the whole movie is unbelievable.

Rating:
Summary: Directors Cut is NOT a cut above!
Review: Directors Cut is NOT a cut above!

I always love to get the directors cut of a movie because you get all the scenes put back in that the studio cuts out. Mostly because they only want a movie to run two hrs. and they can turn the audiences over quicker or they want to be "politically correct!" I look forward to the scenes that are missing and detract from what the story is all about.

Alas, this is one time the studio was right. The theatrical release is so superior to the Directors cut that it is an embarrassment. With the voice over you get the feeling of what is on the mind of Deckard, sort of like a Bogart movie. You feel like it is a Sam Spade character and helps with a more in depth view of the character and what he is thinking. I have no idea what the director was thinking, but it was not about telling a story.

I have seen the theatrical release many times, well over 300 times and I can still watch it with the freshness of the very first time. I have seen the directors cut three times and on the third time I feel asleep it was so boring. I was shocked that one of the best science fiction movies ever made was so bad; I could no long watch it. The directors' cut is one of the best examples of a director gone wrong. Thanks to the studio for realizing the potential of this science fiction classic and making Mr. Scott add the voice over. Bravo!

I am sad to say that for once, the studio got it right and the director got it wrong!

Rating:
Summary: Options please.
Review: I give this a 1-star rating for Director's Cut. The original version rated 5 stars. The DC removed much vital information, like the background to the exchange when Decker is picked up to be forced back into work as a BR. The DC also inserted an idiotic scene of a unicorn trapsing through a glade - looked like it was lifted directly from "Legend."

I would venture that some preponderance of the intelligentsia expressing preference for the DC saw the OV first, thus they have already been exposed to the background info before seeing the DC. If you see the DC first, good luck. I wouldn't recommend seeing the DC at all. The OV is one of my favorite films. I resent that people who feel they know what the rest of the population's tastes "should" be have determined which version we may view.

Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece of vision and morality
Review: Too bad everyone wants to piss and moan about the sound and the relatively minor changes. I'd rather talk about the movie. Ridley Scott has created a vision. Creepy, dark, and grim. A negative view of the future. Murderous androids, led by Rutger Haur, are loose in L.A. in the not too distant future. Harrison Ford is Rick Decker, the bounty hunter or "blade runner" assigned to destroy them. Along the way, he falls in love with an android who, until recently, only suspected she was genetically engineered.

Her belief in her humanity allows her behave and think more like a human than almost all androids. Her very existence blurs the line between synthetic and human. If she doesn't know she's fake, its a good bet there are other androids who don't know what they are. Whether Decker is a "replicant" or not is a valid question. He's fairly unemotional and he's almost too good at tracking down the rogue androids.

Blade Runner raises all sorts of compelling moral issues concerning cloning. Why clone? For what purpose? Is it moral? Is giving an android a memory moral? What about giving them self-awareness, making them intelligent and enslaving them? Does their suffering outweigh their benefits? Do they deserve to know they are androids?

Blade Runner is visually stunning in so many different ways. Rutger Hauer and Harrison Ford are incredible. Mortal enemies who understand each other all too well. The atmospheric use of rain, artificial lights, futuristic cars and buildings, the complete lack of sunlight, the neon advertising, jam packed crowds and the use of smoke and steam. Moody and bleak. The future we want and the future-to-be barely resemble each other. A compelling moral and philosophical work and a brilliant artistic achievement.

Rating:
Summary: It Deserves Better
Review: As with almost all Director's cuts (maybe with the exception of Das Boot and Brazil (Criterion edition)),the film is diminished from its original release. The theatre voiced-over ending was much superior to this one and the unicorn sequence, other than contributing to the speculation that Decker is also Nexus, adds nothing to the film. You would have thought that at least the alternative ending would be on the disk, but sadly there are few extras.

Since there were so many possibilites for the DVD edition of the film it is disappointing that Scott and the Studio couldn't make a better product. Under the guise of artistic vision, Scott has taken what was an excellent film and turned it into one that is just ok. If you can find the original VHS tape anywhere grab it.