BLADE RUNNER - Director's Cut Review

What does it mean to be human? What is human? What is it that defines us sentient beings? These are the questions at the core of Ridley Scott’s sci-fi noir classic, Blade Runner.
On its initial release in 1982, the film failed. People didn’t understand it; they didn’t like the last minute voice over narration or the drive off into the country- side ending. So in 1991, the Director’s Cut version of the film was released with out the narration, and with several important improvements to the edit. This is the version we are looking at here, as it was this one that turned things around and renewed interest and excitement for the story, and in my opinion, is one of the best examples of the sci- fi genre.
The special effects all pre date the modern CGI and are far more effective as a result. Where today’s films rely on these overblown and overused extravagant scenes of wonder, Blade Runner’s 21st century future Los Angeles, with all it’s huge buildings and flying cars, is an illusion created by the skilled use of models and wires and matte paintings on glass. These effects shots evoke a far more engaging and hypnotic mood because of their subtleties than that of their modern counterparts.
The production is brilliant: the rain falling in the neon lit streets sends chills down your spine and combined with Vangelis’ truly haunting electronic score causes goose bumps on your arms. The mood is that tangible.
Although based on the Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, it is the vision of director Scott and the plethora of screen writers who were involved that have created an intelligent and possibly prophetic vision of the now near future. From hints at climate change, (it’s always raining) and globalisation, the environment on screen is never too implausible to relate to, now.
Harrison Ford is superb as the Blade Runner himself, Deckard, and Rutger Hauer plays the best role of his career in the lead Replicant, Roy Batty. It is between these two that the moral question lies: what is human? Deckard is cold, calculating and dispatches death upon his quarry without hesitation, like a machine. Batty, who is labelled the “baddie” of the piece, is animated, articulate and poetic. He is confronted with the fact that he is destined to die and so he questions his maker, in this case a robotics corporation, as humans would question their God from their deathbed. Batty’s actions may be wrong and deserve swift justice, he has killed, of course, but that is his crime to be punished, as it would be for a human. Not for having the desire to live.
The cast is rounded out by Sean Young as the beautiful Replicant Racheal, so advanced she isn’t aware she isn’t human; Darryl Hannah as rogue Replicant Pris and Edward James Olmos as the mysterious Gaff.
It’s poetry in motion, but not everyone likes poetry. There is much ambiguity and the audience needs to fill in some of the blanks, but this is intelligent film making. You don’t want to be spoon-fed a story like it was yoghurt to an infant, you want to use some of your imagination, to think and to engage with the characters and make your own assessment of them and the meanings and interpret what transpires before you.
After all, that’s only human.