Bladerunner: the Final Cut
Dec. 14th, 2014 09:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shapinglightOkay, so probably most of you have seen this, but I hadn't. Until today, when, for some reason, my local cinema had a one-off showing of it in the early evening.
Blown away all over again, not least by my own nerdiness about this film.
Spoilers behind cut.
Not sure if I've mentioned ever that I'm a big Bladerunner fan? Have been since it first came out in 1982, in the version with the voiceover and the tacked-on happy ending. I loved it - so much, in fact, that I went to see it at the cinema ten times, dragging everyone I could think of to see it with me (even my mum, who later confessed to my sister that she'd hated it), and when I couldn't find anyone, going by myself.
I loved it so much that it inspired me to write fanfic. I wrote three stories set in my own take on the Bladerunnerverse, which at the time I was very pleased with (no idea what happened to them, btw, I suspect the only copies are on an old 5 and a quarter inch floppy disc).
In short, I knew the film inside-out.
Which is something that added an extra layer to tonight's experience. Yes, I've seen the original Director's Cut, but never this final version. And I could see every single thing that had been changed or improved. The only change I wouldn't call an improvement is the added footage of Batty's murder of Tyrell. That was too horrific for me twenty two years ago, let alone now when I'm a lot more squeamish.
Still and all, at least knowing the film as well as I do, I knew when to look away.
(Must admit, too, that the Deckard/Rachael love scene, though unchanged, is pretty disturbing, very much verging on non-con (and yes, I did realise this all those years ago too). Now, I think that Scott directed the scene the way he did because he had this idea that Deckard, too, was a replicant, and wanted to make it look like neither Deckard nor Rachael really knew what they were doing.
Maybe not. The whole Deckard-as-replicant never worked for me anyway).
But everything else that was changed - yeah, an improvement, and it's still a fantastic looking film with beautifully realised world-building and great special effects that don't rely on CGI at all, and yet still look magnificent.
So, so impressed still.
Blown away all over again, not least by my own nerdiness about this film.
Spoilers behind cut.
Not sure if I've mentioned ever that I'm a big Bladerunner fan? Have been since it first came out in 1982, in the version with the voiceover and the tacked-on happy ending. I loved it - so much, in fact, that I went to see it at the cinema ten times, dragging everyone I could think of to see it with me (even my mum, who later confessed to my sister that she'd hated it), and when I couldn't find anyone, going by myself.
I loved it so much that it inspired me to write fanfic. I wrote three stories set in my own take on the Bladerunnerverse, which at the time I was very pleased with (no idea what happened to them, btw, I suspect the only copies are on an old 5 and a quarter inch floppy disc).
In short, I knew the film inside-out.
Which is something that added an extra layer to tonight's experience. Yes, I've seen the original Director's Cut, but never this final version. And I could see every single thing that had been changed or improved. The only change I wouldn't call an improvement is the added footage of Batty's murder of Tyrell. That was too horrific for me twenty two years ago, let alone now when I'm a lot more squeamish.
Still and all, at least knowing the film as well as I do, I knew when to look away.
(Must admit, too, that the Deckard/Rachael love scene, though unchanged, is pretty disturbing, very much verging on non-con (and yes, I did realise this all those years ago too). Now, I think that Scott directed the scene the way he did because he had this idea that Deckard, too, was a replicant, and wanted to make it look like neither Deckard nor Rachael really knew what they were doing.
Maybe not. The whole Deckard-as-replicant never worked for me anyway).
But everything else that was changed - yeah, an improvement, and it's still a fantastic looking film with beautifully realised world-building and great special effects that don't rely on CGI at all, and yet still look magnificent.
So, so impressed still.