Two interviews for 'Blade Runner' fans
December 8, 2007 1:59 PM   Subscribe

This link goes to an discussion with 'Future Noir' author Paul Sammon... then this one goes to a Q&A with 'BR' director Ridley Scott, talking about the upcoming re-release.
posted by Rajamadan (12 comments total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
Concise.
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 2:55 PM on December 8, 2007


Oh, what's Scott gonna change about the movie in THIS interview?
posted by Legomancer at 3:47 PM on December 8, 2007


I really REALLY wish that Sammon would do an updated 2nd Edition of 'Future Noir' to tie in with the "Final Edition" of BR.

I was able to see the Final Edition a couple of days ago thanks to certain P2P protocols (I've got the 5-disc set preordered) and it is EXCELLENT.
posted by mrbill at 4:13 PM on December 8, 2007


Didn't the "upcoming re-release" happen already? Because I saw it in a theatre several weeks ago (with the added scenes, etc.)
posted by grumblebee at 4:17 PM on December 8, 2007


Most people are awaiting the DVD set release, as the theatrical version only showed in a few select cities.
posted by mrbill at 5:27 PM on December 8, 2007


That theater re-release came and went without me noticing. I really would have liked to see it at the Zigfield. How was it?
posted by Bookhouse at 6:39 PM on December 8, 2007


For those who didn't get to see the theatrical release: holy cow. The remastering/re-editing are really well done. Takes it from a movie I knew I was supposed to like, but always felt ambivalent about, to a movie I actually liked.
posted by louie at 6:42 PM on December 8, 2007


I saw it about a month ago. It looked and sounded gorgeous in digital projection.

The edit is not extremely different from previous versions -- just a few extra bits of footage here and there. But the enhanced sound and color make the experience better than ever.

It looked like they had especially taken pains to make the various matte paintings blend in better, in the shots where they were used. Some of those mattes used to stick out rather obviously; now the sense of immersion in 2019 LA is much more seamless.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 9:48 PM on December 8, 2007


I just saw the Final Cut tonight (stupid movie theater had a shaky projector and didn't matte the picture properly, so the first frame of every cut had a burst of between-frame data showing).

Basically it's a neatly-trimmed edit of the Director's Cut version with some of the movie's more obvious technical/efx gaffes corrected. Batty says "father" instead of "fucker" and really does a number on Tyrell's eyes, flying-car wires are erased, Zhora no longer has a bad stunt double, and doves fly away with proper continuity. And the sound is lovely.

On the big screen, the "glowing eyes" shots of the replicants (Rachel and Pris; I didn't notice any Deckard, although they're supposed to be there) are way more obvious than on video. (How did they do that? Diffused lighting offscreen?)
posted by neckro23 at 10:51 PM on December 8, 2007


From the Blade Runner FAQ: The glowing eye effect was achieved by bouncing light off a half-mirrored glass mounted at a forty-five degree angle on the camera.
posted by mrbill at 8:38 AM on December 9, 2007


Maybe I misunderstood something, but the glowing-eye thing really bugged me. It was a cool-looking effect, but they made a big deal in the film about how hard it is to tell if someone is a replicant or not. But I kept thinking: why not just look at them and see if their eyes glow?
posted by grumblebee at 9:50 AM on December 9, 2007


Oh, and I read this: The use of the glowing eyes is a narrational device, a cinematic technique employed by the movie's makers to tell the audience who is a replicant and who is not. This "device" goes outside of the movie's reality, meaning: we, the audience, see it, but the characters in the movie *do not*. Hence the importance of the V-K test, which in the story is the only way to tell a replicant apart from a human.

But I don't think they set up the convention rigorously. I sort of assumed that was the intent, but it took me out of the (otherwise super-immersive) world of the movie, because it made me start thinking about What The Filmmakers Want Me To Get.
posted by grumblebee at 9:53 AM on December 9, 2007


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