Quit Screwin' Around With BLADE RUNNER!

So yesterday around 3-ish Pacific, 5-ish Texas, I received a voicemail from Doctor Feathermore, and I didn't even need to check it to know what it was about. The big news for us, and the rest of the BLADE RUNNER cult/unit yesterday was the announcement of "reshoots" currently underway for the upcoming "Definitive Edition" DVD. Apparently Joanna Cassidy is reprising her role as replicant snake-burlesque performer Zhora, and re-shooting (jeez, lot of "re-" there) the famous getting-blasted-in-the-back-while-running-through-plate-glass scene that features an infamous continuity gaffe (slight, in my opinion) with a stuntman in bad drag. Um, okay. Whatever. I think it's really stupid to go back and tinker with films, because mistakes happen, it's hard to make films like this without a few wires showing on your flying cars, and ultimately I think it's cheating. I think you shoot, edit, score, and release, and barring any studio interference with the director's final cut, you treat your work like a child being pushed into the world to fend for itself...

BLADE RUNNER has mistakes. We're talking about '82 here - a time when F/X merely consisted of mattes and models. The good ol' days as I like to call it. BLADE RUNNER, for being 25 years old still looks to me as if it came out yesterday. It is flawless, depending on what edition you have. You see, it has already gone through several different versions, and now this upcoming upgrade will be at least the fifth. The version I grew up with was "The Version Too Violent For Theaters" or something like that. I got it in the seventh grade at Wal-Mart of all places (which was the only place to buy anything in Waxahachie, TX ca. 1990), and I watched it every single day that Summer. No joke. Now, you can't even get this on DVD, for that version is Scott's 1992 "Director's Cut" which omits the neo-noir narration (everyone hated that except me - they had seen "noir" films from the 40s and 50s, right?), added some gay-ass stock footage of a unicorn, presumably from LEGEND, for Deckard's dream (I thought they dreamt of electric sheep), and they cut out some Roy Batty eye-gouging (ALL of which is intact on my beloved VHS copy).

BLADE RUNNER is one of my "one-man-show" movies where I can recite it line-for-brilliant-line in savant-like fashion, much to the chagrin of anyone unfortunate enough to be around me . I love it. The script, the cinematography, the performances, the production design - all of it legendary. I think it is one of the top 5 sci-fi movies ever made. I know the Doctor shares this sentiment, as does the lovely Lady Feathermore. Ridley Scott just needs to leave his greatest movie alone. This is his masterpiece. I really wish he would stop meddling with it, and let it go gently into the good night, warts and all. Now give me my version on DVD you pretentious old sod!

And yes Chad, if they add CGI hover-cars, there will be war.