Released by Warner Home Video

Directed by Ridley Scott

Starring Harrison Ford, Sean Young, Rutger Hauer, and Daryl Hannah

Despite the unicorn figurine, the toy spinner car, the lenticular motion film strip, and the plastic Voight-Kampff briefcase that holds the five discs, The Ultimate Collector’s Edition of Blade Runner is an exquisite art house release with all the attention and detail you would normally expect from the Criterion Collection or Rhino Entertainment. Hidden amongst the delightful toy packaging is a thoughtful, intelligent, and provocative exploration of one of the most compelling and insightful science fiction films in history.

Over the course of the collection’s nine hours of featurettes and documentaries, Blade Runner is taken seriously, both as a seminal piece of visual literature and as a work that has endured decades of abuse and rediscovery. From an insightful treatment on author Philip K. Dick himself to the unfathomably relaxed and open interviews with the film’s script writers, producers, and crew, the making of content manages to put on the screen what Paul M. Sammon captured in his book “Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner” (in fact he’s included amongst the interviews). What might normally be a very dry, matter-of-fact presentation about the minutiae that goes into making a big budget film is instead replaced by a story unto itself as passionate creative-types battle over a difficult story in a war of art versus commerce.

The most valuable piece of the whole collection, quite surprisingly, is the new “Final Cut” version of Blade Runner. It is indeed the most thoroughly satisfying and true telling of the story. As there are already four different versions of the movie in existence (in fact included within this boxed set) it could be argued that a fifth version isn’t needed. Certainly not to sell the movie to fans again, not to better secure it’s place in movie history, and certainly not to create a version fit for digital video or high definition. The other four versions, especially the previous “Director’s Cut” can easily fulfill all those commercial needs.

And it is exactly for all those reasons that the “Final Cut” emerges superior as it is apparent that, for the very first time in this whole affair, director Ridley Scott was able to sit down and compose a version of the film without any contributing interest, pressures, or care for that matter from any of the usual players. Whether Scott created an incomprehensible four hour yawn-fest or a unicorn-obsessed extended Vangelis music video doesn’t matter. It certainly wouldn’t impact sales of this collector’s edition or its ability to be marketed to fans, with the other four versions already beloved amongst various demographics, Ridley Scott could bloody well do as he pleased. And he did.

“The Final Cut” is a slower telling of Blade Runner, one that takes extreme care with the narrative, spends a great deal more time on the acting and the characters, and gives more importance to the little subtleties that help add up to more complex ideas. The edits are longer, there’s more time on the screen for Harrison Ford and Sean Young to be contemplative, for Daryl Hannah and Rutger Hauer to show their vulnerabilities. Gone is the phony happy ending and the intrusive voice-over. In place are a number of little tweaks to add more detecting to Ford’s actions, and more room is given to the unicorn flashback sequence that better defines its role within the whole.

Blade Runner explores an intriguing question in a very fascinating way. If you build a machine to replicate a human being, can you reach a point where the lines between the copy and the original are blurred enough to deliver a kind of insight into the nature of what a human is? The Replicants in the film are presented as copies so indistinguishable from the real thing that only a sophisticated interview process using a “Voight-Kampff” machine can tell the difference. We learn from the head of the Tyrell Corporation which built them, that their evolution has gone from creating them to look and move as we do, to imbuing them with athletic prowess and high intelligence, to giving them personalities and social behaviour, but that it was emotions that became the ingredient to blur the lines the most, one that created havoc and malfunctions and lead them to include the final piece that sealed the illusion – memories. False memories, copied from real humans and implanted into the replicants “cushioned and support” the emotions. The resulting “Nexus 6” replicants became indistinguishable from their creators.

Are we but the sum of our memories? And if so what use is death if it wipes them clean? As with all of Philip K. Dick’s writings, the question is considered more interesting than the answer and the replicants in Blade Runner serve to accelerate that process. They have super human powers and the freedom to explore the cosmos, but only a four year lifespan. It’s cruel, it’s unfair, and a fate that we can certainly relate to. At the height of their abilities, they ask the questions we normally don’t stumble upon until old age.

Set in 2019, Blade Runner’s dystopian, albeit visionary and somewhat prophetic future, is itself a kind of replicant. Gone is any reference to nature, indeed even the animals themselves are so rare that only engineered copies exist to take their place. Pollution has replaced weather, large corporate pyramids have taken over the landscape and neon signs the moonlight. In our effort to re-design, re-engineer, and explore our environment, we have apparently replaced our world with copies both old and new. The city Harrison Ford explores is a multicultural mishmash filled with complexes both barren and over-populated, both dilapidated and new. Always hidden amongst the steam and oil-slicked rain, the world of Blade Runner itself seems to be composed of memories fading into misuse.

When Blade Runner first came out in 1982, the debate over whether Decker was a human or secretly a replicant himself may have seemed a silly one, but time has shown its staying power and with “The Final Cut” Scott gives it more weight, including subtle scenes that suggest Decker has glowing eyes and implanted memories. Its left open and you can decide for yourself which way the story goes. I find thinking of him as a machine helps to better explain the love scenes and his decision at the end, but the part of me that identifies with him wants him to be human. There are, of course, no easy answers.

Included is the original 1982 North American version, complete with voice-over and tacked on happy ending, the extended and slower European version, the original and comprehensive Work Print version that was shown at underground festivals, and the resulting, but rushed “Director’s Cut” version with its unicorn sequence released in 1992. No matter how you see and interpret Blade Runner, amongst the five versions is enough material to satisfy you.

Also added are a series of deleted scenes that have been linked together using extra voice-over dialogue into a kind of “sixth” annotated version of the film. It includes both alternate and new scenes such as moments where Deckard visits Holden, the first detective shot at the beginning, in the hospital. He asks Deckard openly if he’s having sex with one of the replicants.

Amongst the collection’s extras are many fun gems including a storyboard for an original opening sequence where Deckard fights a farmer and an extended sequence at the Tyrell building where Roy Batty discovers his “true” creator. There are screen tests from the casting sessions featuring different actresses considered for Rachel and Priss and tidbits from the special effects technicians (who admit that the top of the police building is actually the ship from Close Encounters of the Third Kind).

As gimmicky and commercial as the Blade Runner Five-Disc Ultimate Collector’s Edition may look (and sound with a title like that), its digital presentation is superb, with cleaned up special effects, restored visuals, and a remastered soundtrack for full surround sound systems. The over-all treatment of the film is exemplary and the way in which the documentaries and commentaries give depth and insight to a film that is often dismissed as just another Hollywood Blockbuster, reminds me of the way the Criterion Collection handled The Silence of the Lambs in their release.

Blade Runner: The Final Cut is available both as part of the Ultimate Collection and separately as a two-disc set. Both packages are available in DVD, HD-DVD, and Blu-Ray formats and while the film, despite being old, lends itself well to High Definition, as most of the extra material including the archival editions of the film have not been re-mastered, there’s no urgent need to get the HD version and it’s a release that is just as impressive to experience on traditional DVD.