Blade Runner: The Final, Final Cut of the Cult Classic

25 years after the release of Blade Run­ner, Rid­ley Scott has assem­bled a final and defin­i­tive direc­tor’s cut of the film, giv­ing audi­ences the chance to see the film as Scott orig­i­nal­ly intend­ed it.Before the film’s orig­i­nal release in 1982, pre­view screen­ings went hor­ri­bly, and the mon­ey men stepped in and imposed changes on the aes­thet­ic and nar­ra­tive. Voice-overs and hap­py end­ings were added. New film shot. Dia­logue changed. “I went along with the idea that we had to do cer­tain things to get audi­ences inter­est­ed,” Scott lament­ed in an arti­cle in appear­ing this week­end’s New York Times. “I lat­er real­ized that once I adopt­ed that line, I was sell­ing my soul to the dev­il, inch by inch drift­ing from my orig­i­nal conception.”This is actu­al­ly Scot­t’s sec­ond attempt at cre­at­ing a final cut. Back in 1992, he took a first crack at revis­ing Blade Run­ner. But he ulti­mate­ly did­n’t have the time and resources to get the job done as he liked. Now, just in time to cap­i­tal­ize on the 25th anniver­sary of the film, he’s releas­ing what he calls the final, final cut. The movie will be released in New York and Los Ange­les the­aters on Octo­ber 5, and by Christ­mas, you can buy it on DVD. (Actu­al­ly, it can already be pre-ordered on Ama­zon.)If you have a free moment, you may want to watch the audio slideshow that the Times put togeth­er on the cult clas­sic as well as the new film’s trail­er (see below). And to get even more info on this film’s mak­ing and remak­ing, see this arti­cle by MTV’s Kurt Loder.