Gaspari: Bladerunner Voice-overs!

In Ridley Scott's Bladerunner (1982), there is a definite sense of film noir, detective and mysterious themes. However, in the film we do not experience much mystery as from the beginning of the film we are basically introduced to the gist of what the film is about. On top of this though, we have a boring voice-over track narrated by Harrison Ford which does the film no justice. I think one of the main problems with the voice-over is that it doesn't really provide any extra element of exposition, because from the get go we see that Deckard is set out to terminate the nexus-6 replicants. In some ways this addition to the film could be useful as a tool to keep the audience from getting confused, but I think it is fairly clear the direction of the film and there are really no twists in the film. 
       

        The decision to add the voice-over track was made by the producers at Tandem Productions Inc. For some reason they thought that adding narration to the story would help increase the appeal of the film. Harrison Ford doesn't do a great job of narrating, and some even say that he intentionally did poorly to try and have the voice-over omitted from the film. In any case, the voice-over comes off as dreary and unnecessary. Although, there were some reasons that make sense as to why this voice-over was added. Bladerunner was different from other Harrison Ford films and it needed something more. “Clearly, the public was expecting another ‘feel good’ space movie with Harrison Ford cracking jokes in between blasting aliens with a ray gun. What they got was an antiseptic, downbeat detective story that apparently would not play in New York or Los Angeles, let alone those all important drive-ins in the Midwest” (Pfeiffer 124). This is one reason that the voice-over was added, poor screening results prompted the producers to make changes, and then this resulted in the subsequent voice-over

        In my opinion, the voice-over is not necessarily a complete failure, but at the same time it didn't leave a good impression on me. I think that the narration was boring and it dragged on. Although it could have helped some stay on pace, for anyone who has an idea of what the film is about no narration is necessary.