Which Blade Runner Version is Best?
I feel
that the Director's Cut does not really change the meaning of the film too
much. All of the main themes were still prevalent in the film, but the biggest
change was most likely the medium that these themes were presented. Taking out
the voice overs really forced the audience to think more deeply about the film
instead of being spoon-fed all of the information, and eventually losing all of
the mystery of figuring out events in the film. This was echoed by the staff in
which the subtleties of the film were possibly destroyed by the narration
(Pfeiffer 124). These subtleties were what made the film more enticing, in my
opinion.
I
personally think Ridley Scott thought that it was necessary to change the film
because as a filmmaker, he wanted to probably reach the audience through film
techniques and communicate through them instead of being straight up told the
details of the film. This almost seems insulting to a filmmaker in that one can
surmise that the filmmaker might be so bad that a narration was needed to
communicate the main themes. Additionally, the narration was poorly done by
Harrison Ford, and in order to improve the film, only two options remained:
either delete the narration out completely or have Harrison Ford redo the voice
over with possibly different dialogue in order to allow more focus to shift
towards the film techniques. This deletion of the voice over narration is the
most essential difference in the 1991 film, but also the deletion of the final
ending scene was just as impactful. The ending scene seemed like an unnecessary
ending, and in my opinion, took away from the mystique of the film. By leaving
the ending at the elevator door closing scene in the film, it accentuated the
close of the film and left room for wonder.
In my
opinion, the 1991 Director's Cut rendition communicated the film's thematic
messages more inherently to the audience. I say inherently because if a person
more organically learns a concept, it gets embedded in a deeper part of the
brain. This is similar to hands-on interactive learning versus learning from a
lecture. Therefore, if the audience is told via narration of information that
could be subliminally learned, then the audience will not have as strong as a
reaction that they could. Ironically, the audience would not be able to
empathize too well with the film and its characters or even develop along with
the characters. To have a more effective result from the film, a filmmaker
needs to get the audience invested in the characters or the plot. The
characters and plot were very well thought out, but the execution eventually
ended up poorly.
I agree that the Director's Cut changes the meaning of the film, but only slightly. Ridley Scott most likely thought it was necessary to change the film because the original was not his project, it was a struggle of power between him and the executive producers. Scott, like most artist are in there crafts of work to make art for their peers and the rest if the population to admire. Unlike directors, producers are in the business to make a profit. They may still greatly care about the project, but their job is to make the company profit.
ReplyDeleteRidley felt that as an artist it was his job to provide the best possible version of his work. Something that he could gladly put his name on. The original version did indeed "spoon feed" its audience the plot and themes of the film which greatly took away its seriousness, making it feel like sort of a joke. The Director's Cut provides better reasoning to question the thin and blurred line of what truly separates humans and replicates. Unlike the first release of the film in 1982, which tried to simply the movie by adding the "Hollywood ending", the 1991 rendition leads the audience to question whether or not Deckard is a replicant. This is a huge change from the original because, although it gave hints of Deckard being a replicant, the ending completely destroyed this because it changed the meaning of the film. The original ending concludes with the fact the Deckard realizing that he loves Rachel and him learning to see replicants in a new and better life.