Blade Runner: The Original Theatrical Release vs The Director’s Cut Blade Runner, set in 2020 Los Angeles, is focused on Rick Deckard and his mission to hunt down and kill replicants. Originally these genetically engineered human-like individuals were only meant to live for a limited amount of time, so they returned to Earth in search of a longer life span. This film is ultimately centered around artificial intelligence, personal identity, and skepticism. The filmmakers used brilliant cinematography, production, design, and editing to make Blade Runner a thought provoking film. The cinematography of the film was truly what allowed the director to display how he wanted viewers to comprehend his work without noticing it. Light, specifically, was a major factor in influencing viewer’s moods throughout the film. The strong channels of light and backlighting is reminiscent of black and white movies, and although the film is set in 2020 this makes the film closely resemble a film straight out of the 1940s. The use of shafts of light, unusual camera angles, and high contrast were the factors giving it this effect. High contrast and backlighting gave the film a gloomy mood, and the rain and lightning only added to this. Ultimately, while Decker is on the streets it is clear that the director purposefully made the streets feel overcrowded. The people were packed into the streets, like ants, making them all appear the same. It seemed as if they were all going around in circles, going nowhere, and essentially just a part of the flow. Although the people on the streets seemed colorless and meaningless to the film, the streets were flooded with colorful neon light. Although these lights were the brightest things on the screen, it also seemed as if they were set at a very low level and just above the point of flickering. It was ultimately this neon lighting that influenced the futuristic, yet mysterious, mood of the movie. Due to the fact that this film was released in 1982, yet set in a futuristic 2020, there was quite a bit of production design needed in order to give it the space-age feeling. The aforementioned neon signs were a large part of the set design, due to the fact that they were the primary source of light on the streets. But interior sets had a smoky feel, with flashes of light simply providing visual stimulation. Many parts of these sets were quite physical, model-making was a necessary portion of production design. The Tyrell building, for example, involved expert model-making. Additionally, many of the shots used for aerial views involved a great deal of design. As stated by Christian Esquevin, “The construction of the cars and spinners was a huge job in itself, three shops were used that worked 18 hours a day for their manufacture, with 50 people working on the project for 5 months.” Due to the fact that Blade Runner is set 40 years in the future, futuristic designs were a key aspect of giving the film a sci-fi categorization. A significant Los Angeles landmark used on the Blade Runner set was the Bradbury Building, specifically the open atrium and wrought iron stairs. This building, although natural flooded with light, is dark and smoky in the film. With the use of light and shadows, as well as unnatural debris brought in for filming, the Blade Runner crew was able to make this gorgeous building something that it could have never naturally been. The point of production design, according to class PowerPoints, is not to reproduce a real space but to create the persuasive idea of a space, one that is essentially the stylized representation of the space. The space is meant to be an illusion, in which you are looking right at it but are unaware that it is designed. This is exactly the case for the set of Blade Runner. Because we are watching this much closer to the theoretical futuristic year than the production year, viewers knowingly analyze the differences. However, the set itself is intriguing and fascinating to say the least, and most would be unaware of the painstaking hours of set design necessary to achieve that. A key part of production design that played a significant role in Blade Runner is make-up and costumes. The replicant Pris, for example, displays an intoxicating look of a sexy black outfit including a dog caller, high heel boots over torn hose, and black raccoon eye makeup. This outfit seems eerily similar to the later sexy-punk trends, suiting her description as a “basic pleasure mode” in her police file. Throughout the film, there is constant rain meaning that a lot of up-keep was necessary to maintain costumes constantly, whether through having multiples or creating a costume that would not be greatly effected by the dampness. The editing of Blade Runner is where viewers can clearly differentiate the different versions of the film, specifically the theatrical version and the director’s cut. The first, and most glaring, difference between the two is Harrison Ford’s voiceover in the theatrical version of the film. It is quite clear that the director, Ridley Scott, was opposed to the voiceover because it seemed unnecessary. However, for the released theatrical version the voiceover served the function of explaining plot elements that may have been lost on the average viewer. Editing was ultimately the major difference between the theatrical and director’s cut, for more than just this reason. Additionally, the director’s cut removed the ‘happy ending’ that was originally imposed by the studio. This version ends ambiguously with the elevator doors closing. The removal of the original studio ending is something that, in my opinion, was largely artistic and up to the director. Although it completely changed how viewers saw the film, it allowed Scott to dictate how he wanted us to understand the story he had been trying to tell all along. The director’s cut also added a dream sequence of a unicorn, in which a detective places an origami unicorn where Deckard can see it. This ultimately leads us to believe that Deckard himself could be a replicant, assuming the detective was aware of his memories as well. This additional scene, in my opinion, is what makes the director’s cut of the film much more artistic and thought provoking. When viewers see the unicorn, the question of personal identity and the skepticism that comes along with that is brought into the picture. The subject of implantation, which when done to a replicant makes them believe they are something that they are not, completely falsified our own knowledge of who we are. Personal identity, although clearly displayed through Rachael, Pisi, and other replicants, is especially questioned with Deckard. Because Rachael is a replicant he is fully aware of her memories, but this dream forces one to question him. The Voight-Kampff test, the test Deckard uses to determine if someone is a human or a replicant, has never been performed on him because he originated the test. When viewing the two versions side-by-side, it is clear the color-scheme is quite edited between the two. In the theatrical version, there is what seems to be a brighter white-wash over the entire film. The colors are a bit clearer and crisper, which lessens the implied feeling of a dark and gloomy future. With this brighter wash of light, the backlighting is less effective in creating the intended mood. However, this type of lighting seems more futuristic. In the director’s cut, there is a warm, dark wash throughout the film. This coloring gives a wash of mystery that is highly correlated with the overall theme of Blade Runner. This is also a reason I think the director’s cut is more artistic, because the editing done to the colors in both versions clearly displays the director’s intention for how he wanted viewers to interpret the mood of the film. Ultimately, the director’s cut displayed much more of Scott’s original intentions. After watching both versions of the film, I can say with certainty that the director’s cut is superior artistically. It is significantly more thought provoking for the viewer, and clearly the director put much more thought into this version. The inner-thought monologue, although there to provide some guidance to viewers throughout the film, merely takes away the intellectually provoking aspects of the film. The studio controlled many aspects of the theatrical version, therefore less creativity was implemented during the editing process. Ultimately, the director’s cut is more artistic because it is well edited, implements thought provoking scenes, and forces viewers to philosophically question many things.

Works Cited
Blade Runner. Dir. Ridley Scott. Prod. Ridley Scott and Hampton Francher. By Hampton Francher and David Webb Peoples. Perf. Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, and Sean Young. Warner Bros., 1982. DVD.
Blade Runner: The Director’s Cut. Dir. Ridley Scott. Prod. Ridley Scott and Hampton Francher. By Hampton Francher and David Webb Peoples. Perf. Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, and Sean Young. Warner Bros., 1992. DVD.
Esquevin, Christian. "The Look of Blade Runner." Silver Screen Modes. N.p., 05 Mar. 2014. Web. 17 Dec. 2015.