Blade Runner: The Final Cut (2 Discs)

Ridley's succeeded in ruining a once brilliant film.
It starts off alright, but after about 5 minutes you start to realise there's something wrong.
The extended scenes are great. The new soundtrack is brilliant. But the colour balance is terrible.
Blade Runner has always been famous for its stunning visuals. Well there not stunning anymore. There seems to be a modern trend for messing up the colour balance on films. Ridleys jumped on the bandwagon. All the outdoor scenes (in the Final Cut) have now got a
bluish green tinge to them, all the indoor scenes now have a yellowish tinge to them.
Everybody looks like they're suffering from jaundice.
The reds,greens,yellows,purples etc. all look wrong now. Even the brightness is now a mess, in some scenes you can't see anything.
Scenes that once took your breath away have now lost all impact. No more golden sunset outside the Tyrell building when Deckard is doing the "Voight Kamph?" test on rachel. Its now a… more »

Ridley's succeeded in ruining a once brilliant film.
It starts off alright, but after about 5 minutes you start to realise there's something wrong.
The extended scenes are great. The new soundtrack is brilliant. But the colour balance is terrible.
Blade Runner has always been famous for its stunning visuals. Well there not stunning anymore. There seems to be a modern trend for messing up the colour balance on films. Ridleys jumped on the bandwagon. All the outdoor scenes (in the Final Cut) have now got a
bluish green tinge to them, all the indoor scenes now have a yellowish tinge to them.
Everybody looks like they're suffering from jaundice.
The reds,greens,yellows,purples etc. all look wrong now. Even the brightness is now a mess, in some scenes you can't see anything.
Scenes that once took your breath away have now lost all impact. No more golden sunset outside the Tyrell building when Deckard is doing the "Voight Kamph?" test on rachel. Its now a yellow sunset. No more orange sunlight on Deckards face as he and Gaff fly to Leons hotel room. When Deckards in his apartment zooming in and out of the photograph. There's no colour to it. It's in black and white now.
No more beautifully coloured neon lights. Everythings either bluish or yellowish.
If you look at the filmclips in the documentary and the deleted scenes on disc 4. The colour balance and brightness are perfect ,and those clips are still stunning.
Why couldn't he have left the colour balance alone?.
The colour balance on the first DVD release (the grainy Directors Cut from a few years ago) was perfect.
The casual Blade Runner watcher probably couldn't careless. But for a fan of many years, like myself, it's very disappointing.

A mixture of genres. Ostensibly science fiction but riddled with other influences - hard-boiled crime fiction, film noir, and dystopian visions. The set designs, costumes, the mise-en-scene - incredibly dark and atmospheric, and a totally believable vision of the future. Like noir fiction, the cop is not simply a detective investigating a crime, but using that style in order to reveal so much more. Steeped in atmosphere, detail, every scene is meticulously lit and shot. Very few science fiction films compare to it, and it holds up superbly to this day. In comparison, films like Terminator look amateurish and sensational.

To modern sensibilities (i.e. those viewers under 20), I can understand why it might seem slow and ponderous at times. But you've had your synapses fused by bad TV and rubbish editing. For anyone else, this film is a masterclass in film-making; it transcends the source material (the strange but wonderful story by Philip K Dick), and transcends the usual sci-fi… more »

A mixture of genres. Ostensibly science fiction but riddled with other influences - hard-boiled crime fiction, film noir, and dystopian visions. The set designs, costumes, the mise-en-scene - incredibly dark and atmospheric, and a totally believable vision of the future. Like noir fiction, the cop is not simply a detective investigating a crime, but using that style in order to reveal so much more. Steeped in atmosphere, detail, every scene is meticulously lit and shot. Very few science fiction films compare to it, and it holds up superbly to this day. In comparison, films like Terminator look amateurish and sensational.

To modern sensibilities (i.e. those viewers under 20), I can understand why it might seem slow and ponderous at times. But you've had your synapses fused by bad TV and rubbish editing. For anyone else, this film is a masterclass in film-making; it transcends the source material (the strange but wonderful story by Philip K Dick), and transcends the usual sci-fi genre conventions.

The underlying existential questions of who is a replicant, and who a human, has a dark resonance that will stay with you long after watching this film. One to watch and savour again and again.