re: Need Blade Runner help

So I didn't finish watching it last night. I was tired and dozing off and having trouble paying attention so i stopped it until i can watch it without making myself stay awake.

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But I should be good watching that version even though it’s not the preferred correct ?


If you haven't seen the film, I would watch whatever I could. I have every version of the film.

Do what you have to do.

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do NOT watch the theatre release version ...

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Call me old school but I love the voice overs. I saw this in the theater when it was released. I remember it distinctly because my friend and I watched John Carpenter's The Thing first, then snuck in to Blade Runner. What an awesome double feature for a couple of high school sophomore nerds!

Anyway, to me, the voice over is perfect. The deadpan, lifeless, emotionless tone perfectly reflects Deckard's own emotional state. He has lost his way, and has no hope for humanity. He's burnt out, sick of the violence and killing, numb to the world around him.

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My problem with the voice-overs isn't the concept. It's noir -- voice-overs fit the genre perfectly. My problem is they are badly written. They do exposition that doesn't need expositing (not a real word, to save you the google search) and much of the exposition is a helluva lot less interesting than the actual dialogue. I especially disliked the elegy for Roy, which completely paled compared to Roy's actual speech and behavior at the end. The very end, with the "happy ending" voice-over rankled even more, and the bit about don't know how long they have yadda yadda who does? was just a rehash of the similar and much more powerful line from Gaff about "too bad she won't live, but then again, who does?"

In the hands of a better writer (as I understand it, the studio brought in someone for this stuff) the voice-over could have been amazing. As it stands, it just doesn't live up to the high standards of the rest of the movie.

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was just a rehash of the similar and much more powerful line from Gaff about "too bad she won't live, but then again, who does?"

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Harrison Ford said that he and Ridley Scott had an agreement at the beginning to not do voiceovers. Ford was adament from the start that he did not want to do them and that he felt these things could be shown in the flim rather than told through narration.

He thought he was done filming and then Scott came to him and said you need to record those voiceovers. When Ford went to record them, Ridley was not around and the guy that wrote them was in total control and unwilling to change any of his writing. So Ford knew he just had to do them and get them over with.

Ford did say though that he was trying to be professional and did not intentionally sabotage the words or try to read them poorly. He said the writing was clunky and he was very tired and burnt out and did the best he could.


This is all from a 2007 interview with Paul Sammon. From the book Future Noir: the Making of Blade Runner.

The author has several long interviews in the back with ford, Hauer, Young, etc.