Barnes & Noble

One of the most beautiful and visually influential science-fiction films ever made, Blade Runner established a futuristic film-noir style that combines and transcends the sci-fi and detective genres while pondering the nature of what it means to be human. Set in 2019, Los Angeles, director Ridley Scott's adaptation of author Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? stars Harrison Ford as world-weary android-hunter Rick Deckard, who slogs through the nightmarishly run-down, overcrowded urban dystopia that L.A. has devolved into, attempting to find and kill four escaped "replicants" -- physically superior artificial people bred for slavery. In the process of his investigation, he falls in love with a next-generation replicant (Sean Young), who is initially unaware that her human "memory" is largely implanted. Rutger Hauer, as the dangerous yet tragic replicant leader, and William Sanderson, as and infirmed, soul-burdened tinkerer who helped design the androids, turn in performances as stunning as the film's production design. For Blade Runner: The Director's Cut (1992), Scott removed Ford's noir-ish narration, changed the happily-ever-after ending (which had been added at the studios insistence), and added a short, dreamlike scene involving a unicorn that expanded Deckard's unspoken anxiety over his own murky nativity. Frank Lovece

All Movie Guide

A blend of science fiction and noir detective fiction, Blade Runner (1982) was a box office and critical bust upon its initial exhibition, but its unique postmodern production design became hugely influential within the sci-fi genre, and the film gained a significant cult following that increased its stature. Harrison Ford stars as Rick Deckard, a retired cop in Los Angeles circa 2019. L.A. has become a pan-cultural dystopia of corporate advertising, pollution and flying automobiles, as well as replicants, human-like androids with short life spans built by the Tyrell Corporation for use in dangerous off-world colonization. Deckard's former job in the police department was as a talented blade runner, a euphemism for detectives that hunt down and assassinate rogue replicants. Called before his one-time superior (M. Emmett Walsh), Deckard is forced back into active duty. A quartet of replicants led by Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) has escaped and headed to Earth, killing several humans in the process. After meeting with the eccentric Eldon Tyrell (Joe Turkel), creator of the replicants, Deckard finds and eliminates Zhora (Joanna Cassidy), one of his targets. Attacked by another replicant, Leon (Brion James), Deckard is about to be killed when he's saved by Rachael (Sean Young), Tyrell's assistant and a replicant who's unaware of her true nature. In the meantime, Batty and his replicant pleasure model lover, Pris (Darryl Hannah) use a dying inventor, J.F. Sebastian (William Sanderson) to get close to Tyrell and murder him. Deckard tracks the pair to Sebastian's, where a bloody and violent final confrontation between Deckard and Batty takes place on a skyscraper rooftop high above the city. In 1992, Ridley Scott released a popular director's cut that removed Deckard's narration, added a dream sequence, and excised a happy ending imposed by the results of test screenings; these legendary behind-the-scenes battles were chronicled in a 1996 tome, Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner by Paul M. Sammon. Karl Williams

Product Details

• UPC: 085391144823
• Source: WARNER HOME VIDEO
• Editions: Special Edition
• Time: 1:57:00
• Sales Rank: 1,235

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