One of the nerdiest conversations two sci-fi fans can have is about the merits of the different versions of Blade Runner. Which is best? What does one decision mean? How about another? And one person you’d never expect to weigh in on that is Harrison Ford himself.
Ford is, of course, the star of Blade Runner along with one or two other major sci-fi films. Even so, he’s not really a sci-fi nerd by any stretch of the imagination. However, in a new interview, he did offer a very specific answer to the question of which version of Blade Runner he likes best.
“I like any cut without the voiceover,” Ford told Variety. “When we first saw the film in script form, it had a narration. I felt strongly that the narration was not right for the film—I played a detective, and I really talked about the detective part of my job, but I didn’t appear to be doing it. So Ridley, the screenwriter, a producer, and I spent three weeks at my dining room table taking the information that was in the voice-overs and making it part of the scene experience.”
“And then at the end of the film, Warner Bros. said, ‘What the hell is going on here? I don’t understand this at all. Explain it.’ And the voice-over came back,” Ford continued. “I did the voiceover about six times, and nobody was ever happy with it. So I was glad that the film was finally released without it, which I think encourages the audience to be present in the story.”
Ford is right on the money here. Basically, before it was released in theaters, studio executives made Scott and his team tweak it, adding the explanatory voiceover as well as a new ending. The hope was to make it more accessible to general audiences. But, it backfired and undercut some of the intentions of the movie. That’s one of several reasons why the film didn’t find success upon original release.
Fast forward 10 years, and through a few fun twists of fate, a “Director’s Cut” of the film found its way to theaters and home video. It made a few significant changes, most pointedly removing the voiceover and leaving the ending more ambiguous, which added to the experience. Then, 15 years after that, Scott released a new “Final Cut,” which made several other smaller changes and is the only version of the film Ridley Scott had absolute control over.
That can be confusing to some, but only one thing matters. Harrison Ford prefers the later versions. That’s the movie he signed up to make, and that’s why he decided to revisit the role 10 years after the Final Cut with Blade Runner 2049. “I enjoyed the experience of making the second Blade Runner—to be fair, even more than I did the first one, because it wasn’t raining and it wasn’t night all the time,” Ford said.
Read more from Ford over at Variety. And debate away on if he’s right or not in the comments below.
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