Blade Runner's "Best" Cut Damaged The Movie In One Critical Way

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Many believe that Ridley Scott’s Final Cut of Blade Runner is the best version of this extraordinary and immensely influential science fiction thriller, but it actually damaged the film in one critical way. Though Scott’s immaculately transferred version of the film makes its doomy, dystopian 2019 Los Angeles vistas more awe-inspiring than ever, unobtrusively tightens the special effects, and rectifies some technical errors, this version also removes some of the ambiguity pertaining to the film’s long-debated conundrum over whether or not Harrison Ford's replicant-hunting protagonist, Deckard, is actually human.

Adapted from esteemed science fiction sci-fi writer Philip. K. Dick’s 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Blade Runner was first released into cinemas in the summer of 1982 in two versions—a U.S. theatrical release and a more violent international release. They were met with mixed critical reception and underwhelming box office returns. In the decades since, Scott has sought to go back to the film on numerous occasions in order to fully realize what he and his collaborators originally intended. The first significant revision came in the form of 1992’s Director’s Cut which omitted Harrison Ford’s studio-demanded narration and perfunctorily optimistic ending while planting the idea that Deckard may not actually be human. Later, 2007’s Final Cut would make the aforementioned refinements and push the ‘Deckard-being-a-replicant’ notion further. Though Blade Runner's theatrical cut has its defenders, Christopher Nolan among them, most agree that the best version of the film falls somewhere between Blade Runner's Director’s Cut and The Final Cut.

Related: Blade Runner's Multiple Cuts & Differences Explained