Didn't Ford allege that he'd done the narration as badly as he could because he and Scott hoped that if he did it poorly enough, the the studio wouldn't use it?

Don't know about Scott but Ford did. You can see that in the epic 4.5 documentary that accompanies the Final Cut.

That's an epic documentary.

I'd go with the Wesley Snipes version. Wait, that was Blade Trinity not Blade Runner.

The Director's Cut. No digital alterations. No CGI. No "color correction" in a poor attempt to make the film look sleeker and more modern. No narration. No happy ending.


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This X100. I hate that they messed with this movie.

I guess it depends on who you mean by "they." The original theatrical was not the version Ridley Scott wanted to release, but the one the producers did.

At least fans have access to all cuts though.

I agree with this to some extent. The Director's Cut would be my second choice but the fine tweeks in the The Final Cut makes it the most approachable version for a new comer to experience first.

I think the best overall version of Blade Runner is The Final Cut. But if want to retain the narration, then watch the International Cut.

I think the U.S. Theatrical Cut (which is like the PG-13 version of the International Cut, so only watch the USTC if young kids are in the room) as well as the Director's Cut (which is not an actual "director's cut") can both be skipped.

(However, the "Deleted Scenes" are definitely worth checking out because they are edited together like a short movie happening at the same time as the actual movie. And if you're a hardcore fan of the film, check out the "Workprint" version too.)

The theory behind the narration is solid, it grounds the movie in an obvious noir trope. Unfortunately, it's badly written and dully delivered, so the execution really doesn't work.

Yeah. In idea, the narration follows more with the nor typ. But it sucks.

Looking back at this thread, I'm surprised that anyone who wants the narration recommends the U.S. Theatrical Cut over the International Cut.

Both of these versions have the narration, with the only real difference being that the U.S. Theatrical Cut edits out a lot of the violent scenes, such as when you-know-who presses his thumbs into you-know-another-who's eyes (it's in the International Cut, but is missing from the U.S. Theatrical Cut). That's why I call the U.S. Theatrical Cut the "PG-13 version" of the International Cut because it really just edits out a lot of the violence. (It edits out so much, that it's almost like an "Edited-For-TV" version.)

BTW, The International Cut was the main Home Video version while the U.S. Theatrical Cut was seen mainly just on cable TV (that is, until both were replaced when the so-called "Director's Cut" was released).

Movie-Censorship.com has a number of comparison between two different versions of Blade Runner

The Final Cut vs. the Director's Cut

U.S. Theatrical Cut vs International Cut

Director's Cut vs U.S. Theatrical Cut

Director's Cut vs International Cut

Workprint vs Director's Cut

And one called Director's Cut vs Unrated Laserdisc Cut (which I think is probably just the International Cut)

Yeah, those two are comparing the same cuts, just on different media. The ID for the "Director's Cut vs Unrated Laserdisc Cut" indicates that the comparison was made a long time ago.

If you have the Blade Runner (30th Anniversary Collector's Edition) Blu-ray 3-Disc set, this is how to watch the "Deleted and Alternate Scenes" without having to individually select each one:

(step 1) load "Disc 3" (aka the one with the "Workprint" version and the "Dangerous Days" documentary)

(step 2) make these menu selections:
"Special Features" -> "Access" -> "Fabrication" -> "Play All"

(step 3) click your remote's "Chapter Skip Forward" button 4 times

And it will be on the "Deleted and Alternate Scenes" which, due to selecting "Play All", will now play all of them back-to-back for 48 minutes straight (there are a lot of them and they are well worth-seeing).

That was the version I saw in the theater and still prefer that. Do not see why that is hard to understand at all.

Wow. The DVD has a very straightforward play all option. Why do blu rays so frequently have overly complex menus?

Harrison Ford mentioned the narration in an interview with Playboy Magazine in 2002 ( LINK ), and he also repeated some of this in the later "Dangerous Days" documentary.

Basically, it seems late in the movie's production, the studio sent in some new writer to rewrite the narration (he had already recorded some earlier). And as the writer wrote new pages, they were handed to Harrison Ford to read into a microphone immediately without any preparation. So he read each one 8 to 10 times and let them work out which version of each line reading was best. So bad writing and lack of prep time seems to be the main problems with some of his readings, not him intentionally reading them badly.

Here's the excerpt on Blade Runner from the Playboy interview:

Playboy Magazine: When "Playboy" profiled Ridley Scott, he said you didn't much care for "Blade Runner", which has become a classic. Your performance is so spirited, but...

Harrison Ford: But you hated the narration.

Playboy Magazine: Did you deliberately read it badly, hoping they'd drop it?

Harrison Ford: I was compelled by my contract to do the narration. When I first agreed to do the film, I told Ridley there was too much information given to the audience in narration. I said, "Let's take it out and put it into scenes and let the audience acquire this information in a narrative fashion, without being told it." And he said it was a good idea. We sat around the kitchen table and we did it. When we got done, the studio said nobody will understand this f*ing movie. We have to create a narrative. They had already thrown Ridley off the movie - they were over budget. So I was compelled by my contract to record this narration, which I did five or six different times. Finally, I show up to do it for the last time and there's this old Hollywood writer sitting there, pipe sticking out of his mouth, pounding away at this portable typewriter in one of the studios. I had never seen this guy before, so I stuck my head in and said, "Hi, I'm Harrison Ford." He kind of waves me off. He came to hand me his pages. To this day, I still don't remember who he was, and so I said, "Look, I've done this five times before. I'm not going to argue with you about anything. I've argued and I've never won, so I'm just going to read this 10 times, and you guys do with it what you will." I did that.

Did I deliberately do it badly? No. I delivered it to the best of my ability given that I had no input. I never thought they'd use it. But I didn't try and sandbag it. It was simply bad narration.

Playboy Magazine: Scott expressed regrets about the film to "Playboy", mainly that he didn't stand up for it more. He said he was a young English chap who felt compelled to please, when he should have told them all to f* off.

Harrison Ford: Well, me included, probably. Ridley and I have made our peace. I had a great time making the movie - most of the time. He had one idea that he didn't reveal to me, which he thought was fair game and I didn't. All of our contentions are about whether my character was a replicant or not. And I was convinced, and still am, that for the audience to participate, they have to feel that there was one person on-screen who was their emotional representative, and that person had to be a real person. Ridley turned that on its ass at the last minute, saying maybe he is a replicant. I said, "How dare you?" We still kick it around, but I am eager to work with him again.

I've read Paul Sammon's Future Noir which answers nearly everything about Blade Runner, but here's a question I can't recall the answer to:

What's the deal with the US and European cut? For the US version they removed a few shots of more extreme violence, but the film still received an "R" rating in America. Was the violence cut in hopes of getting a PG? When they failed to get a PG why didn't they just release it with the violence left in?

As I understand it, those cuts were made to Blade Runner to get an R-rating. Without them, the ratings board was going to give the movie an X-rating (this was 1982, after all, when such extreme violence was rare, and it was long before the NC-17 rating and even before the PG-13 rating existed). That's why, when the home video (VHS and Laserdisc) versions used the International Cut, it was listed as an "Unrated" version.

(Nowadays, the International Cut would get an R-rating with no problems.)

I contend that the international version would have got an R rating even back then. There's nothing that gory. The blood from the eyes, the nail through the hand, and Pris jamming her fingers up his nose. Stuff like Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid had more visceral violence than anything in the international version.

The BBFC was much more scissor happy than America back then when it came to violence and they passed it uncut right?

The thumbs into the eyes is rather gory when it's the uncut scene. And I've read or heard somewhere that the studio cut the more graphic violence just to be sure the movie got an R-rating. But it was a pre-emptive cut so there is a chance the ratings board would've given it an R-rating anyway - it's just maybe the studio was afraid it would get an X-rating and edited it before even submitting it.

Or another possibility is maybe the studio was trying to increase the movie's appeal to a general audience and didn't like all the graphic violence that the foreign British director put in this sci-fi movie that he went overbudget on, so the studio thought they had to edit it for a larger audience.

I would say Final Cut for sure. Then again, I only saw that after years of multiple viewings of the Theatrical and Director's Cuts.

I've seen them all at least once. Final Cut, aside from the color tuning, is the best cut. Really love that last version of the set they made.

On the issue of the color grading (aka color timing) differences in some scenes than in earlier releases of Blade Runner on various home video formats, this 2008 critical write-up titled "Bleed Runner" ( ARTICLE LINK ) actually received a reply from none other than Charles de Lauzirika ( REPLY LINK ) who was in charge of the restoration.

(BTW, the link within in the article to the "BladeZone forum" doesn't work, so just read the text of the links above)

"The Digital Bits" today (March 5, 2015) updated their 2007 review of the Blade Runner Blu-ray release to reflect its later "All BD" reissue in 2013 and possible future releases. ( Link to just the new write-up at the end )