Alternately known within the film-geek community as the “US Theatrical Cut,” the narrated version of 1982’s Blade Runner has acquired the reputation as one of the most ghastly examples of studio interference in film history. Director Ridley Scott hated it, and after hearing it for two minutes, you’ll soon discover why. It’s hard to find any human who does likes Harrison Ford’s inner monologue for Rick Deckard — and that includes Ford. For those unaware, here is a tiny sampling of what theatergoers in 1982 would have heard, God help them.
The narration, conceived to provide some supplementary lore and information to the world, soon devolved from a well-intentioned homage to noir classics to burdensome exposition dumps. Writing 101 stipulates to “show not tell,” and, holy cow, does the original Blade Runner violate that simple truism. The narration alters how we digest not just the information on screen, but provides a lot of blather that drowns out the subtleties of Scott’s direction and the sound design. This monotone delivery was immediate even to those inside the studio before the focus testing was performed. It also explained away all ambiguity and the larger more interesting questions of the film concerning Deckard’s true nature, a matter too complicated and full of spoilers to get into here.
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It was an idea nobody really liked and that nobody wanted. So, how did one of the most influential and well-crafted films of the genre get saddled with such a clumsy, out-of-place framing device?
Initial Audience Confusion
Warner Home Video
A voice-over was mulled over by Scott and the Blade Runner writers, but due to difficulties getting the tone and phrasing right, they dropped the idea, proceeding without it. Scott was adamant in his protests. However, at that point, the director was already on the back foot, being overridden by the studio, racing to beat a looming directors’ strike. It was a battle he could not win, as he did not have the right to final cut. (Keep that phrase in mind; it will be important later.) A whole new writer, one not chosen by Scott, was brought in for the narration job.
Due to a quirk in the financing of the film, Blade Runner’s ownership fell to the producers, who would essentially call the shots after principal photography wrapped. The narration was ordered against the wishes of the director and was screened privately for them in January 1982. As part of the standard procedure of film production, public test-screenings were undertaken in Denver and Dallas, roughly a month and a half later. The narration-free version resulted in some audiences left unsure of all the details and meaning of the film. “Well, that’s the whole point of watching the goddamn movie,” Scott responded in a later interview. In his mind, the mystery was the whole appeal of the story. Not only is the police detective piecing together a mystery, but so, too, is the audience left to analyze a broader philosophical and ethical dilemma. On its most basic level, the narration doesn’t work. When you hear Deckard think to himself that he’s had a “bellyful of killing,” it removes the nuances of the film-making, hammering you over the head with redundant information we could already glean from the rest of the film.
At the danger of losing audiences in the intricacies of the plot, the producers decided to show only the narrated copy when Blade Runner released, ironically wagering against their better judgment. Also slipped in, against the wishes of Scott, was a happy ending. This sort of heavy-handedness wasn’t unusual, and neither was the habit of studios seizing control of films they felt were adrift. And while one may disagree with the treatment afforded to Terry Gilliam when he made Brazil, it had a history going back as far as Gone with the Wind. There was nothing remotely controversial about it, regardless of whatever we may think about it today. The meddling didn’t help as the film did not make a profit at the box-office, potentially threatening his career. The only tears in the rain in 1982 were Scott’s.
“Were they all on drugs?”
Warner Bros.
The most tragic part of the story was that this probably could have been avoided if the whole Blade Runner team (producers, scriptwriters, director, and actors) had believed in their initial gut feeling. There was no secret that the narration provided was a disaster, with Ford sounding like he downed a whole bottle of Ambien. Some connected to the actor have even gone so far as to theorize that Ford, with sympathy for his director, sabotaged the voice over by speaking it so poorly.
For the record, Ford denies it, though it is exceedingly obvious that he doesn’t miss it one bit. Ford was not shy in his opinion that the narration was atrocious, deserving the credit for convincing Scott to dump the idea. After multiple rewrites and recording sessions, all his input ignored, he did as he was told, worn out by all the bickering. “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 like that, the most hated narration in cinema history was birthed.
As if to vent 40 years of rage, Ford even publicly read the 1982 screening notes at the Oscars in 2021, notes provided by the same Blade Runner producers who authorized the narration. These surreal observations range from the helpful, the crass, perplexing, and down-right bitchy. Nitpicks range from criticizing the pacing, dialogue, to one too many establishing shots of exteriors. The most noticeable hate concerned the voice-over. Producer Bud Yorkin found the film too hard to follow, while Jerry Perenchio keenly observed, “This voice over is terrible, the audience will fall asleep.” Among one of the insults, Perenchio posed the question, “Were they all on drugs?” in reference to the terrible voice-over. Regardless, they used the terrible narration anyway, seemingly uninterested in the final result. Big mistake.
The Real “Final Cut”
20th Century Studios
In the subsequent years after the ‘82 release, and discovery by fans both on basic cable and VHS tapes, Blade Runner was reassessed. Now seen as a masterpiece by many, the flaws of the US Theatrical Cut was remedied by a legion of re-releases and supposedly definitive editions. Marketing lingo aside, it would appear that the new versions (authorized by Scott), including the “Final Cut,” are the most representative of his vision and should be deemed the most official iteration, and are first version new viewers should check out. The “Director’s Cut” is anything but, according to Scott, who claimed he was forced to complete it before he felt the edit was ready. Later versions cut the voice-over out completely, and it vastly improves the film. “Like the Blade Runner, the audience is forced to evaluate the scene[s] with no privileged information,” one critic put it most succinctly, the homage to 40s gumshoe movies finally exorcised once and for all.
There’s not really any good guys or bad guys in this debacle. Directors are not infallible, producers are trying to not sink the company, and perhaps for test audiences in 1982 the idea of robots pondering the purpose of life and debating the meaning of a soul was a little too far out. If any lesson can be drawn from the messy production of Blade Runner, it should be to never talk down to your audience. A misstep which the sequel thankfully avoided.
