Blade Runner -- extended cut 0.5 (ROUGH)

[Lio]

I finished this a couple years ago. I was looking at it again and thought people here would be interested.

This adds several minutes back to the film.  The main video is from the branching BD on the 2007 5-disc set.  That disc had the best colors; for all the effort put into the Final Cut it just looks bad.

The additional scenes were taken from the DVD and upscaled with Topaz Video.  After upscaling these scenes I altered the colors (though I had no idea what I was doing) and added fake grain to give the illusion of clarity.  The results were middling which is why I call this a "rough cut"; I don't consider this to be watchable. Just an experiment.

Here are the changes, from what I can recall (remember, I finished this a while ago):

• Title cards have are a mash-up of the workprint dictionary entry and scrolling text.

• Some extra shots in Leon's opening interrogation.

• The eyes in the test machine now are blue like Leon's, rather than yellow.  I think the machine showing an obvious yellow (which is just the way the stock footage used by the filmmakers looked) unintentionally comes too close to the subtle yellow-eyed replicant effect.

• Workprint scene of Holden's smoking body.

• Extra shots at the Blue Dragon restaurant from the international cut and the dailies.

• Slightly re-edited the Bryant office scene.  Gaff placing his chicken origami seemed like a good beat to end on.

• In the normal movie, Gaff and Deckard fly through the buildings of L.A. and it suddenly cuts to them in Hades escorted by police spinners.  This was originally a much longer scene where you could see the landscape change from L.A. to Hades from outside the spinner's window as Ford leafed through police files.  Anyway, now we cut from Bryant's "blue room" straight to the red sprawl of Hades.

• Some additional shots of Rachel as the test is administered.

• Lots of changes in Leon's apartment.  I did my best to add a twist back in where Leon is hiding in the rafters of the bathroom.  A fan editor in the past used "Goldeneye" footage where James Bond does the same thing and placed Brion James's face on top, and I've done the same.

• Some very beat-up and dirty shots of Deckard entering his apartment building.

• After Rachel throws her photo on the floor, Deckard picks it up and looks sadly at a photo of his wife.

• Some extra shots of Pris hanging around the Bradbury hotel.  I had to composite one shot -- see if you can tell which.

• Some more shots of Deckard at his piano, daydreaming.

• Deckard sees a poster of Zora as the snake charmer before going backstage.

• Some extra shots of Zora showering as Deckard paws through her belongings.

• Some shots of weird extras during the footchase.

• When Bryant tells Deckard that Rachel has "vanished", Deckard glances over his shoulder and sees her in the crowd -- and so does Gaff.

• Much more footage of Rachel creeping towards Deckard as he washes his face.

• When Deckard passes out on the couch, Rachel tries to take his shot glass from him; he pulls it closer instead.

• Some extra material of Pris blending into the play room.

• When Roy goes down the elevator after killing Tyrell, he is prompted to insert a key card by a female voice.  He cries out, "Mom?"

• After Deckard shoots Pris, he hears Roy coming up the elevator.  He checks it and sees Roy approaching from a distance.

• When Deckard stumbles into a bathroom, we see an abandoned mannequin floating in the tub.

• Footage from the international cut where Deckard looks around the roof for an exit.

• When Roy makes the jump, Deckard screams in frustration.

• No end credits, like in the workprint.  Plus I don't like that end credit music.

Audio changes:

• All extra footage is of course accompanied by new audio and re-edited music.

• "It's artificial?" "Of course it is." The original line was "Of course not" but this was changed with ADR. They changed it because they wanted to establish that Tyrell could make convincing animal replicants, and to make it more literal that replicants have glowing eyes (the owl's eyes glow later in the movie).  I changed Rachel's line back to "Of course not" because it seems more appropriate.  Rachel does not realize that she a replicant and by extension does not recognize the owl as artificial either.  And now when the owl's eyes glow later in the movie, the scene feels more dreadful when careful viewers realize on their own that even the owl is a replicant.

• Rachel now says "Mr. Deckard!" in the elevator before Ford draws his gun.  This was in the workprint but removed for some reason.

• For some reason all versions of the movie have a problem with the microscope woman's lines echoing.  The workprint doesn't have this issue and I spliced it in.

• On the close-up of Pris's corpse, we can hear the laughing man mocking her from the toy room.

• The chase through the Bradbury was originally scored with "Rachel's Song" on the OST but they cut it at the last second.  I put it back in and it works really well with the scene.

I'm only sharing a 720p copy because, as I said, this is not a presentable movie; thus I've labeled it version 0.5.  It's obvious which parts are upscaled and the technology is just not ready yet for crummy, interlaced DVD footage to mimic real high definition.  But I think it's a good draft and guide for others who want to splice in deleted Blade Runner footage.

I have been thinking of doing this again with the 4K release tone-mapped and downscaled, although with only a small number of these changes recreated... but again, not for a long time until the upscaling tech gets better.

           

I only saw this project after posting in your previous Blade Runner thread. Of course I'd be even more interesting in what you're currently working on. Looks and reads very nice so far.