Blade Runner, from 1982, is now recognised as a pioneering, influential film and has been admired even in avant-garde film circles. It was a classic way ahead of its time. Now The Director’s Cut of the film makes apparent just how far ahead of its time the film was. A significant difference between the old and the new version is that the narration of the protagonist (Harrison Ford) has been leftout, that the end of the film is much grimmer and that the soundtrack by Vangelis has been used very differently.The Director’s Cut apparently surfaced by accident when the wrong copy was sent by Warner to a cinema in Beverly Hills. A modest release in one cinema in San Francisco was then so successful that it was decided that a newly-cut version of his original cut should be released. So – as far as philologists are concerned – we are really talking about a director’s re-cut.
