First of all. Ridley Scott: you are a pussy and an ignoramus. Also a fine director. These aren't mutually exclusive categories.
Second of all: thank you for whatever part you played in allowing Blade Runner (the version that needs no additional title) to be finally made available once more. Albeit as part of a 5-disc set. Thank you anyway. It's a great film. The film that you were able to achieve, the cut for which you let your name be slapped across posters for the original wide release, is a masterpiece. Your part in that achievement is larger than that of all the other people involved. But if what you've said in interviews since then is true*, then those responsible for putting the final stamp on the theatrical version deserve great credit as well. They saved you from yourself.
Which brings us to the nitty gritty. You've gone on record as saying that "Deckard is a replicant," "he just is," and "anyone who doesn't 'get it' is a moron." You protest too much, Mr. Scott. All of us get it. Your many explanations for why you think he's a replicant are kindergarten-simple, backed up with plentiful visual aids that you've painted into versions of the film itself, over the years. The funniest thing is that I've read dozens of your explanations "why" Deckard "just is" a replicant, and they all have to do with the proper interpretions of these supposed clues. You never seem to think it germane to include a reason why you think the "Deckard = replicant" approach can possibly help the story.
I'm sorry. Weren't you making a film? Was this not a consideration?
But yes, please rest easy, I assure you it is quite perfectly butt-obvious in your various "MY cut!" versions that you think Deckard is a replicant. You might just as well have CGI'd a big square panel in his back with clockwork behind it. If you did, would that make it so? No, of course not. None of your strident revisionism makes Deckard a replicant - any more than spray-painting graffiti on a gravestone constitutes a sort of "special edition" epitaph.**
Do you ever look at what George Lucas has become and blame yourself? You could. The endless tinkering and justifications, the slow degradation of the very concept of a film, of an opus, of a finished work - you were the high-profile pioneer in that game. And now you have given us back the real deal, just as Lucas finally gave us back Star Wars and its two sequels again - ostensibly as the 'bonus discs' of yet another whacked-out goofy edition, but he knows the real reason why people shelled out for the umpteenth time, and it wasn't to see more digital tongue from the Sarlacc pit. You and Lucas are fooling only yourselves with these endless editions and versions. If you are capable of more great art, then please, go make more great art. Don't keep meddling and tinkering with what is classic. At least M. Night Shyamalan gets his twist endings into the film in time for the general release. If he starts taking cues from you, he'll leave out the twist entirely, and then call a press conference years later to try to pin one on retroactively.
Everyone talks about Citizen Kane, authorial control and the magic of final cut. If Mr. Welles had put out a "New Final Cut" of Kane in the seventies, with Paul Masson product placement matted in, would anyone have cared to endorse the venture? This final cut business, I call it crying over spilled milk. You get the cut you are able to get. As a director, that's your job - to force your vision through. A weak director doesn't deserve final cut, any more than he deserves second crack.
That's how the system works. It's beneficial. Sometimes the producers have to rein the director in, just a little bit. You fight for the vision you want to put on-screen, and they fight for the result they feel they're paying for, and when everything's said and done you can either stand by the resulting film or you can disown it. That collaborative process is part of what makes a finished film a finished film, rather than a sprawling and inconsequential ongoing vanity project.
Despite the never-ending one-film franchise you've turned it into, there is only one Blade Runner. I don't fault you for the other versions, or dispute your right to make them. It's cool that you've had the opportunity to crank out a bunch of (essentially) straight-to-video revisionist remixes, and the clout to get a succession of them booked into art-house theaters for a vanity release. I suppose you're free to say that any or all of those is "your" film. But none of them was ours. None of them is Blade Runner. And it's cool that you've finally let Blade Runner see the light of day again.
So, thank you again for that. But hear me, Mr. Scott: it isn't we who aren't deep enough to get it, it is you who aren't deep enough to see the implications for the story. Your neato, gee-whiz, mind-bending twist would take a soaringly dystopian parable on the fragile, elusive nature of humanity and sink it to the level of a hackneyed "hey, we're all robots!" sci-fi flick with retarded film-school pretentions grafted on. And a hollywood budget, leave us not forget! And a top-notch cast. But thank you very much, Mr. Scott. You can take all of that, and make as many of your own cuts as you like. Make Gaff a replicant, if you like. Perhaps you will find that adds new levels to the story.
You can keep them. I will take Blade Runner. It's a great film. A masterpiece. Your masterpiece, whether you own or disown it.
Now for the last time: thank you.
Second of all: thank you for whatever part you played in allowing Blade Runner (the version that needs no additional title) to be finally made available once more. Albeit as part of a 5-disc set. Thank you anyway. It's a great film. The film that you were able to achieve, the cut for which you let your name be slapped across posters for the original wide release, is a masterpiece. Your part in that achievement is larger than that of all the other people involved. But if what you've said in interviews since then is true*, then those responsible for putting the final stamp on the theatrical version deserve great credit as well. They saved you from yourself.
Which brings us to the nitty gritty. You've gone on record as saying that "Deckard is a replicant," "he just is," and "anyone who doesn't 'get it' is a moron." You protest too much, Mr. Scott. All of us get it. Your many explanations for why you think he's a replicant are kindergarten-simple, backed up with plentiful visual aids that you've painted into versions of the film itself, over the years. The funniest thing is that I've read dozens of your explanations "why" Deckard "just is" a replicant, and they all have to do with the proper interpretions of these supposed clues. You never seem to think it germane to include a reason why you think the "Deckard = replicant" approach can possibly help the story.
I'm sorry. Weren't you making a film? Was this not a consideration?
But yes, please rest easy, I assure you it is quite perfectly butt-obvious in your various "MY cut!" versions that you think Deckard is a replicant. You might just as well have CGI'd a big square panel in his back with clockwork behind it. If you did, would that make it so? No, of course not. None of your strident revisionism makes Deckard a replicant - any more than spray-painting graffiti on a gravestone constitutes a sort of "special edition" epitaph.**
Do you ever look at what George Lucas has become and blame yourself? You could. The endless tinkering and justifications, the slow degradation of the very concept of a film, of an opus, of a finished work - you were the high-profile pioneer in that game. And now you have given us back the real deal, just as Lucas finally gave us back Star Wars and its two sequels again - ostensibly as the 'bonus discs' of yet another whacked-out goofy edition, but he knows the real reason why people shelled out for the umpteenth time, and it wasn't to see more digital tongue from the Sarlacc pit. You and Lucas are fooling only yourselves with these endless editions and versions. If you are capable of more great art, then please, go make more great art. Don't keep meddling and tinkering with what is classic. At least M. Night Shyamalan gets his twist endings into the film in time for the general release. If he starts taking cues from you, he'll leave out the twist entirely, and then call a press conference years later to try to pin one on retroactively.
Everyone talks about Citizen Kane, authorial control and the magic of final cut. If Mr. Welles had put out a "New Final Cut" of Kane in the seventies, with Paul Masson product placement matted in, would anyone have cared to endorse the venture? This final cut business, I call it crying over spilled milk. You get the cut you are able to get. As a director, that's your job - to force your vision through. A weak director doesn't deserve final cut, any more than he deserves second crack.
That's how the system works. It's beneficial. Sometimes the producers have to rein the director in, just a little bit. You fight for the vision you want to put on-screen, and they fight for the result they feel they're paying for, and when everything's said and done you can either stand by the resulting film or you can disown it. That collaborative process is part of what makes a finished film a finished film, rather than a sprawling and inconsequential ongoing vanity project.
Despite the never-ending one-film franchise you've turned it into, there is only one Blade Runner. I don't fault you for the other versions, or dispute your right to make them. It's cool that you've had the opportunity to crank out a bunch of (essentially) straight-to-video revisionist remixes, and the clout to get a succession of them booked into art-house theaters for a vanity release. I suppose you're free to say that any or all of those is "your" film. But none of them was ours. None of them is Blade Runner. And it's cool that you've finally let Blade Runner see the light of day again.
So, thank you again for that. But hear me, Mr. Scott: it isn't we who aren't deep enough to get it, it is you who aren't deep enough to see the implications for the story. Your neato, gee-whiz, mind-bending twist would take a soaringly dystopian parable on the fragile, elusive nature of humanity and sink it to the level of a hackneyed "hey, we're all robots!" sci-fi flick with retarded film-school pretentions grafted on. And a hollywood budget, leave us not forget! And a top-notch cast. But thank you very much, Mr. Scott. You can take all of that, and make as many of your own cuts as you like. Make Gaff a replicant, if you like. Perhaps you will find that adds new levels to the story.
You can keep them. I will take Blade Runner. It's a great film. A masterpiece. Your masterpiece, whether you own or disown it.
Now for the last time: thank you.
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