Blade Runner: The Penultimate Cut

There was a time when I watched my favourite movie once a year. Sure you could blame work and kids and all kinds of stuff for less and less viewings. But I think the real reason was the official Final Cut version. The cut itself is brilliant but its major drawback is of course the visual plane with its loss of natural colours and the loss of details in both dark and light areas. And if knowingly or not, I gradually lost appetite for Blade Runner. After all, Blade Runner is a visual film. Thanks to TM2YC this error has been rectified. It is a revelation to see this. It is a joy to discover things that have been buried in the poor contrast and brightness of the official Final Cut. It's pure enjoyment switching between the different audio tracks (father/fucker?) and hear the Paul Sammon commentary track to the visually best version there is. My favourite audio version is track 13, the Director's Cut multi-channel version from the 2007 BluRay discs which is not as boomy as the Final Cut audio. And of course: More than just nice-to-have is the isolated score track — I mean: Seriously! The many years alone us soundtrack nerds tried to put together a decent Blade Runner soundtrack! And now we have everything in a neat package!

I'm not sure if the theatrical screening of the Final Cut I saw suffered from the same problems found in every home-movie release. But I'm just happy to have it in my collection now. Alongside the IMAX version of Blade Runner 2049 ... the official home-movie version is just drenched in yellow. D:

Happy to have it, yes. But the anti-elitist in me says: This should have a wider release. And as much recognition as possible! Recommend it to your Blade-Runner-friends™!

I can't believe how good this fanedit is. I have no words.

It looks amazing, it sounds amazing. This is the BEST way to watch this masterpiece. Masterful edit for a masterful movie.

Thanks TM2YC for doing this. As a fan of the cyberpunk genre and movies in general, thank you.

Blade Runner has never looked better, and kudos to TM2YC for the obviously intense labour of love on display here. With 30 (!) different audio tracks to choose from, I'll be revisiting this edition for years to come, but for my first go-round I watched one of the voiceover tracks and the narration clicked with me much more than it has in the past. Whether that's due to the striking visuals being given new life complementing the voiceover, or Scott's Final Cut editing choices wedded to the hard boiled inner monologue, I'm not sure, but this is a tremendous achievement, well deserving of its Best-of-2020 award.

Spectacular.

Five years in the making and totally worth it!

Blade Runner has been one of my favourite films since I first watched it at the Cinema. I then watched it many times on rented VHS, eventually bought the VHS and even bought a Laser disc player in 1994 to watch the “Director’s Cut” in, what was then, “High quality” (along with Alien)
Then the Final Cut came out. I was excited to see the actual Director’s version as opposed to the Workprint Directors Cut. I remember sitting down for my first watch and thinking “what the hell is going on with the colours!?!” I pulled out my VHS release and sure enough the colours were way off. To me, this was horrible. I did watch it all the way through to see the changes made by Ridley but then I put it on the shelf and have not opened the DVD case ever again.

When I discovered that TM2YC was working on a HQ re-grade to take the Final cut back to the original colours I was very keen to see it, he was already 2 years in when I started following the thread. Each time there was a new post I rushed to see any progress made. It was a labour of love for TM2YC and a couple of times I thought he was going to walk away from it. But, to my joy, it’s done and I have finally had time to watch it.

In regard to the film content, I have nothing to add other than the movie is still one of my favourites, there are a few small differences from the Final Cut but nothing that changes the editorial intentions of the story.

For sound TM2YC has included so many audio options it’s almost overwhelming, but for my first viewing I decided to go with the Theatrical release voice over version as that was how I saw it at the cinema. The audio is perfect and I will be re-watching to check the other audio tracks.

And finally we come to the Video, the main reason I wanted to see this release. The re-grading surpasses all my expectations, the colours are just how I remember them, the Teal is gone and the browns are back. This is now my go to version.

I am very grateful to TM2YC for the five years of detailed work to complete this and I’m very happy to now have it in my collection.

If you like Blade Runner, watch this edit!