I've been busy lately, concentrating on making t-shirts of my favourite movie, book and music images. Of course Blade Runner ended up with it's own category. Yes, I am pimping shirts, but I know you'll like them. Check out the Blade Runner section of my store. There are lots of goodies there, not just Blade Runner stuff. Here's a selection of the Blade Runner t-shirts: They're available on adult t-shirts, girly tees and adult hoodies, kids all-in-ones (creepers/baby-grows) and t-shirts, and even on stickers! Hope you like, 'em! :)

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Our Night Out at the Cameo

My wife and I saw BLADE RUNNER: The Final Cut at the Cameo Cinema in Edinburgh on Friday the 23rd of November 2007, the 9pm showing. She works in Edinburgh, so it didn't make sense for her to come out of the city to pick me up, so I got the train in. I dropped the kids off and had Chinese food at my folks accompanied by a couple of glasses of wine, then made my way to the train station. It was cold, dark and raining. 'Perfect,' I thought. :) The train was packed solid, but I managed to find a seat across from a young Japanese couple. They were talking in their native tongue and laughing about who knows what, but the sounds were pleasing. It's a beautiful language to listen to, even though I don't understand a word beyond "conichiwa," "sayonara" and "domo arigato." The multi-ethnicity of the people on the train was surprising and uncharacteristic, for this area of Scotland, just north of Edinburgh. Looks like we're becoming part of the rest of the world, finally. I got off at Haymarket, one stop before the main train station, to meet my wife. We decided to go for a drink and, since it was right next to the station, we entered Ryries Bar, or at least tried to. We were stopped at the door by a cheery gent, who took a liking to my wife's hat, enthusing about it's short peak. We assumed he was a bouncer and not wishing to upset him, went along with his enthusing. It quickly became apparent that he wasn't a bouncer at all, just a drunk punter who had stepped out for a cigarette and was cheerfully opening the door for people as they entered and exited the pub. What a guy! :) Finally inside the pub, I left my wife to order drinks so I could attend to other business, but failing to get served in a reasonable time, we decided to just head up to the cinema.

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We managed to get parked right outside the side door of the Cameo, which is very lucky considering this is Edinburgh. I collected the tickets and harried the staff about when the cinema would be open as the seating was unnumbered. The Cameo sports it's own cafe'-bar, which serves drinks in plastic 'glasses' so that (and this is the best part) you can take your drink into the movie with you! How good is that!? Whilst getting drinks, the barman and I managed to have a conversation about the film whilst waiting for my Guinness to settle and the coffee machine to spit out a cup for my wife. Just after 9pm, the staff let us through. We were slightly disappointed at the size of the screen. No wonder it had been a sell-out, there was barely enough seating for sixty people. We managed to get seats right at the back, dead centre, next to a couple who were discussing Alien enthusiastically. I listened as the conversation turned, inevitably, to BLADE RUNNER. We chatted a bit about the film and what our expectations were for the Final Cut.

The Cameo are very good at playing appropriate mood music before a film and true to form, there was some Vangelis-like music playing while we waited for the show to start. I couldn't figure out who, or what it was and forgot to ask the staff, afterwards. Now I'm kicking myself. The seats slowly filled up. I discovered, to my mild horror, that I was the only one wearing a BLADE RUNNER t-shirt! Oops! :) That's what I get for being a geek. Presently, the lights dimmed and I was about to experience BLADE RUNNER on a cinema screen again, the first time since a local re-run of the DC in 1998. Wow. The print of The Final Cut is nothing short of astounding. It is crisp, clean, clear, bright in the right places and details are sharply defined. This film just hasn't aged. It looks like it was printed yesterday, and essentially, this version was, due to the astounding work done by Charles de Lauzirika (or 'Zinema' as he is known to his friends on alt.fan.blade-runner) and his talented team. The audio quality was a further treat, the mix has never sounded this good. This is the way I have been yearning to experience BLADE RUNNER. I had a tear in my eye as the opening scenes washed over me. This is a thing of beauty. Like they said with Alien, if you haven't seen BLADE RUNNER: The Final Cut on the big screen, you haven't seen it at all. There was so much detail revealed by the remastering process it was overwhelming. It was a pleasure to witness this film again, especially since I was surrounded by a room full of BLADE RUNNER fans. It felt like we held our breath together for every intense moment of action and emotion and sighed relief when the moment passed. All those moments took on new life and energy on that screen. Some fans have complained that a few of Ridley Scott's decisions, edits and changes for this version, were jarring, but I saw no evidence of that. I am 100% happy with everything that the BLADE RUNNER crew have done with the movie. Now, if only George Lucas had Charles de Lauzirika handling his special editions! ;)

Drew Struzan's excellent new poster art

StainleeSteelRat of alt.fan.blade-runner summed up my feelings on BLADE RUNNER rather succinctly and I quote him here:

It struck me as to how real Blade Runner feels, markedly more so than many/any other SF films. You really feel as if you're there. A truly superb one-of-a-kind film... But then that's why we're all here 25 years later, right? :)

When the movie was over, we left the cinema grinning in awe. A crowd had gathered in the lobby, some awaiting the next showing, some, like us, having just seen The Final Cut. I heard snippets of enthusiastic conversation. People were just blown away. I even got a few compliments for my t-shirt, which was nice. Stepping out into the night, I looked over at my wife, still grinning. "Very good," she said, smiling.  I'll make a die-hard BLADE RUNNER fan of her yet. :)

Changes

Additional:

• When Bryant is reviewing Leon's profile with Deckard, he explains Leon's Off-World job.
• When Deckard is out on his apartment's balcony, there is a geisha girl on the building in the background.
• The hockey masked dancing girls (seen briefly in a trailer) are now in the film.
• The unicorn scene has been redone.
• Roy says to Tyrell "I want more life, Father" instead of "Fucker."
• More gore. When Roy crushes Tyrell’s skull, we see his thumbs go into the eye sockets (like the workprint and international cut.)
• Pris picks Deckard up by his nose and then drops him during their fight.
• Deckard then shoots Pris three times instead of two.
• Graphic gore as Roy pushes the nail through his hand. You see the nail go all the way through and coming out the other side.

Corrections:

• Cables have been digitally removed from the Spinners.
• Bryant now says that two Replicants were fried, eliminating the mismatch in the number of replicants.
• Tyrell's thumb has been removed from Roy's shoulder in the phone booth.
• Snake scale serial number has been corrected.
• Deckard and Abdul Ben Hassan lip flap has been fixed (using Harrison Ford's son, Ben, as a lip double).
• Zhora death scene - Joanna Cassidy's face has been refilmed and edited onto the stunt woman.
• When Roy releases the dove, it now flies into a darker cloudy sky, more in keeping with the rest of the film.

Unchanged:

(Since the 1992 'Director's Cut')

• The happy ending does not return.
• None of the multifarious voice overs return, Scott and Ford hated them all.
• The hospital scene (Deckard visits Holden) was originally cut out because it gave duplicated explanation, that reason is still valid today.

The Hospital scene, various different voice overs and alternate versions of the happy ending are, among a host of others, in the deleted scenes of the new DVD/HD DVD/Blu-Ray set.