Blade Runner 2007: More Human Than Human

So what exactly is new in the latest release of "Blade Runner"?

Well, not a whole lot.

I'm not really interested in sparking yet another debate about whether directors should go back to their films decades later for a nip and a tuck. There are examples of when this kind of behavior was a bad, or at least an unnecessary, idea ("Star Wars," "E.T. The Extraterrestrial," "Apocalypse Now"), just as there are examples of when it was a really good idea ("THX:1138"). "Blade Runner", however, is unique in that at the time of its original release it was considered a critical and financial failure, and yet over the years has accumulated such a loyal fan base that the expectations for a new, remastered, "definitive" release are incredibly high.

But after seeing the film at the Rose Theater last night I don't believe Ridley Scott had any intention of meeting those expectations. What we saw last night was not a grand Coppola-esque reimagining of the original narrative material, or even the digital retooling of antique visual effects that Lucas executed on his blockbuster trilogy. All Scott has done with "Blade Runner" is one hell of a final polish, leaving the original material basically alone. Douglas Trumbell's visual effects, for example, are unaltered, but remastered digitally with dazzling clarity. (Nothing makes me wish people still worked with optical effects more than this film, and this is no less true in this version)

The real technical achievements appear in aspects of the film that first-time viewers would never notice, but that are the kind of details that will make people who are familiar with the existing iterations of this movie sit up. You don't get new flying car or cityscape shots, or the inclusion of previously deleted scenes, or even alternate cuts of existing scenes. What you do get is arguably a perfect version of Ridley Scott's 1982 film, and another chance to experience the story with a fresh eye and a new context.

The biggest surprise, and perhaps the greatest revelation of the entire evening for me, was that, for all the hype, this is still a great movie.

So maybe it wasn't all hype after all.