Blade Runner Trivia

There is a debate to whether or not Deckard is a replicant. In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, the book that Blade Runner is based on, there is a part in the book where some cops come up to Deckard and claim that he is an "Andy." (In the book synthetic humans were called Androids. Andy was the short term.)

The computer screen in Gaff's spinner is the same as the one in the Nostromo in Alien, also directed by Ridley Scott.

Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) says to Tyrell "I want more life, Father" in some versions, other versions have him saying "I want more life, Fucker."

Dangerous Days was one of the titles considered before the film's final Title of Blade Runner. Dangerous Days is the title of the documentary released in the collector's editions of Blade Runner.

There are two versions of the definition for Replicant. One is dated 2012, the other is dated 2016.

The first draft of the script written by Hampton was very small in scale and took place in a room. It was supposed to center around two people talking. There were supposed to be a few outward shots and it was to end with Rachel killing herself.

There were a few scripted openings written for the film. The first one was a sequence where Deckard stayed at the farm waiting for a person. The person shows up cooks, Deckard kills him, pulls out his jaw and the victim is revealed to be a replicant. Another opening showed the bloody escape of the Replicants that was told about in the opening scroll

The line, "All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain" weren't written in the script but improvised by Rutger Hauer.

While they were filming the scene where Deckard pushes Rachel against the window, Harrison Ford moons Sean Young to get her to stop crying.

Ridley Scott filmed some shots for the "happy ending" of the theatrical versions of Blade Runner. He was ultimately unsatisfied with the results and used footage from the Shining. Some of what Ridley Scott shot can be viewed in the deleted scenes section of the Blade Runner collector's edition DVD.

There are stills of Harrison Ford's character Rick Deckard running on top of vehicles during his pursuit of Zhora (Joanna Cassidy). Different shots of this scene can be viewed on the documentary "Dangerous Days: The Making of Blade Runner."

There were many different attempts at doing the voice over with Harrison Ford and Ridley Scott. Ridley didn't like any of the voice overs. Harrison Ford some days later recorded new voice over narration under different supervision.

There are three versions of the trailer title card for Blade Runner. The first version shows the laser shooting horizontally across the screen and the titles Blade Runner emerge from both sides of the laser in big bold red letters. This version is shown on the teaser and the workprint version. The second version is similar except the lettering is slightly different. (e.g The mid ridge of the E is sharpened to look more like a blade) The laser disappears after the title emerges and the red drains from the title like blood until it reveals a whitish background. This version is shown on the final theatrical trailer and TV spots for the 1982 theatrical releases. The third version is a combination of the two except there is no laser and no emerging titles. It just shows Blade Runner in the "blade" lettering but it keeps the red color. This version is shown on the trailer for the 1992 director's cut.

Blade Runner had a limited theatrical run in 2007 for the final cut.

There are 5 versions of Blade Runner available on DVD and Blu-ray. In total, there are probably over 10 versions of Blade Runner going by the supplements on the ultimate edition release.

The first version(s) will be the ones widely known by audiences before the release of the Director's Cut.

The Theatrical Versions

There are two theatrical versions available on the set. There is one released in the U.S. and there is the one released in the U.K. The U.K. release is a few seconds longer with extra shots of violence. When Blade Runner came to video in the U.S. The U.K. version was released and that version was the most widely known version until the early 90's

The Director's Cut

In the early 90s when the Workprint leaked out into theatres and was being touted as the Director's original vision. Ridley Scott rushed to get his vision of the film released. What resulted is a rush job called the Director's Cut which is nothing more than the U.S. Theatrical version without the voiceover and an extra shot tacked on at one point and the happy ending removed.

The Final Cut

Almost 20 years after the release of the Director's Cut, Ridley Scott was able to revisit his film, after a long exhaustive legal dispute. He was finally able to fix some shot, correct certain errors, and fine tune his project to get it at the level he wants. The look of Blade Runner: The Final Cut is radically different from the other versions. For example, some scenes that were a golden brown flesh tone in the other versions, are either a green or bluish tint. The picture is of course much sharper, and a whole lot less grainy than the other versions. The sound effects have been tweaked for better immersion

Every available version of Blade Runner (including the final cut) when it introduces Roy Batty, it shows a shot of Roy Batty during his meeting with Elden Tyrell. The picture is zoomed in a little closer on Roy Batty and the image is reversed. In every version of the film from 1982-1992, you can see Tyrell's hand on Roy's shoulder. The final cut corrects this. Tyrell's hand is digitally removed and different colored lights from the city are added to give the effect of being in a booth. There is reported to be a version of the film that showed an alternate shot of the introduction of Roy Batty where it shows a full frontal shot of him in the booth.

When filming Roy Batty's jump across buildings, stuntmen have tried to make that jump but failed and had to grab on to the side of the building. Rutger Hauer suggested moving the building just a little bit closer so he himself could make the jump. They followed his suggestion and Rutger Hauer made that jump himself.