It's a well known fact that every Sci-Fi project has it's obsessive fans. In some cases, the harder it is to find collectibles, the greater the fanaticism. Blader Runner fans are like that and proud of it. It is the kind of picture everybody sees something different in. Also, there is no director who has emerged in the last 25 years who hasn't been influenced by it. Take Mark Romanek, he immediately began decorating his home in the style of 2019 after first experiencing the film, and has a theory of Rutger Hauer playing a four year old. Frank Darabont sees the character of Gaff as the Greek chorus and likes to look at the movie through that other Blade Runner's point of view. Joseph Kahn does his best to explain the way Ridley Scott created the illusion of four dimensions by using every possible kind of light streaming through every frame. Guilermo del Toro swears that the way the photographs are manipulated in the Esper scene has appeared in thousands of films, TV series and cartoons.
At the heart of this documentary is a montage of fans and filmmakers attempting to out-geek each other. Frank Darabont has the model spinner used in the film. Jovanka Vuckovic has her entire left arm covered in a sleeve tattoo featuring all sorts of images from the film. Steve Loter has one of Rick Deckard's shirts and a couple of Spinner license plates. Bladezone.com webmaster Gary Willoughby makes his own prop replica's (or has others do it for him) - even of concepts that didn't make it into the film. The different Audio Commentaries on this set also mention some amusing notions that over analyzing fans have come up with over the years, from Pris eating worms from Sebastian's fridge, Batty biting off Pris' tongue as she lays dead and electric sheep on the Vid-screens in Deckard's apartment as Rachael is sleeping. I suppose there is such a thing as over-thinking it.
From favorite scenes to most preferred character. People obviously love talking about Blade Runner. Not so much about the story, but about the way it looks. One exception is Vuckovic who briefly mentions the concepts of the metaphysical but unfortunately is not allowed to delve into this subject. Two prominent filmmakers who couldn't make it are David Fincher, who's break through film Se7en is literary soaking in BR references and Christopher Nolan, who has been quoted to have based his version of Gotham city on Los Angeles 2019, even sealing the fact by hiring Rutger Hauer for a supporting part in Batman Begins. Ronald D. Moore however clearly states the Replicants were the influence for his re-imagined Cylons. Last but not least Ridley Scott's children all get to say a couple of words, but they are a bit more restrained than the others, because obviously it's not cool to geek out over your dads's work.
7 out of 10
PS this last documentary on the fourth disc features a snipped of unused footage of a tired looking Deckard sitting on the edge of a bathtub that people have been wondering about on the internet. Where and is this scene set? At what point in the movie? Why is there a lady in the bathtub? Could it be Marie the fifth Replicant? The answers to these questions are: in the Bradbury building. Just as Deckard is about to bind his broken fingers as best he can. One of J.F. Sebastian's mannequins. Only if you imagine and combine story elements from the source novel with the finished film. In that story, the last skin-job, Roy's wife Irmgard was also staying in the same building...
