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Centauro wrote:Prtetty much describes the "hybrid cut" that I've been mentioning for years now, the one that noone seems to have info about. That's the version I like best.
OK. Screw this, I've made my own hybrid "Fan Cut" by using a combination of the Original Version theatrical release (OV) and the Director's Cut (DC). I started with the Criterion Laser Disc SVCD-ripped version (Int'l version?), which has the voiceover of Deckard's commentary and extra violence in it (Pris' death, Tyrell's death, and Batty's nail-into-hand scenes).
I then inserted the "Unicorn Scene" from the Director's Cut into the OV. But I did NOT insert the atonal chorus music that went with the Unicorn scene in the DC. Instead, I left the OC soundtrack intact and got creative with extending the music to fill the extra time needed because of the Unicorn scene addition (I had to plug a 3-4 second gap). That edit came out very clean and basically unnoticeable and perfect if I do say so myself. Plus the OV music actually works quite well without the annoying DC soundtrack in this spot, and it even still ephasizes the Unicorn dream sequence just as needed to draw the viewer's attention to the dream.
Next, I removed the "Happy Ending" of the OV in favor of the "Elevator Ending" of the DC. Another very clean and unnoticeable edit where I inserted the DC footage starting when they leave Deckard's apartment. I thought about adding some of Deckard's voiceover back into the scene for fun, but it seemed to work much better without it (it makes the ending more ambiguous to leave out his voiceover that says Rachael was "special" and had no "expiration date" according to Tyrell), so this represents the only part of the OV voiceover that was removed from my Fan Hybrid Cut. I came real close to just adding the voiceover snip "Gaff had been there and let her live" from the happy ending sequence to the moment right when Deckard sees the oragami Unicorn on the floor and just before the memory of Gaff's comment about "It's too bad she won't live, but then again, who does..." But in the end, I decided against adding it, and went with the straight DC version of the ending.
Finally, for the sake of completeness, I added the text "
THE FAN CUT" centered under the title "BLADE RUNNER" in the opening credits using a nearly identical font, color, and timing, and then I blurred the text a little to make it look similar to the BLADE RUNNER text from the SVCD OV version that I started with -- basically, it looks like it's supposed to be there. And, I also added a new credit and short explanation of what the Hybrid Fan Cut included and excluded with respect to the OV and DC in the very first closing edit after the elevator closes. This additional closing credit was also done using the same basic font, color, blur, and timing as the rest of the closing credits so as to seem to look like it was always supposed to be there. However, there is a small audio drop-out during the closing credit, but that drop-out is present in my source video so there was nothing I could do about it.
Finally, I cropped out the SVCD letterboxing and re-encoded to Divx format only the part of the screen that was viewable. Considering I started with a highly-compressed SVCD-encoded version of the OC and a 1mbs MPEG-encoded version of the DC, then edited them toegether and re-encoded out to Divx, the result actually came out pretty good. Now, don't get me wrong, it definately looks compressed, it is something like 480x240 in resolution, and only 700 Mb in size. So it's small and somewhat washed out, but nonetheless, I'm very surprised how decent it actually came out considering what my sources were and that I re-encoded it for a second time.
Anyway, if anyone is interested in seeing my customized hybrid "Fan Cut" version of Blade Runner, drop me a PM or IM me at my AIM address below.
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OMG, Bit Torrent rules...
Tue May 17, 2005 8:57 am 
