Here are the voiceovers and why I think they are important.

Below are the voiceovers from the 1982 U.S. Theatrical Cut.

The voiceovers are important because they give an insight to what the studio people thought of the story line of the movie. Please go to this site:

http://www.harrisonfordweb.com/Article/ ... erview.php.

The paragraph you should be looking for begins with the line:

F: I was compelled by my contract to do the narrative.

You will find this paragraph close to the end of the interview. Ford says in the paragraph that the studio people were afraid the audience was not going to understand the movie. They, the studio people, wanted Ford to do the voiceovers so that the audience could better understand the movie.

Some people who watch the Theatrical Cut like the voiceovers, but most people did not. There are no great revelations in the voiceovers. And so, there is no great lost when the voiceovers are removed.

There is a number of people who think that the voiceovers is the only reason that makes the movie’s story difficult to understand. I believe that the story of the movie is difficult to understand with or without the voiceovers.

Question: Do you think the voiceovers make it easier to understand the movie, or make it harder to understand the movie, or do you think the voiceovers add little to the movie one way or another?


Note: I gathered the voiceovers from the transcript of the U.S. Theatrical Cut version of the movie that can be found at this site:

www.trussel.com/bladerun.htm.

What I did was to fast forward to the part of the movie that had the voiceover(s) to see if the creator of the transcript accurately transcribed the voiceover. I found no errors in the voiceovers that were in the transcript. And here is the rub. Since I did not watch the entire movie, it is possible that the creator may have missed a voiceover or two. If you watch the U.S. Theatrical Cut and see that the creator missed a voiceover would you please send me a message and tell me where in the movie is the missing voiceover. I will go to that part of the movie and I will write down the voiceover and put it into this topic. Thank you.

Here are the voiceovers:

Note: The voiceovers are in the order that I found them in the transcript.

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Deckard: They don't advertise for killers in a newspaper. That was my profession. Ex-cop, ex-Blade Runner, ex-killer.

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Deckard : Sushi, that's what my ex-wife called me. Cold fish.

Deckard: The charmer's name was Gaff. I'd seen him around. Bryant must have upped him to the Blade Runner unit. That gibberish he talked was city-speak, guttertalk, a mishmash of Japanese, Spanish, German, what have you. I didn't really need a translator. I knew the lingo, every good cop did. But I wasn't going to make it easier for him.

Deckard: Skin jobs, that's what Bryants called replicants. In history books he is the kind of cop used to call black men niggers.

Deckard : I'd quit because I'd had a belly full of killing. But then I'd rather be a killer than a victim. And that's exactly what Bryant's threat about little people meant. So I hooked in once more, thinking that if I couldn't take it, I'd split later. I didn't have to worry about Gaff. He was brown-nosing for a promotion, so he didn't want me back anyway.

Deckard: I didn't know whether Leon gave Holden a legit address. But it was the only lead I had, so I checked it out -- Whatever was in the bathtub was not human. Replicants don't have scales. And family photos? Replicants didn't have families either.

Deckard: Tyrell really did a job on Rachael. Right down to a snapshot of a mother she never had, a daughter she never was. Replicants weren't supposed to have feelings. Neither were Blade Runners. What the hell was happening to me? Leon's pictures had to be as phony as Rachael's. I didn't know why a replicant would collect photos. Maybe they were like Rachael. They needed memories.

Deckard: The report would be routine retirement of a replicant which didn't make me feel any better about shooting a woman in the back. There it was again. Feeling, in myself. For her, for Rachael.

Deckard : I don't know why he saved my life. Maybe in those last moments he loved life more than he ever had before. Not just his life, anybody's life, my life. All he'd wanted were the same answers the rest of us want. Where did I come from? Where am I going? How long have I got? All I could do was sit there and watch him die.

[Deckard picks up paper unicorn.]
Gaff's voice: It's too bad she won't live. But then again, who does?

Deckard : Gaff had been there, and let her live. Four years, he figured. He was wrong. Tyrell had told me Rachael was special: no termination date. I didn't know how long we had together. Who does?

[Kipple]

Question: Do you think the voiceovers make it easier to understand the movie, or make it harder to understand the movie, or do you think the voiceovers add little to the movie one way or another?

My answer: The voice-over simplified the story. It re-told the story, in some cases, contrary to the responses and action in the scene. One in mind is the Sushi Bar scene. Deckard did NOT understand "city speak". Thus, he asked Howie to interpret what Gaff was saying. NOT to make Gaff's job more difficult.

The voice-over is interesting history for us Blade Runner enthusiasts. But hardly good script writing. I'm not against a voice-over. It could have worked pretty well in this movie...certainly better. Just not with the voice-over they chose...both the script and the performance. IMHO

it's odd though how the Voice Overs drop out of the film around the time he shoots Zhora, and don't pick back up again untill Batty's death, kinda like about halfway through maybe the studio realized it was a bad idea to try to interpret it without Scotts help in understanding the narrative since they obviousely didn't get it themselves... on the topic i personaly dislike the VOs as i find them to be intrusive to the story at hand and often placed pretty badly thus minimizing the impact of the scenes they are associated with, especialy the one over Roys death scene...

My answer: The voice-over simplified the story. It re-told the story, in some cases, contrary to the responses and action in the scene. One in mind is the Sushi Bar scene. Deckard did NOT understand "city speak". Thus, he asked Howie to interpret what Gaff was saying. NOT to make Gaff's job more difficult.

Naaaa.... Kipple. Even though you seem like a nice guy i don't agree. In my point of view it gives the story more life so to speak. Even though i really like the FC, the orginal voiceover fill the gaps and the pace of the movie. Ok, i might be slow but..... what the hell! Blade Runner is still the most beautiful peace of art in the movie business i ever seen. Aint that enough? he he... cheers people..... :=) Salut for the good old movie magic!!!

PS. And a BIG "SKÃ…L" (cheers in Swedish) to u Kipple for beeing one of the people taking care of this sweet board/forum.

On the contrary, I think the Deckard voice-overs give the film more depth and dimension. Sorry guys but if you think about it, the voice-overs was and is the work of the creators of Bladeriunner themselves, regardless of how they felt or still feel about it now. All the facets of the story, characterization, plot, mis-en-scene, and all other cinematic elements fell into it's place and became the magical Bladerunner that created the cult following and was the version rediscovered by fans way back in the 80s.

Question: Do you think the voiceovers make it easier to understand the movie, or make it harder to understand the movie, or do you think the voiceovers add little to the movie one way or another??

Good job putting together all the 1982 Theatrical Cut's V.O., joseph1949. (I'm not sure if anyone has sat down yet and transcribed all the new V.O. in the 'Deleted Scenes' supplementary section on the new 5-DVD Ultimate Collection, but word-for-word, it presents about as much new narration in 45 minutes as the entire 2-hour 1982 Theatrical Cut.)

From a historical perspective, regardless of what I personally think of the voiceovers' "working" or not, I'm honestly thankful that multiple versions of it exist, including one WITH narration, because (like Ridley Scott's inclusion of the unicorn sequence) it's only served to increase the fantastic culture of intense analysis and discusssion of the movie, and got people arguing passionately over the meanings of the story and their own tastes and preferences re: all BR's various incarnations. For movie fans, and especially if you love BR, it's like having five (five and a half, if you count the new 45-minute Deleted Scenes montage) glorious versions of one of your all-time favorite novels, for you to compare all the different approaches to telling the story: the first rough draft, the second polished and edited rough draft, another version done 10 years later which alters some basic yet very fundamental aspects of the story, and still another version done 15 years later which revamps and polishes hundreds of the story's details in far more complex and minute fashion.

Not to mention, the narration obviously add several layers of detail and information to the storyline; so for those of us who may actually prefer BR in the versions without the narration, we can still think of the movie in our own 'idealized' versions, but also have the slightly unfair ( ) advantage of thinking of the story with the benefit of the information that we know about only courtesy of the narration (how Deckard's ex-wife thought of him, Bryant's attitude towards replicants, the various sources of Cityspeak, Rachel's possible lack of an internal termination date, etc.)

When I was a fan of BR from about 1985 (when I first saw it on VHS) to 1990, I grew accustomed to the narration; it provided a more conventionally hardboiled, Mickey Spillane/Dashiell Hammett private-eye 'arch' to the story, and was even a little bit comforting in that it helps to put the audience on Deckard's side somewhat in a very hostile and unfriendly environment.

But when I first saw the Workprint in L.A. in 1990, the lack of narration (except for Roy's death scene at the very end) had an extraordinary effect on my experience of watching the movie as an audience member: suddenly you were much more alone in the strange, bleak, alien landscape of L.A. 2019, and (like Deckard) basically left to fend for yourself in this scary and unsparing environment. The funny thing was, the absence of narration actually served to make me pay closer attention to the movie, to work harder to connect the dots of the story, and reflect over the possible relationships between the characters and their society, and the literally thousands of absorbing details presented by Ridley Scott and Co. Finally watching the initial "Director's Cut" in 1992 confirmed that for me, personally, a narration-free BR is BR in its most beautiful, elegant, absorbing, challenging, and purest form

Case in point is Roy's death scene, which was SO beautiful to watch the first time I saw it without any narration whatsoever in 1992, it truly left my jaw on the floor. (Re: the version of this scene in the 1982 Theatrical Cut, I couldn't possibly agree more with what Frank Darabont has to say about it in the Dangerous Days documentary: something along the lines of, "Thank you for taking this unbelievably magical cinematic moment of transcendent beauty and emotional power, and kicking it right in the nuts." )

Harrison Ford has unfairly been given so much grief over the last 25 years for the narration in BR, but there are some moments where his line readings are better than others (and in other cases, it's the quality of the writing - or lack thereof - that's at fault for the narration's less-than-stellar overall effect, not what Ford brings to it). Funnily enough, I think the finest section of narration in the entire BR saga is Ford's narration over Roy's death scene in the new Deleted Scenes compilation. It's the one piece of BR narration where Ford doesn't seem either bored, irritated, unsure of the material or unsure of himself; his reading is very unforced and heartfelt. But if Ford is at the very top of his game here, and I *still* think the scene works best (dramatically and cinematically) without the narration, that pretty much settles the argument as far as my own personal take on the narration is concerned.

Some feel that BR is more alienating without the narration, like what ElTorro says about its "filling the gaps and pace of the movie"; others adore the quite (appropriately) melancholy yet sensual pace of the movie, and feel the narration itself is what's alienating and serves to pull you out of the directly visceral experience of the story and its world. As you can probably guess by now, I'm in the latter camp (and bravo to audience members for using a few of their brain cells to try to "meet a movie halfway" and making a little effort on their own to connect the dots of a story, and even engaging in some extended speculation about all its possible meanings and implications). Maybe what someone once said about 2001: A Space Odyssey's "allowing our minds to freely roam the vastness of the cosmos for a few hours" is the way I feel about BR sans narration: there's something that (for me, at least) makes for a far more majestic kind of experience watching BR without the narration's interfering with your consciousness along the way, and occasionally jolting you out of your utter immersion in the universe of L.A. 2019.

An interesting and unexpected thing about the voiceover is that Harrison's delivery is so unengaged that it makes the existing contrast between Deckard and Batty even greater. It accentuates the inhumanity of Deckard. Its mechanicalness makes us symphatize with the spirited replicants even more. With the voiceover, Blade Runner becomes a different film. I think the spoken lines are more important to the atmosphere than that they are to the plot.

The only thing about the voiceovers that bother me are that they have a lot of extra lines that just aren't important. They explain things that are not integral to the actual storyline. The one true piece of voice-over that should have stayed in the film is

"They don't advertise for killers in a newspaper. That was my profession. Ex-cop, ex-Blade Runner, ex-killer."

And that's important because it formally introduces you to Deckard. It's a great line as well.

I personally like the deleted voiceovers a lot.

I loved the deleted scenes montage with the alternate voiceover. I would love it if CDL was allowed to put together an entire 2 hour (or longer) version of the movie with most of that cut footage and VO. Just for fun, BTW. I'm extremely happy with the Final Cut.

I like both versions, but the one without the narration a little better. Once you've heard the narration, the genie is out of the bottle. For me, the information was useful in understanding the movie more quickly and with some information I wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

Some people really like it; some don't. They should have made enabling the narration an option in the menu of the Final Cut, IMO.

I'm oldschool though, because I never had access to the original 1982 theatrical version before I got the four-disc set. I only had the 1997 director's cut DVD where the widescreen was the fullscreen with the sides cropped off. Oh what majestical days DVD was brought up in. But, I never got the chance to learn the film as fast as others did with all the narration explaining.

im glad i saw the directors cut before the theatrical becasue i liked being able to interpret and figure the film out for myself, thats one of the reason i love the film so much as im sure many others do. the voiceover kinda explains the cookie cutter versoin of the story in a way, it just straight up tells you whats going on and why certain things are happening, and as i said could possible ruin someone whos viewing the film for the first times perspective of it.

im glad i saw the directors cut before the theatrical becasue i liked being able to interpret and figure the film out for myself, thats one of the reason i love the film so much as im sure many others do. the voiceover kinda explains the cookie cutter versoin of the story in a way, it just straight up tells you whats going on and why certain things are happening, and as i said could possible ruin someone whos viewing the film for the first times perspective of it.

Would you be a dear and get a smaller avatar? The one you have right now is a tad too large.

My 2 cents worth:

Being a post-modern film noir film, a voice over would be right in line with this film type.

The hat, the down on his luck cop, the dame in distress . . . it all plays into the film noir genre.

I think that for people who knew or know ABSOLUTELY nothing about PKD or his book, the voice overs could have given depth to the character . . . a cushion, gifted to the audience to relay background and inner character thoughts we couldn't possibly know any other way in an on-screen setting.

With that said, I think the CONTENT of such voice-overs could have been written a bit better, but even the style of that points directlyto the NOIR film voice-over cliche - the cop talking to the audience, narrating the experiences in a tired, help get me through the day sort of way.

I think they could be useful, if done properly, and if dropped in throughout the film. But either do it or don't. One here and there isn't effective, rather distracting.