I caught Blade Runner (FINALLY) for the first time the other day on IFC. I saw the 92 director's cut, which I guess is supposed to be better. Anyway, I liked the movie a lot, but wasn't all too impressed with it until the very end, when Rutger Hauer dies. I didn't really expect him to die like that, but it made the movie so much more meaningful and emotional, rather than just some stupid gun blazing sci-fi epic. Anyway, in the little speech he gives, he says "All those moments, lost in time- like tears in the rain." Does anyne know if that's a quote from anything? Like a poem? Is it a common simile, or did the screen writer just make it up? Because that line really got to me.

Aren't they supposed to come out with a director's cut again? But there are legal issues or something? I'm curious to see that and the original 82 version.

quote:

he says "All those moments, lost in time- like tears in the rain."

Rutger Hauer actually wrote his own lines for that bit. I don't know if the script called for a different dying monologue or if he was supposed to just die quietly, but it was a last-minute change. And thank god they allowed it; that's one of my favorite scenes in any movie. Whether Hauer took that line from a poem or something, I don't know. I think it's original.

I think they were supposed to release a special edition DVD about three years ago, but it never happened. Blade Runner has been plagued with every imaginable problem since its inception.

And the oringal '82 version is pretty awful, due almost wholly to Harrison Ford's extrinsic, redundant, and far too explicit narration. Supposedly, when Ford was called in to read his voice-over, he hated his lines so much that he tried to make the reading as hokey and ridiculous as possible; he hoped that the studio would scrap it when they heard how bad it was. But they didn't, and it ruined an otherwise great film.

The director's cut is definitely the best version, and, despite countless inconsistencies and plot holes, due to the chaos surrounding the shoots (everyone involved reportedly hated each other), Blade Runner is a fantastic film.