"ALL THOSE MOMENTS WILL BE LOST IN TIME... LIKE TEARS IN RAIN..."

Who could ever forget those last and touching words of the villainous Nexus-6 replicant Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer in a career best performance) at the end of "Blade Runner"? Surely he wasn't a villain in the classic sense. I mean, how many villain characters have you seen rescue the hero at the end? I've seen zero. Until "Blade Runner", that is.

There's so much unique stuff about "Blade Runner". It was a flawed script, a flawed shoot, a flawed post-production. Harrison Ford disavowed the movie, as he deemed it "style over substance". Ford was reportedly very unhappy with Ridley Scott during the shoot. He said once in an interview, that Scott was more interested in his fanciful images than directing the actors. (Ford and Scott have since made up, although they've never done another movie together.)

Vangelis' evocative music, the main and acting performances, Futurist Syd Mead's unsurpassed designs, all those über-cool futuristic gadgets (the Voight-Kampff lie detector unit, the Vesper computer, the Spinner police vehicles). You could wax lyrical about all this cool stuff for hours, if not days.

Despite not being successful at the box-office in the summer of 1982 -- there was a little Steven Spielberg movie called "E.T." coming out that same summer -- "Blade Runner" quickly became a huge CULT. Countless people working in the visual arts owed Ridley Scott's flawed masterpiece their careers. (And countless people got into the visual arts because of it.)

All this ranting brings me to my ultimate point. There will be another Director's Cut version released later in 2007, incorporating all the previous cuts PLUS a brand new, never-before-seen Director's Cut by Sir Ridley Scott. What's even more fantastic, it'll be available internationally in the DVD, HD DVD and Blu-ray formats by the end of the year.

If you're more or less a "Blade Runner" fanatic like I am, I suggest that grab Paul M. Sammon's excellent book on the making of the film, called "Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner". It really spills the beans on everything you need to know about this sci-fi cult classic.

And while waiting for the HD versions of the Ultimate B.R. Cut, I'd suggest that you check out this fascinating documentary ("On The Edge of Blade Runner") by British film journo Mark Kermode. It isn't HD quality, but it's perfectly watchable :

http://www.infectiousvideos.com/index.php?p=showvid&a=playvid&sid=2350&cr=hotplay