Bladerunner - the book and the film

Reviewed by: Richard Plackett (Wyrmtongue, Sep. 2000)

One of the rules of fiction (as I'm sure all of you are aware) is that, in the transference from book to film something is generally lost! As the title of this rant suggests I have found an anomaly interrupting this otherwise universal phenomena. I recently read a book called 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' (this was actually the title although it had 'BLADE RUNNER' emblazoned across the front of it). The point is that the book bore almost no relation to the film apart from the central character's first name. Despite radically changing elements of the book the filmmakers managed (burdened by a tortuous production and post production process) to produce a stunning action/science fiction classic, which owed as much to the 'Maltese Falcon' and the great film noir tradition as it did to contemporary SF.

An interesting twist on the film is the time that it took from the original release in 1982 to the Director's Cut being released on video in 1992. The original film comprehensively failed the screen tests, and as a result had plot clarifying voice-overs added and a tacked on happy ending. Cut to make it more palatable to the 80's consumer (over the great objections of Ridley Scott who was technically fired) were some of the less transparent areas, for example the dream unicorn. This version didn't do well either and was left to die a death, except by a few loyal fans who could see that there was a good movie buried somewhere. At one of these showings an earlier cut without the voiceover was shown by accident and this so improved the film that it ensured the release of the Director's Cut, hailed as the classic it undoubtedly is.

My mistake was probably having seen the film first which usually restricts your imagination when reading the original work. I suppose that in many cases film adaptations miss out huge chunks of plot, but the surprise with this book is the amount removed. Usually some of the details of the book are retained as a sort of respect to the author. With Blade Runner the filmmakers took a hatchet to the book and produced something almost unique in my experience; a film adaptation which so outclassed the original work, that the book has passed out of the public perception.

The questions tackled by both the book and the film (although the film is out to entertain more) surround the nature of life, sentience and the morality of destroying that which is different. Here another difference between the two works emerges, in the film the pathos is with the replicants and there is the possibility Deckard himself is one. You are shown that no matter how different they are they are still alive (brilliantly acted by Rutger Hauer). But the book runs out of feeling for them in the second half and plays the fact that they don't apparently empathise, as a way of showing that they are worthy of eradication.

Read the book and watch the film again and please make up your own minds, but above all enjoy them both!

We have copies of both Blade Runner and the Director's cut in the library, please see the database.