You learn something new every day, and while some fans of "Blade Runner" might already know this, it’s fresh for me and probably for others as well. While almost every inch of the production of "Blade Runner" has been pored over, examined, and detailed, what you might might not know is that Ridley Scott rang up Stanley Kubrick for some help with the ending.
In the latest directors roundtable talk at THR, Scott revealed how footage from "The Shining" was used to help pad out the final portion of "Blade Runner."
"I had finished ‘Blade Runner,’ and it was a disaster," he said. "My investors were giving me a really hard time, saying ‘You can’t end the film with picking up a piece of origami, looking at the girl, walk in the elevator, nod, and bingo that’s it.’ I said, ‘It’s called a film noir.’ And they said, ‘What’s a film noir?’ That was a big problem. And he said, ‘We have to test this with an uplifting ending, where they will go off into the wilderness together.’ I said, ‘Well if they go off into a beautiful wilderness, why do they live in this dystopian environment?’"
Nevertheless, Scott had to find some pastoral footage, but lucky enough for him, Kubrick had reams of it from "The Shining." In fact, he had 17 hours worth of material of the helicopter that tracks the journey of the VW to the Overlook Hotel.
"He said, ‘wait a minute, you got a vehicle [in the scene]?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ ‘What is it?’ ‘Long.’ ‘Oh, shit. Every shot I’ve got has got a Volkswagen in it.’ Then he went…’oh, what do you shoot [on]?’ I said, ‘Anamorphic.’ ‘Ah…when you project mine, it’ll look oblong. You’ll be fine.’"
The result? Well, look on below as it was featured in the U.S. theatrical cut. Now let’s just hope Scott doesn’t get some harebrained scheme to make a "Blade Runner" sequel that ties into "The Shining"….. [via HitFix]
And yet you\’re being that guy. Watch the clip of the THR roundtable: you\’ll find one other guy who knows movies pretty well – name\’s Quentin Tarantino, heard of him? – who was also new to the story.
For such a pompous critic, this is hilarious! Oh Kevin, I think you need to quickly reedit this article so you can cover your your lack of remedial film history.
It\’s nice to hear Ridley tell the story in detail, but this was really well known before…Mr. Jagernauth shouldn\’t try to sell old fruit as fresh…people are smart.
Next week, we reveal the identity of \’Rosebud\’…….
Hahahahah! Oh man. Welcome to The Playlist Blog: Den of Idiots!
I mean I\’m really baffled… it\’s the most discussed alternative ending in film history.
Dont wanna be that guy, but this is an extremely well known fact and has been discussed at length since before the first director\’s cuts appeared in the 90\’s. A film site thinking this is news is pretty embarrassing… it\’d be like if Pitchfork acted as if they just discovered Leonard Cohen.