Blade Runner (1982)

Directed by Ridley Scott. With Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Edward James Olmos. A blade runner must pursue and terminate four replicants who stole a ship in space, and have returned to Earth to find their creator.

The film is set in a dystopian future Los Angeles of 2019, in which synthetic humans known as replicants are bio-engineered by the powerful Tyrell Corporation to work on off-world colonies.

It received only two Academy Award nominations without Oscars: Best Art Direction/Set Decoration, and Best Visual Effects.

A blend of science fiction and noir detective fiction, Blade Runner (1982) was a box office and critical bust upon its initial exhibition, but its unique postmodern production design became hugely influential within the sci-fi genre, and the film gained a significant cult following that increased its stature.

Back in cinemas in its definitive version, what can Blade Runner tell us about technology, politics, architecture, life, death and the human condition in 2015?

In an earlier review of "Blade Runner," I wrote; "It looks fabulous, it uses special effects to create a new world of its own, but it is thin in its human story." This seems a strange complaint, given that so much of the movie concerns who is, and is not, human, and what it means to be human anyway. Even one character we can safely assume is human, the reptilian Tyrell, czar of the corporation which manufactures replicants, strikes me as a possible replicant. And of the hero, Deckard (Harrison Ford), all we can say for sure is that director Ridley Scott has left clues in various versions of his film that can be used to prove that Deckard is a human -- or a replicant.

One of the greatest science fiction films ever made is about to be screened across the country in its definitive version. With its towering cityscapes, dreamy Vangelis soundtrack and nods to film noir, the movie offers a vision of a dystopian future devoid of human emotion . By Michael Newton

'Blade Runner' Director Ridley Scott Producer Michael Deeley Screenplay Hampton Fancher David Peoples Based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick Starring Harrison Ford Rutger Hauer Sean Young Edward James Olmos Daryl Hannah Music Vangelis Cinematography Jordan Cronenweth...

The strangest thing about the future is that this is now the future we once foretold. Twenty years ago, we thought of "now" as "the year 1982," and we wondered what life would be like. Little could we have guessed that there would be no world government, that the cars would look like boxes instead of rocket ships, and that there would still be rock 'n' roll on the radio.

Ridley Scott’s 1982 masterpiece, back on the big screen in this definitive version, is an overwhelming experience