Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner

by Paul M. Sammon

Rediscover the groundbreaking magic of Blade Runner with this revised and updated edition of the classic guide to Ridley Scott’s transformative film—and published in anticipation of its sequel, Blade Runner 2049, premiering October 2017 and starring Ryan Gosling, Jared Leto, Robin Wright, and Harrison Ford.

Ridley Scott’s 1992 "Director’s Cut" confirmed the international film cognoscenti’s judgment: Blade Runner, based on Philip K. Dick’s brilliant and troubling science fiction masterpiece Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, is the most visually dense, thematically challenging, and influential science fiction film ever made. Future Noir offers a deeper understanding of this cult phenomenon that is storytelling and visual filmmaking at its best. 

In this intensive, intimate and anything-but-glamorous behind-the-scenes account, film insider and cinephile Paul M. Sammon explores how Ridley Scott purposefully used his creative genius to transform the work of science fiction’s most uncompromising author into a critical sensation, a commercial success, and a cult classic that would reinvent the genre. Sammon reveals how the making of the original Blade Runner was a seven-year odyssey that would test the stamina and the imagination of writers, producers, special effects wizards, and the most innovative art directors and set designers in the industry at the time it was made. This revised and expanded edition of Future Noir includes:

• An overview of Blade Runner’s impact on moviemaking and its acknowledged significance in popular culture since the book’s original publication
• An exploration of the history of Blade Runner: The Final Cut and its theatrical release in 2007
• An up-close look at its long-awaited sequel Blade Runner 2049
• A 2007 interview with Harrison Ford now available to American readers
• Exclusive interviews with Rutger Hauer and Sean Young

A fascinating look at the ever-shifting interface between commerce and art, illustrated with production photos and stills, Future Noir provides an eye-opening and enduring look at modern moviemaking, the business of Hollywood, and one of the greatest films of all time.

Genres: Nonfiction, Film, Media Tie In, History, Cyberpunk, Reference, Art

595 pages, Paperback

First published June 12, 1996

About the author

Paul M. Sammon has written for The Los Angeles Times, The American Cinematographer, Cahiers Du Cinéma, and Cinefantastique. His fiction has appeared in many collections and he is editor of the best selling American Splatterpunks series. As a film maker Paul M. Sammon has produced, edited and directed dozens of documentaries on films such as Platoon, Dune, and Robocop. He is the author of Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner and his latest book is about the making of the movie Starship Trooper directed by Paul Verhoeven (Robocop).

Reviews

[WarpDrive · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long, and you have burned so very very brightly, Roy”

This is a well written, detailed and informative book about a timeless masterpiece, about a movie that still now, so many years after its first release, has a lot to say, to all of us, about the nature of the human condition.
This book deserves praise for the amount of interesting information about the movie's troubled and complex history, its actors and their relationship to the Director Ridley Scott, and its making from an artistic as well as technical perspective. Highly recommended to all fans. A labour of love.

But I must admit one thing: the review of this nice book has been for me just an excuse to express my feelings about the movie: the one that has given me so much at many levels since I first watched it: it is time for me to talk about Blade Runner.

Blade Runner is a mesmerizing movie with a deceptively simple story, evocatively presenting timeless themes about humanity, consciousness, personal identity, death and oblivion that run deep at many different levels.
It is a story where the two main characters (a man and a replicant) discover their own humanity and the uniqueness and preciousness of conscious life.
But this movie is not a purely intellectual exercise: the haunting loneliness, the jaded love, the desperation for meaning and for more life, all paired with the haunting soundtrack, are deeply felt and simply unforgettable. This is a work of art in cinematic form, pure and simple. I really struggle to convey the beauty and the layers of meaning of this masterpiece, which always polarized critics (some of them clearly demonstrating, I think, their inability to get past the narrative surface of the movie and get to the meaning of its elliptical narrative and complex thematics – or maybe they should all undertake the Voight-Kampff test :-) ). Quite a few viewers, in particular, appeared not to initially appreciate the downbeat, morally ambiguous (up to the point of being disorienting), enigmatic and subtly sobering overall tone of this unconventional movie. But this movie was well ahead of its times, when it was initially released to the public.

That this work of art is something quite remarkable appears clear from the very beginning: the opening scenes are incredible and it all hits you immediately – a wondrous view of a far-future, stark, rain-drenched megalopolis (LA), where the sense of awe and magic of the imagery are exalted by the beautiful and atmospheric soundtrack that some have fittingly defined as “futuristic nostalgia”.

Many have called this a dystopian environment, but I personally found it a strangely beautiful and captivating scene. Almost reassuring. Exquisite in its decadence. A beautiful cityscape that is reflected into the iris of one of the main characters. We are in the presence of a human civilization that managed to create artificial consciousness, colonies on other planets, flying cars, forests of skyscrapers, but that also generated increasing wealth disparities and population and climate control issues. Dystopian ? Yes, but also reflecting amazing technical and scientific progress, to an extent that I might even define optimistic in a way, and reflecting faith in the capabilities of humankind, even with all the visible problems affecting its social and ecological environment. A civilization great in its decadence.







Exquisite, dreamlike decadence that is also beautifully reflected in the architecturally grandiose but rotting, huge and melancholic apartment building where Sebastian (the nerdish main developer of this Nexus replicant technology) lives alone with his bizarre creations, an environment imbued with an eerie ambiance.



His bizarre creations present a discomforting mixture of human-like (when, for example, the Kaiser-looking doll continually shoots a series of urgent, very human looks between the female replicant and Sebastian) and toy/machine-like characteristics (the mechanical movement, the repetition of acts, the bumping against walls). We have, in the same room, all different levels of consciousness, which challenges you to contemplate the nature, threshold and meaning of consciousness.






Also, the immense, ziggurat-shaped buildings of the Tyrell corporation, engulfed in golden light, and the vast, stark and intimidating Tyrell's office with its huge picture window, all exude an aura of almost religious power, in stark opposition to the anonymous faceless humanity rushing through the rain-drenched, overpopulated lower level streets.





This atmosphere, these environments hit me every time at a deep subliminal level, they provoke in me the same deep reactions that I experience when I contemplate a De Chirico streetscape or some surrealist paintings. The cityscape of LA 2019, where the movie is based, is eerie in its sense of alienation and isolation, even in its bustling overpopulated streets – a sense of isolation that I have seen pictorially rendered in paintings like Nighthawks by Edward Hopper, for example.





But I love this immersive, bleak world populated by a melting pot of styles and cultures, an uber-globalised environment with a heavy Eastern Asian influence. It is like Tokyio (which by the way is a stunning city), but with steroids. It is a great movie that keeps giving every time you watch it, but also a visual feast with transcendental and hallucinatory overtones.





The main characters have deeply flawed, ambiguous, morally complex, desperate personalities, whose development mirror and contrast each other. It is a constant struggle between feeling admiration or loath for either of them. And the moral and existential boundaries between the two, between human and replicant, get increasingly blurred as the movie progresses towards its conclusion. The purely instinctual and even homicidal greed for survival initially demonstrated by Roy the replicant get progressively nuanced and enriched by other elements. The attraction between Deckard (the “Blade Runner”) and Rachael (the replicant who initially was totally unaware of her own nature, thinking of herself as human but then discovering that her own memories were transplanted) is almost hateful, or at least dysfunctional; the love scene between the two amounts almost to rape – it is about two desperate human beings with a hollow existence who use each other to try and find some comfort that they desperately search for, some life meaning, in a desert of overcrowded anonymity, that they subliminally perceive they can't reach. A desperation that pushes them close to each other.

The meeting between the replicant Roy and his maker is also quite unforgettable: its dynamics resemble that of a confession between a believer and a priest (“I have done...questionable things”), between a son and his father, between the creator and his creation (“It's not an easy thing to meet your maker”). It is strangely intimate, and it expresses both the almost paternal pride of Tyrell for his creation and a dim beginning of moral conscience by the replicant, together with his desperate demand for more life, but it ends up with the son killing his father in an act of liberating, unexpected and violent rage. An act laden with symbolic meanings, from Greek mythology to the potential advent of the so-called technological singularity.

Some of the other characters are quite fascinating too – including the female replicant Pris (companion of Roy) with her strange mixture of erotic appeal, doll-like but super-human athletic strength, ruthlessness and manipulativeness mixed with fragility and insecurity. Gaff (the enigmatic veteran Blade Runner) and Tyrell himself are also fascinating, even if only (but masterfully) sketched.





Sebastian is also very interesting: he is twenty-five years old, a genius, but his skin is wrinkled and he is fast aging because of a physical condition. "Accelerated decrepitude" is how the replicant Pris describes it: in this, he has something in common with the replicants, but also with the civilization he is an exponent of. His condition highlights and magnifies the overall themes of mortality, decadence and caducity that appear throughout the narrative.

The theme of the relationship between memories and identity is also recurrent, and developed with intelligence and measure – starting from the fabricated memories of Rachael, to the childhood photographs stored in Deckard's apartment, to his enigmatic unicorn's dream, to the statement by Tyrell (“If we gift them with a past… we create a cushion or pillow for their emotions… and we can control them better”) to the final scene with the death of Roy the replicant.



The most emotionally charged scene of the movie is towards the end, when Roy the replicant, having clearly overwhelmed Deckard with his superior physical abilities, has literally Deckard's life in his hand.

Roy's final words express and appreciation for life and for the uniqueness and value of his life experiences, which he almost gently remembers and cherishes, and an appreciation for his own personhood; they are all the more poignant because he is about to die, and he knows it. The tragedy and pathos to the kind of knowledge of one's mortality that this replicant possesses, make him more human than his human opponent. While he is dying, he wants to hold onto something that is alive, a white dove that is symbolically released at the very moment of his death.

But the deeply human way with which Roy makes us witnesses to his death does not come as a total surprise - glimpses of the developing humanity of this replicant start appearing when he finds his companion dead, with her tongue protruding from her mouth – in a scene of deep tenderness so contrasting to her bizarre, machine-like death, he puts her tongue back into her mouth by kissing her, giving her the dignity she deserved. It is a very strong moment.

Even at the beginning of the movie, when the replicants are depicted as ruthless, in-emotional machines with superhuman capabilities and intelligence, one of Roy's replicant companions expresses his emotional desperation, while he is holding by the neck and about to kill his prospective destroyer: “Painful to live in fear, isn't it?". Something very similarly later expressed by Roy himself: "Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave".

Finally, by saving the life of the person who was supposed to “retire” him, Roy the replicant shows his full humanity: he comes to fully appreciates the value of human life, and he saves the life of his enemy. In doing so, he reaches emotional maturity by loving life “per se”, anybody’s life, not just his own.

The author of this book reports that when Hauer performed the scene, the film crew applauded and some even cried – which I found not surprising at all, considering how beautifully and heartrendingly the replicant wants to make his mark on existence, how his final short speech highlights at the same time his deeply human traits and his super-human (almost in a Nietzsche-an sense) short but very intense existence (as per his “maker” Tyrell unforgettable statement: "The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long, and you have burned so very very brightly, Roy”). Experience. Discovery. Empathy. And, most of all, appreciation of the beauty and majesty of the Universe. All features that characterize the short life of Roy, and that make him intensely human. Maybe he represents Human 2.0. Maybe this is why we are around - what is the point of beauty is there is nobody to contemplate, understand and appreciate it.

Roy is an Übermensch, physically and morally speaking - he is morally free of the rules of his human chasers, but ultimately he is not amoral. His choice to save Deckard is made from a position of strength, an utterly free choice.



But the replicant life's meaning is ultimately marked by the manner of his death – and in doing so he shows his human opponent Deckard what humanity is about, he shows freedom and free will that his human opponent has not demonstrated yet. He is a fallen angel that has gained his full meaning by the manner of his dying.

He shows Deckard the understanding that anybody life's loss is everybody's loss, and how life, consciousness and the unique magic that is the individual “soul” are all so fragile ("all these moments will be lost – like tears in rain”). Existential angst at its most poetic.

Our short human life is, after all, not so different to the few years lifespan that has been irreversibly hardwired into the basic structure of these replicants – we too have incept dates and a built-in internal obsolescence mechanism. Like Roy, we too long to meet, or at least fathom, our Maker (whatever it may be – be it in a theistic, deistic or atheistic version). At least Roy can go and find Tyrell – we can't. And, like Roy, Deckard, and Rachael, we all try to figure out ourselves, consciously or unconsciously.

At the end of the movie we are left to wonder if these replicants are human, and if Deckard is in fact a replicant (the hint delivered by the puzzling Deckard's unicorn dream). But, does it really matter ? Maybe this is the message – that it does not. Lots of questions are left unanswered – in a deeply ethical movie that, nevertheless, does not provide any clear-cut, ready-made simple answers. It is left to us, viewers. But this is part of the magic and beauty of it.

One message from the movie is quite unequivocal, though: to love conscious life as a gift, contemplate it for the mystery that it represents, and live it every day - at its possible best. And that we are not nothing – Roy teaches us that, after all, there is value in us human beings and in our conscious minds. And that we should not waste it. Experience and discover. Learn. Expand your consciousness. Build memories. Contemplate beauty. Make your own light burn as bright as you can.

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears...in...rain.
Time to die."



I love Blade Runner. I always will.

PS: note that this review is about the “director's cut” version, not about the versions containing the silly, feel-good happy ending that was tacked on for purely commercial reasons.

[Paul Haspel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The future caught up with me -- or I caught up with it -- in November of 2019. As a 21-year-old college senior, I had seen Ridley Scott's Blade Runner in June of 1982, at an overcrowded, now-long-gone little theatre multiplex in Washington, D.C. -- and at that time, I couldn't imagine living all the way to November 2019, the time in which Blade Runner is set.

But time passed, and November 2019 eventually arrived, and it seemed a suitable time to return to Scott’s visionary 1982 science-fiction film -- not a difficult thing, as Blade Runner has been a favourite of mine from its 1982 premiere to the present day. The film’s production and its reception history constitute a story as intricate and compelling as what one sees on screen, and Paul M. Sammon sets forth that story well in his book Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner.

Sammon, a Hollywood-based journalist and filmmaker, has worked on a variety of films such as Platoon (1986) and RoboCop (1987), but has truly made the study of Blade Runner his life’s work. Future Noir was originally published in 1996, but has now been republished in a revised, much-expanded, 594-page magnum opus that members of Blade Runner’s sizable and enthusiastic fan community refer to as “the Blade Runner Bible.”

Future Noir, among other things, works as an exposition of the process by which a major motion picture comes to the screen. It all started with science-fiction author Philip K. Dick’s 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the story of a bounty hunter named Rick Deckard whose job it is to hunt down and “retire” renegade androids who have escaped from off-world colonial slavery and made their way to Earth. The book, with its morally ambiguous story and noir-ish elements, turned out to be perfect for a film that would bring together elements of science fiction and film noir.

After a number of fits and starts, Do Androids Dream was optioned for development; an ambitious young director named Ridley Scott was hired; and two different screenwriters, Hampton Fancher and David Webb Peoples, took their different shots at adapting Do Androids Dream for the screen -- coming up, in the process, with the innovative idea of calling the androids “replicants.” And a talented cast -- including Harrison Ford, Sean Young, Rutger Hauer, Edward James Olmos, Daryl Hannah, and Joanna Cassidy -- was assembled.

As art directors and set decorators, under Ridley Scott’s close supervision, began to construct the highly distinctive, profoundly detailed production design for which Blade Runner would become particularly well-known, everyone involved with the film seems to have realized that they had the opportunity to create a film that would be much more than a ray-gun shoot-’em-up -- as when producer Michael Deeley stated that “The central problems in Blade Runner are essentially moral ones….Should the replicants kill to gain more life? Should Harrison Ford be killing them simply because they want to exist? These questions begin to tangle up Deckard’s thinking” (p. 100).

A shot-by-shot, scene-by-scene, sequence-by-sequence of Blade Runner’s action provides a number of intriguing examples of roads not taken, of ideas that were considered but never filmed, often for reasons of cost. This part of the book also emphasizes how the collaborative nature of filmmaking as an art form means that sometimes the best ideas come together when talented people bounce good ideas off one another.

An example of this principle occurs in the death scene for Roy Batty, the replicant leader played by Rutger Hauer. Looking back, Hauer explains that he felt that the original, protracted, half-page death speech that Batty speaks to Rick Deckard was not suitable: “[W]e’d already seen this opera of dying replicants; I didn’t think the audience would stand another protracted death scene.” When the scene was filmed, therefore, Hauer “cut a little bit out of the opening and then improvised these closing lines: ‘All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die’” (p. 230). It is one of the most deeply moving and poetic moments that I have ever witnessed in cinema.

After a difficult production history and the addition of a dizzying array of special effects, Blade Runner was ready to be presented to the moviegoing world. Editor Terry Rawlings said of an early screening that “when the film finished and the lights came up, Ridley [Scott] turned to me and said, ‘God, it’s marvelous. What the f—k does it all mean?’ We knew then we had a lot to do to really get the audience to understand what was going on. Because this was a very difficult work to translate” (p. 310).

Rawlings’s words were prophetic -- for when it was released in 1982, Blade Runner was a critical and commercial failure. Critics generally panned it, and audiences largely stayed away. When I first saw Blade Runner during its original release, at that crowded little theatre in D.C., my initial response to the film mirrored what I read in the response cards filled out by early-1980’s moviegoers. The production design was mesmerizing, the actors’ performances were strong and evocative, and Vangelis’ music complemented the film’s action perfectly; but the film’s more graphic moments of violence distracted from the story rather than emphasizing its drama, and there were internal contradictions in the narrative that I still don’t think were ever fully resolved.

To wit: Philip K. Dick’s original Do Androids Dream novel was about a bounty hunter; and it makes sense that a bounty hunter works alone, under dangerous conditions. For his film, director Scott clearly wanted to evoke the traditions of the film noir narrative within a futuristic setting. Yet, as the title cards at the beginning of the film make clear, Blade Runner’s Deckard is a member of a special police squad; and everyone knows that police squads do not send out officers alone to confront dangerous suspects.

In that connection, think about when you see a vehicle stopped by police in your own town or city. If only one police car is there, then it’s probably a routine traffic stop: a speeding ticket, maybe, or expired license plates. More than one police car means that it’s a more serious matter -- a drug arrest, perhaps, or the capture of a dangerous fugitive. It is the principle of bringing superior force to bear, and Blade Runner blithely ignores that basic principle of police work -- because the noir elements of the story demand that the protagonist confront dangerous enemies all by himself.

Usually, when a film bombs with critics and at the box office, that is the end of it; it fades into obscurity, with a one- or two-star rating in Leonard Maltin’s Movies on TV books. Think, for example, about what happened to Last Action Hero (1993) or Battlefield: Earth (2000), with their big budgets and their failed expectations for box-office gold. Yet with the profusion of cable and videocassette technology in the 1980’s, viewers had multiple opportunities to re-view Blade Runner over the years; and increasingly, viewers liked what they saw.

The film began to gather a cult following, and Ridley Scott, even while busy with other film projects, found himself returning time and again to Blade Runner, overseeing the release of a Director’s Cut in 1992, and of a “Final Cut” in 2007. To date, six different versions of Blade Runner exist. It is as if the film’s Tyrell Corporation can’t stop turning out new-model replicants!

This updated version of Future Noir includes a discussion of the second Blade Runner film – Denis Villeneuve’s comparably brilliant Blade Runner 2049 (2017) -- as well as new and illuminating interviews with Harrison Ford, Sean Young, and Rutger Hauer. When the film came out, I recall, Ford was interviewed by a journalist who, in those post-Star Wars, post-Raiders of the Lost Ark days, asked if Ford wasn’t concerned about being typecast as a summer-blockbuster action hero. Ford’s reply, with regard to Blade Runner, was something on the order of, “This is not that kind of movie.” More than three decades later, Ford suggests, aptly, that the film’s initial critical and commercial failure occurred “Perhaps because it wasn’t…what people originally expected it to be. Blade Runner was a powerful cinematic experience. And, it was ahead of its time” (p. 521).

Like Blade Runner itself, Ford's words are prophetic. Today, in our world beyond November 2019, rising sea levels caused by climate change threaten coastal cities and small island nations around the world. Overpopulation has accelerated, from 4.6 billion people in the world in 1982 to 7.7 billion people today. Increasing income inequality means that, in more and more cities around the world, the unfortunate many are crowded onto filthy, traffic-choked streets below, while the lucky few enjoy spacious penthouse luxury above. Pervasive surveillance technology, from facial-recognition software in China to CCTV in Great Britain, gives one that sense of constantly being watched by faceless, all-powerful entities.

From Times Square to Piccadilly Circus to Shibuya, neon advertisements, three and four stories high, constantly demand the viewer's attention. From New York and Chicago to Shanghai and Kuala Lumpur, impossibly tall skyscrapers loom over the landscape -- structures so vast that they can never be torn down but will rather have to be "retrofitted," built onto like the Tyrell Corporation's 700-story-tall pyramidal headquarters.

Amid a culture awash in high-tech amusements, there are regular and sudden outbreaks of hideous violence; in response, increasingly militarized police forces wield virtually unlimited power in a manner that puts the rights of ordinary citizens at risk. And the proliferation of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) technology causes the moral philosophers of today to ask some troubling questions. What does it mean to be sentient? What does it mean to be human?

Our world of today, in short, is a world much like what was forecast in Blade Runner. And any aficionado of this classic motion picture, I think, would enjoy the opportunity to learn more about the film and its production history that is offered by Paul Sammon’s Future Noir.

[Paul Christensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Epic read on all aspects of the making of Blade Runner, one of the best films of the 1980s.

So, was Deckard a replicant or not?

The answer is that Ridley Scott intended him to be so (hence the unicorn sequence in the director’s cut), but few other of the film’s participants agreed.

Hopper’s painting 'Night Hawks' is mentioned as an influence, along with the French comic ‘Heavy Metal’.

Scott’s obsession to detail was such that the set ‘even smelled like a sleazy metropolis’.

[Carla Remy · Rating 5 out of 5]

06/2019

i actually read this before, 12 years ago I think. Same copy of the book I have now. I remembered liking all the Philip K. Dick stuff in it, and also that he died after it was made but before the movie came out. I also remembered that Harrison Ford didn't like Sean Young (gossipy of me, I know, but I think you can see this in the film, the lack of chemistry). Future Noir is a very thorough, book written by a man who was actually on the Blade Runner set. It is a detailed analysis of every aspect of making the film, starting with the optioning of the novel and the script writing and going on to everything else I could even name. Very eye opening, in terms of filmmaking .
Regarding the differences between Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep and Blade Runner, PKD said, when they were making the movie: "I do accept the word 'replicant' now, since 'android' genuinely has been overused."

[Thomas Stroemquist · Rating 3 out of 5]

This massive book was a bit of a roller-coaster with all it's ups and downs. The ups of course it being about the making of Blade Runner and all the details. The downs being the long-windedness, the repetition and all the details...

Starting from the top, this book lets you know most of all there is to know about the long, winding and improbable journey that was turning Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? into 5 movie versions. If you've read any "Making of...." books, you know what to expect.

There are more aspects though - the author even warns before the "SFX" chapter that it may be hard going for some (but did I listen? oh no!). The organisation of the material in "topics", one being the entire movie from start to finish more or less, ensures so much repetition that my head spun and when I thought I was nearing the end one of the Appendices is a full long interview with Ridley Scott (for some reason in much smaller font, Idk maybe someone decided to save some trees) where so much of the oft-repeated material is from! And the comparison of the 'versions' are mostly pure nerdery. Now, I'm never adverse to such per se, but keeping interest up learning that a camera pan is 3 seconds longer in 'Director's Cut' vs. 'The Workprint' or that a camera angle is a few degrees higher during a totally uneventful other 4 seconds takes a totally different level of interest than I posses - even for Blade Runner.

Unfortunately, due to the organisation and structure of the text, it's not really a book to read parts of, so if you are interested enough, you just might have to bite down and pull through it. If you are a fan of the movie, I'd still say it's way worth it.

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

A superb book about a classic film.
Paul M Sammon has been fortunate enough to to put his wealth of knowledge on Blade Runner into print. From being on the set while the film was being made in the early 1980s, right up to conducting new interviews in 2017, Sammon covers it all.
This is not really a book for the casual viewer, but if you love Blade Runner as much as I do then this is the ultimate "making of" book.
Even the Acknowledgements section is worth a read where it's nice to see him thank his wife, "who never wants to hear the words Blade Runner again." I think my wife feels the same!

[C.T. Phipps · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do you like Blade Runner? I mean, do you REALLY like Blade Runner? Well, I do REALLY-REALLY like Blade Runner. I've watched the movie dozens of times and it's really one of those films which exists up there in my head space with Alien and Star Wars that influence everything from my personal life to writing.

As such, I was interested in what has been considered to be the definitive book on the movie. That's because not only was Paul M. Sammon on set with the movie during filming but he's returned to write about Blade Runner consistently for the past thirty or so years. This book has a number of editions because he keeps coming back to write on it.

This book more or less follows the creation of the film from its beginnings as an adaptation of DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP to retrospectives from the actors on the film twenty-to-thirty years later. We find out everything from how individual scenes were filmed to the making of the neon lights to how everyone thought about Ridley Scott (he was not a popular director with the cast and terrified Sean Young).

This is an in-depth and wonderful work on the subject even if it sometimes drags. Paul M. Sammon doesn't really touch on any of the movie's deeper themes and keeps himself laser-focused on the facts of production. As such, this is more a book for those interested in the nuts and bolts of the movies' creation as well as influence.

Still, I definitely got my money's worth. I mean, how many other books talk about how the snake was actually owned by Joanna Cassidy a.k.a Zhora, how she really wanted to do the snake dance but got shot down by the producers (even going so far as to film it years later), and how she felt walking around the set naked the entire time? Those are the kind of stories you find within.

In fact there's a lot of humor to be found in how much the cast you'd think would get along didn't and the cast which you'd think would be difficult turned out to be the best of friends. Ridley Scott, Harrison Ford, and Sean Young all came away from the movie hating one another while Rutger Howard is apparently friends with everyone to this day. Indeed, funnily, most of them know the author due to his constant checking up on them for fan material.

Harrison Ford is a great interviewee in this book as well, which is to say it's clear he's only barely tolerating being interviewed and hates most of his former cast. The best part of the book is, hands down, "Do you want to talk about your co-star Sean Young" and his answer of, "No." That was worth the price of the book by itself.

In conclusion, this is only a book which a super-fan would want but why would you be buying it otherwise?

9/10

[Rosenkavalier · Rating 5 out of 5]

God, it's marvelous. What the fuck does it all mean?

Se c'è un film al centro di un culto pagano, quel film è Blade Runner.
Così stando le cose, la bibbia di questo culto è Future Noir, un singolare work in progress che l'autore aggiorna da venticinque anni, ma il cui materiale è stato raccolto a partire dalla prima visita di Sammon, allora giovane cronista di spettacolo, al set di quello che fin lì era (e per molto tempo sarebbe stato) soltanto il nuovo film della star di I Predatori dell'arca perduta e Guerre Stellari, diretto da un promettente regista inglese che veniva dalla pubblicità e aveva appena realizzato un enorme successo scifi (Alien).

Partito come un film a medio budget con lo scopo di essere un buon prodotto commerciale, Blade Runner letteralmente esplose tra le mani della troupe, diventando ogni giorno più complesso (e più costoso), man mano che Scott metteva le mani sull'operazione guidandola verso uno dei più clamorosi e complicati capolavori della storia del cinema.

Il libro racconta tutto, ma proprio tutto quel che un fanatico vorrebbe sapere sulla realizzazione del film, che inizia quasi per caso, con l'acquisto da parte dello sceneggiatore e produttore Hampton Fancher, in società con un amico, dei diritti di un romanzo semisconosciuto.
Fancher racconta che fu la sua amica Barbara Hershey a convincerlo a scrivere il soggetto e la sceneggiatura; dalla diapositiva si capisce che Barbara Hershey, ottima attrice protagonista tra l'altro di Boxcar Bertha di M. Scorsese, all'epoca avrebbe potuto convincerti di qualsiasi cosa.



Comunque grazie, Barbara. Di tutto.

Infinite le beghe tra la compagine dei finanziatori, eterogenea e non molto convinta della bontà del risultato dell'investimento, tanto da imporre modifiche e l'aggiunta della famigerata voice over dopo i primi screenings non troppo soddisfacenti.

Anche sul set le cose non andavano meglio, tra attori poco in sintonia e continue scaramucce tra il regista e la crew, che mal tollerava quello che sembrava un atteggiamento troppo autoritario di Scott, tensione culminata nella famosa guerra delle t-shirts (aneddoto impossibile da sintetizzare, in rete si trovano dei resoconti, basta cercare "guv'nor my ass").
In realtà, il set di Blade Runner era un concentrato di talento tecnico quasi incredibile da Scott a Syd Mead a Douglas Trumbull, il mago degli effetti speciali che aveva lavorato a 2o01 Odissea nello spazio, a Jordan Cronenweth. Non sorprende che il risultato sia stato così strabiliante.

Le storie sul\del\nel film sono infinite, alcune sono celeberrime come il riciclo del girato scartato da Kubrick per i titoli di Shining, che Scott usò per il famigerato happy ending appiccicato a set abbondantemente chiuso (pare che Kubrick, giusto per alimentare la sua leggenda nera di genio pazzo, avesse da parte 3 settimane di girato da una troupe in elicottero, da cui sono stati tratti i tre minuti dei titoli di testa del film).
Altre sono meno note, una che trovo spassosa è quella secondo cui la sequenza in cui Deckard cerca di ritirare Zhora è una citazione - omaggio della scena del Il grande sonno in cui Bogart finge di essere un bibliofilo (se non la conoscete, va da sè, non voglio conoscervi).
E del resto, tutti gli esterni del film sono stati girati in un luogo storico degli studios hollywoodiani, il celebre set "Old New York Street" della Warner, dove (tanto per dire) è stato girato Il mistero del falco di John Huston (e anche qui, se non l'avete visto, v. sopra).

Certamente, il livello di dettaglio dell'aneddottica è sicuramente troppo per me e del resto ormai Lascia o raddoppia non lo fanno più, perchè sennò il libro sarebbe stato utile per prepararsi alle domande in cabina.
Sorvolando sugli eccessi, Future Noir è un libro di cinema scritto con grande e autentica passione su un film magnifico che, apparentemente destinato a scomparire dopo un paio di settimane di infelici risultati al botteghino, è rinato a nuova vita ed è stato uno dei più grandi successi di sempre nell'homevideo, con una sequela di edizioni (che io possiedo quasi tutte, perlomeno su disco, mentre non ho la vhs e il mitico laserdisc che è un oggetto da collezione tipo Christie's).

Non so se queste righe bastino a convincere qualcuno a leggere il libro, in ogni caso per onestà intellettuale devo aggiungere che la lettura può essere sostituita (con buonissima approssimazione) da uno dei più bei documentari mai girati sulla realizzazione di un film (l'altro è Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse, sulla realizzazione di Apocalypse Now).
Il suo titolo è Dangerous days - making Blade Runner e lo trovate tra gli extra di più o meno tutti i cofanetti in circolazione.

Come? Non guardate gli extra dei bluray?

Qualcuno dovrebbe levarvi dalla circolazione, ritirarvi, maledetti lavori in pelle.

[Nota: il titolo è il virgolettato del commento di Ridley Scott dopo la prima proiezione del film in formato quasi definitivo per la Warner Bros.]

[Diocletian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Blade Runner is my favorite movie. The first time I watched it, I was awestruck. Although it is over thirty years old by now, the atmosphere and setting left me bewildered. I was so blown away by the environment within the film that I did not understand much of either the story or the symbolism. However, I knew that I liked it. It confused me, but it was one of the most interesting and unique films I had seen. Since then, I have watched it over multiple times, and have come to understand many aspects of Blade Runner that had confused me originally. Even after re-watching it multiple times, however, I was still amazed by it. So when I heard about this book, I decided that I had to read it.

This book goes into all of the aspects of the making of Blade Runner, with all of its significant events and developments recorded, often in the form of interviews with the many people involved in the film-making process. This book also goes beyond just the development of the theater release of the film, and goes into the story behind the Workprint as well as the Director's Cut. Sadly, it does not cover the Final Cut, which was released many years after this book was written. The only other section of the book that I consider lacking is the chapter on the soundtrack, and that is mainly because Vangelis did not want to be interviewed for this book. Besides these few flaws, this book should be required reading for any Blade Runner fan.

[TK Keanini · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've collected everything over the years that had anything to do with Blade Runner. On page 338, there is talk about a 35mm dupe of the 70mm workprint viewing at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco. I was there. In fact, I was there for the first show, 4 hours before the box office opened and yes, I was first in line to view this rare event. It got pulled after running for 13 days because of the legalities involved but as pointed out in this book, it made 94,000.00 during one week of the two week run making it the top-grossing theater in America for that 7-day period back in 1991.

[Benji's Books · Rating 5 out of 5]

So, this was actually a re-read.

From the first time I watched Blade Runner, I was intrigued. It was the Director's Cut. I fell in love with the film and decided to buy the Anniversary DVD with like, 5 cuts of the film and every time I watch it, I try not to watch the same cut twice in a row. I even picked up the book it was based on, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" by Phillip K. Dick (the Man in the High Castle, A Scanner Darkly, Minority Report, etc.) That was also a good read.

There were quite a few typos throughout, unfortunately. And I mean quite a few. Yet that doesn't bring the quality of info down, just the revision part. There is so much research put into this and it doesn't read like a text book or anything, either. It's very personal. Unsurprisingly, since writer Paul Sammon was on the set most of the time. One thing I loved about this, was that since this was the Revised & Updated version, the author actually tells us any info he was wrong about in the first edition, that he changed for this release.

Oh, and the book even delves into the whole Vangelis score for the film. I'm a fan of his music, so that was quite nice to learn about. I'm a Christian, but I kind of rolled my eyes though when he explained how Rutger Hauer shoving a nail through his hand in the film is the equivalent of Jesus being being crucified. Woah, settle down a bit. I get that you love the film, but it doesn't mean everything or anything about it is biblical.

Nonetheless, I'd probably read it again! Definitely recommended if you're not only a fan of the film itself, but a scifi fan and/or cinephile in general.

[MacWithBooksonMountains Marcus · Rating 4 out of 5]

A vast repository of everything that matters more or less concerning the movie Bladerunner including interviews with all actors

[Todd · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are a Blade Runner fan, then you must read this book. There is no other work about any specific film, let alone Blade Runner, that exists. Paul M. Sammon has put together a collector's masterpiece. The book covers every single detail any fan could ever want, and some that many fans would never have even thought of. Sammon, a film journalist and film maker/worker, was on the set during the making of Blade Runner. He interviewed the actors, the director, and every other major player in the making of this film.

Moreover, throughout the years, Sammon has updated the work (up to 1995), and has included nine appendices that cover film credits, to director interviews, to various versions of the films, to blunders in the film and much more. Additionally, portions of this work discuss Philip K. Dick, the author of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and his feelings about Hollywood and this film.

Once again, this is a must read for fans of Ridley Scott, the movie Blade Runner, the writer Philip K. Dick, or movie making in general.

[D.M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is THE book on Ridley Scott's 80s epic Blade Runner. Not only is it an utterly indispensable guide through the making of the film, it is a pleasantly readable account of the battle that can happen in making any film. Though the special effects chapter is necessarily a little dry, Sammon makes efforts to direct it to the uninitiated as well as those more versed in the ways of effects. Aside from that one section, Sammon did an admirable job assembling years-worth of information on all the aspects of the film into a coherent whole.
There is almost certainly an up-to-date version of this book that will cover the eventual re-re-release of the film in its Final Cut version, but even this earlier edition (published after the Director's Cut was released for home viewing) explains why so many different versions of the film exist.
Chockful of information both necessary and trivial, this is essential reading for the fan, and informative for the curious.

[Martín · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seguramente el libro más exhaustivo que se haya editado nunca sobre la película. 450 páginas de análisis escena por escena, entrevistas con todo el equipo (Dick incluido), creación del guión, efectos, banda sonora, diferencias entre versiones... Detallado hasta el agotamiento ajeno.

[Matthias Thorn · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first time I even heard of the movie known as Blade Runner, I was ten years old and in the backseat of a stationwagon. I'd just gotten picked up by Rebecca's mom as part of a four-kid carpool I was in. Rebecca's mom had just seen the movie the night before and wanted to talk about it to the oldest and most intellectually sophisticated person in the car with her at the time, which happened to be yours truly. She had enjoyed the film, but she also frankly disclosed a certain amount of surprise and confusion. It was nothing like Star Wars, Alien, Empire or any of the other big-name sci-fi movies making their way through the movie theaters at that time, the dawn of the big-budget special-effects blockbuster era. She wanted to describe BR to me, but couldn't, not adequately. This of course drove me mad with a desire to see it.

But my parents were strict about movie ratings, and so, since it was R for Restricted, I didn't get to see Blade Runner until its television premier in 1986. I didn't really understand it myself, but, like a lot of movies at that time, I made a mental footnote to watch it again later if I ever had the chance. Thanks to first VHS and then DVD, I've since had many chances to watch it. I've also watched a lot of Ridley Scott's other movies, and a lot of movies inspired by Blade Runner. I've also read a lot of Philip K. Dick short stories, and watched pretty much every PKD-based movie I can find.

Nothing is really quite like Blade Runner. I wouldn't say it's my favorite movie, by any stretch, but it's probably one of my favorite movies to think about, take apart, and analyze. It's also one of my favorite movies just to see - it's such a fantastically beautiful and richly textured movie. I can enjoy it almost as much with the sound off as I can with the sound on. I love its mood, and its moodiness. I love the world that it creates, more than the story or the characters.

I've never been able to figure out why I'm so fascinated by certain parts of Blade Runner, or why, on the whole, it seems so different from so many other movies. So imagine my surprise and reserved delight when I discovered that a man named Paul Sammon had written a book in the 90's called Future Noir: the Making of Blade Runner. Here was a book that, maybe, might just possibly give me a clue as to what's so different and elusive about this one particular movie. I put the book on my wishlist, but then decided I'd probably never buy it.

Like I said, it's not my favorite movie. I'm not even sure I can say it's a terribly strong movie, all told. Harrison Ford himself, the leading man, says it's one of his least favorite movies he's ever been involved with. But here's the thing. When I watch that movie, I feel like it's brushing up against some kind of ceiling, and if it had just had a little more oomph, strength, speed, brilliance, I don't know what, it could have, I don't know, somehow transcended. Transcended what? I don't know. Become what instead? I also don't know. All I know is that sometimes I feel like in Blade Runner, Ridley Scott achieved something that might have put that film on the threshold of being something else entirely.

Which makes me sound like a crazy sort of fan. Which I'm definitely not. So I put off buying Future Noir. Because I didn't want to feed what felt like an embryonic obsession.

Then I completely and totally just happened to run across one used copy of it at the Strand in NYC this past winter. Well. What did you think I would do? I threw my hands up in the air, said what the hell, and bought it. I know a sign when I see it after all.

Now, a couple months later, Future Noir has finally bubbled up the bedside reading stack. I've read it almost cover to cover (I skipped the short chapter on how the special effects were done, and a couple of the appendices), and I wanted to write a review, but it's hard to write a review of a book like this. So even though this blog entry started its life with intention of being a book review, the actual review book is going to be pretty short.

Future Noir mostly does what it sets out to do, tell how BR was made. Sammon goes into great exclusive detail regarding how the rights to the story were acquired, how the screenplay evolved over time, how Scott got involved, and so on. The longest chapter of the book is a scene-by-scene breakdown of the movie, and each scene usually has one or two "behind the scenes" anecdotes that are just the sort of thing you'd hope for from a book like this. Sammon's obviously a huge fan of the movie, and went to great lengths to get access to some of the people and materials that he did. He's a true film geek and a true, unapologetic BR fan.

This very fandom, though, is also one of the places where the book falls down a couple times. There's more space devoted to gushing over how great BR is than there is space devoted to critical analysis or deconstruction. He doesn't ask hard questions of his interviewees. That's all ok, though. No one but a fan could have possibly cared enough to write this book.

Also, I have to say, Sammon did a great job in getting himself conversations with almost all the major players involved with the making of BR. The only people he didn't get any substantial time with were Harrison Ford and Sean Young, the stars. While this may seem like a big omission, he actually does have interview excerpts from so many other big players - writers, producer, director, other actors - you almost don't notice these two glaring absences. Ah well. I never thought Young did much for the film anyway.

The biggest problem, though, with FN is not anything Sammon had any say over: Future Noir is just really dated at this point. It came out in 1996, fourteen years into the movie's history, sure, but now that's less than half way into its 31-year life span. Since then, the so-called Final Cut has been released, the authoritative version, and the only version with Ridley Scott's full seal of approval. At the time that FN came out, the most authoritative version was the so-called "Director's Cut", which was still a compromise between what Scott wanted and what the studio let him get away with.

More significantly, however, Sammon wound up missing everything that the Internet would do for BR, or the plateau to which said Internet would allow fandom of any sort to ascend. Another strip of fabric that's inevitably missing from Sammon's otherwise master opus is all the material that got scraped up to serve as "bonus materials" on the various DVD boxed sets, 25th anniversary edition and 30th anniversary Blu-Ray edition. All of these sources probably could have informed FN's ultimate direction and scope.

I definitely recommend Future Noir to anyone interested in learning more about Blade Runner. It's a great place to begin, especially if, like me, you're trying to decide how much of a fan you want to be. Because, as much as Sammon loves this particular movie, somehow, this book winds up laying out what should be plain to see: it's just a movie. A movie that happened to come along before it's time maybe, and maybe a movie that had a creative director behind it who was just coming into the height of his powers, but still for all that, just a movie.

Me? Now that I can see how much of what went into Blade Runner was actually flawed and broken and human, I'm actually more interested in how it, as a work of art, manages to rise above its medium and point to something else.

But that's another review altogether.

[Diz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must-read for Blade Runner fans. It is an exhaustive resource on everything about the movie from the novel to the final cut of the movie released on DVD in the 2000's. There's even a short section introducing Blade Runner 2049, but since this was published before that movie was released, there isn't much content on the new movie. I particularly enjoyed the interviews with Scott, Ford, Young, and Bauer that were printed at the end of the book. Those interviews really give an in-depth look into how they viewed their work on that film.

[Tom M. · Rating 3 out of 5]

An exhaustive review of the film making process from purchasing the rights to the Phillip K. Dick story "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" through scrips, backing, casting, direction, production, set designs, etc., etc.

Blade Runner was a difficult film to make and Sammon was there for most of it, reporting for various SF magazines of the 80s. His access to the people involved makes this an authoritative study of the work behind the magic of this film.

The only drawback to the book is Sammon's occasionally clumsy writing style. Unnecessary asides and point out details to be found in future chapters made reading his book frustrating at times.

If you can't find this book, try to find the film "Dangerous Days" (an early script title for Blade Runner). In many ways it is the filmed adaptation of Sammon's book, featuring interviews with all of the people in Sammon's book, including Sammon himself.

[A. · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is an undeniable wealth of information here, hidden among some of the worst writing available in print. If you wade through the repetition, disorganization, & tuneless language, you will find a solid, unparalleled history. There are good quotes on artist intent & technical processes; though there's not much in the way of BR theories, just the old familiar ground you've already tread.

Ridley Scott should take time off to illustrate a graphic novel.

[sliplikefreudian · Rating 5 out of 5]

finished a few weeks back but one of the best making of a film books that could be written surely? 600 pages of cover to cover information on Blade Runner, this has crucial information for fans of the film on everything from optioning the rights to the title to the refilmed sequences in 2007 for the Final Cut. Essential

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

After finishing Paul M. Sammon's update to an already exhaustive undertaking, I can only say that I wish every movie that I liked had a similar volume to go along with it.

Sammon was there at the beginning of Blade Runner's production in the early 1980s, and he's created the only resource that any fans of the film's pockmarked history will ever truly need. Each scene of each version of the film has been thoughtfully analyzed, and Sammon's objective presentation of the behind-the-scenes controversies sets the perfect stage for drawing our own conclusions.

If you even kind of like Blade Runner, I can't recommend this enough.

[Pam Baddeley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Original review 2013:

Read this a few years ago now and don't recall much other than I read it because "Blade Runner" is one of my favourite SF films, if not the most favourite, and I've also read the P K Dick original and several of his other books, though not for some years.

Re-read 2022

Just re-read this before passing the book to a charity shop as doing some downsizing of books. This did not alter my original 3-star rating because a) there is no index and that would be handy with the number of people being discussed who were involved in the film; b) although there is a list of film credits in an appendix, it doesn't help with the number of other people who are name checked and who didn't actually work on the film, for instance, the film backers, and it is sometimes hard to recall who someone is when they are reintroduced later; c) the black and white photos in the text are small and dark so it isn't easy to make out detail in most of them; d) points in the plot I've always wondered about are not addressed.

An example of the last issue is in the scene where Pris fights Deckard and could have broken his neck but then releases him and gives him the perfect opportunity to shoot her. The author does slightly skate around the thread of misogyny in the film - Deckard only kills women and at one point - haven't seen it for years but the author does cover it in the chapter doing a scene by scene breakdown - assaults Rachael although he supposedly "loves" her - but he backs away from the subject. I love the film but it does have this disquieting aspect.

Positive points about the book are the light shed on the film making process, the many compromises made, committee nature of script production (and how this leads to continuity errors with the script going through multiple drafts by multiple people), pressures from the various financial backers involved and the possibility of on-set tensions and misunderstandings. It's amazing that films are made despite all this and are even as good as Blade Runner.

[Trin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Blade Runner went through so many incarnations and has such a complicated history, and Sammon does a great job of telling its story. This book is really engaging, with a POV that's Just Fannish Enough. (Although Sammon's totally wrong about the Director's Cut being better than the International Cut. Narration rules!) It's a shame that Ridley Scott comes off as totally batshit insane in the interview at the end of the book. ("Deckard's a Replicant...and he's immortal!")

[Exapno Mapcase · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a Goodreads First Reads review.

This is an amazingly detailed book, it goes through everything related to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep/Blade Runner. A combination of the first two editions Sammon has at one time or another had access to a number people involved from Phillip K. Dick to Harrison Ford which leads to some impressive coverage from page to studio, to filming, to editing, and to fan reaction.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everything you do (and probably do not) want to know about Blade Runner. Wow. This is a nearly exhaustive look at the making and cultural impact of the Blade Runner film, including its various 'cuts'. It contains an extensive interview with star Harrison Ford and director Ridley Scott at the end. It includes discussion of the then-upcoming Blade Runner 2049 and one can hope the next edition, or a separate follow-up book will deal with that sequel as well.

A good read for fans of the film, the genre, and those who enjoy pop culture and film history.

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

This beautifully composed account of the making of Blade Runner (one of the greatest sci-fi films of all time) is a must-read for hardcore fans of the movie and of filmmaking in general. Future Noir opened my eyes to many details in the film that I missed in my first few viewings and it added background context to the development of one of my favorite movies. I should note that this book is quite lengthy - the 2017 edition is nearly 600 pages.

[Sergey Selyutin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Re-watched the Blade Runner (The Final Cut) movie a day ago and before moving on to the Dangerous Days and various other documentaries on the Blu-ray set decided to find out more about the work done by the DVD/Blu-ray edition producer Charles de Lauzirika. The book (the third 2017 edition) was informative enough so I'm also going to read the four interviews it features as supplementary.

And if Dangerous Days re-kindles my interest in how the movie was made (for some reason I found the plot of BR sort of unpolished and even half-baked), I'm doing to read Furture Noir in full.

PS. There is a major drawback to this book: it does not concentrate enough on the beautiful soundtrack by Vangelis, and numerous bootlegs the lasting lack of the full official score has spawned. Vangelis' fans will hardly find anything of interest here.

PPS. Read the interviews - they are great. Watched a documentary on the Final Cut restoration/errors fixing. Listened to several interviews with Charles de Lauzirika. Still feel that the plot of the movie is rather simplistic (not to say haphazard), but want to re-experience the film's visuals and atmosphere. This time I'm going to watch the Workprint. And, yeah, I found myself reading Future Noir from the beginning.

PPPS. Good gracious! It's been a while. Started to read Future Noir from the beginning and went on a Blade Runner spree. Watched all the featurettes on the 5-disk set. Listened to all 4 audio commentaries (Paul M. Sammon's is by far the best one, you will find it on disk 5 - he comments the Workprint). Watched 3 versions of the movie (the Workprint, the International Theatrical, the Final Cut). Watched two documentaries that are not on the DVD-set (but can be easily find on YouTube - On the Edge of Blade Runner and Future Shocks.
So. My opinion. While the BR videos are more emotionally charged (you actually see people talk), the book is much more informative. So, if you really want to know more about the movie, you absolutely have to read it. Featurettes are not enough.

Two drawbacks. As I've already said, the lack of material on Vangelis' soundtrack borders on a crime. Sorry, JF, I mean, Paul M., you've lost one star because of it. Second, the small chapter on BR 2049 reads like an advertisement. Obviously, author just tried to cash in on the release of the sequel with this third edition that I've got.

The bottom line: highly recommended. Read it. Buy it. Makes an excellent gift to any BR fan.

[Joanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

About to become the most annoying woman in the world for the next 4 weeks

[Marianne Donovan · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Future Noir Revised Updated Edition: The Making of Blade Runner" by Paul M. Sammon is an incredibly long book with everything you could ever want to know about the movie Blade Runner. I will admit that Blade Runner was one of my favorite all time movies and I am anxiously awaiting the release of the sequel Blade Runner 2049, so perhaps I am a bit biased, but I could not put this book down. I would have liked more pictures and color ones. I loved all the little details that were so lovingly researched and written about. The end of the book contained interviews with Ridley Scott, Harrison Ford, Sean Young, and Rutger Hauer from back in the early 2000s, which provide wonderful insights from each on the cult phenomenon that embodies this movie. Wonderful book for all lovers of sci-fi and "modern" movie buffs.

[kesseljunkie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Despite the numerous punctuation/proofing errors this book is delightful. An incredibly insightful read about one of the most influential films of all time.