Recently I read news of reshoots to Blade Runner (1982) and my whole body went shivery. Not in the good way. The reshoots in question involve changes to a fairly early scene wherein the title character (Harrison Ford) kills a runaway replicant named Zhora (Joanna Cassidy). But if there's one scene being reshot whose to say there aren't more? Apparently these reshoots are for another "director's cut" DVD release of the classic. If you're scratching your head thinking you've stumbled on a post written before The Film Experience even existed, that's understandable. Blade Runner has already received directors cut treatment. That version was much preferrable to the original primarily because it strengthened the ending and removed narration that the studio had forced on the picture in 1982 when they were worried that audiences would find it hard to follow (Yeah, this problem is a classic: it never goes away). Those revisions netted the influential sci-fi film an awesome theatrical rerelease in the 90s. But there is no reason to reshoot and change the film at this point in time. It is now twenty-five years old and it's still more exciting to watch and more impressive looking than many sci-fi blockbusters that are just hitting their opening weekends.We've already been through this 'can't-let-go' fever once recently with George Lucas. Obsessive tinkering tends to deflate original intent. Han Solo shot first and all that... I'm thrilled for 61 year-old Joanna Cassidy that she can still fit into her amazing and barely existent Zhora costumes but save that admirable triumph of fitness for sci-fi convention appearances, please. Classics are classics. Why can't filmmakers leave their work alone? You don't see painters adding strokes to a masterpiece a quarter of a century after the painting hit the galleries.
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