Celluloid Heroes

After all the Star Wars-related doom and gloom, I’m happy to report there is also good news on the DVD horizon.

The 1982 Ridley Scott cult classic, Blade Runner, was one of the first films released on DVD in 1997. The presentation was, to put it mildly, not up to current standards. Shockingly, there has not been an updated DVD release since, so the only version available had, quite frankly, a very sub-standard picture. Also, the only version of the film available was 1992 so-called “director’s cut,” which really wasn’t a director’s cut at all. There was supposed to be an ultimate, true director’s cut several years ago, but that managed to get held up in legal limbo due to the fact that the legal owner of the film, producer Jerry Perenchio, and director Ridley Scott hated each other’s guts.

Happily, Warner Brothers has managed to cut through the ill-will and legal bullshit and get the ball rolling.

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First of all, let me apologize about being away from the blog for so long. I was down with pneumonia and not feeling up to writing about this. Also, I’ve been focused on getting a new podcast off the ground. It has nothing to do with Celluloid Heroes, but stay tuned.

If you recall my mentioning recently, the original, unedited versions of the first Star Wars trilogy are due to be released on DVD on September 12. That was supposed to be good news but sadly George Lucas has found a way to screw it up. The DVDs will contain nothing more than copies of the laserdisc versions released in 1993. This means that the images will not be anamorphically enhanced for widescreen televisions.

What does this mean and why is it bad?

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