I’m sold. That’s all I really have to say. I’m not liveblogging this Blade Runner panel because I’ve just had over an hour of roudtables with guys like Syd Mead, DVD producer Charlie de Lauzirika and Ridley Scott. There’s some good stuff in there (including Sir Scott’s serious enthusiasm for American Gangster, which I’m more and more excited to see) so I’m not going to transcribe all the comments here live.
Too bad in some ways, because James Hong and Joe Turkel were funny. They got a little Cantonese banter off, even. Later Turkel said that before Rutger Haur, he’d never kissed a man with passion. "Kissing is a very personal thing. And I put my tongue in this Rutger Haur’s mouth!" But then some woman took the mic to ask if Ridley had received the blueberry muffins. Apparently she’s ‘the muffin girl’. Indeed.
Anyway, the real proof is the restored footage. I snuck down into the hall from the interview area above Hall H, so I watched the new Blade Runner trailer from backstage. It’s fun to stand next to Zack Snyder watching the gorgeously restored images and realize that he’s just as slackjawed as I am watching — he was also the first to applaud.
From the floor I watched the footage Jeremy described recently, and he’s 100% right. The facial replacement tech works like a charm. Having heard more about what’s been changed in the Final Cut (like Harrison Ford’s son doubling for Ford’s chin to re-do some famously out of synch dialogue) I’m more curious than ever to see how it all works. But so far it’s very pretty indeed.
The fact that they’re putting this release out to Blu-Ray and HD-DVD says all I need to know. Charlie and his crew are confident enough with their work to let people scan frame by frame in high def, and from what I’ve seen they’re justified in that attitude. What I’ve seen is fucking beautiful and I can’t wait to sit down with the film in HD.