Future Noir Revised & Updated Edition: The Making of Blade Runner

If you are reading the reviews, you no doubt are aware of the cultural significance of the film Blade Runner, and are a fan of the film (or are buying it for a fan). I've been a fan of the film for decades, ever since I first saw it as a boy. But I'm also a fan of writing about Blade Runner, including academic work (Bukatman, etc). This offers something else, a deep journalistic dive into the scene-by-scene making of the film, sure, but also the genesis of the script and the scripts relationship with the book (Do Androids...). There are extensive interviews with the producers, actors, the director, pretty much anyone involved apart from the on-set tea lady. There is plenty of BR 'lore' covered here, including contentious issues such as the placement of the famous unicorn scene in Deckard's dream, and why it is in some versions and not in others. In fact, you will develop a decent working knowledge of the different prints circulating of the film at various stages, and this is really important in working out whether Ridley Scott thought Deckard was a replicant himself or not at various stages after the initial theatrical version's release. Sammon's rather forensic analysis of these different versions will really help you decide for yourself, and the same issue is related back to the various scripts circulating before principal photography began in 1981.The dirt and the rain and the texture of the backlot at Warner Brothers' really comes to life on the page, as descriptions of set design and the conditions the actors dealt with - all shot at night - is described. All this is great, and will prompt you to watch the film again in the best quality medium you can get hold of. Many small details and decisions made throughout the development and shooting of the film will make the film come alive again, and will prompt you to look differently at different scenes when you rewatch the film. All this is great.Where the book falls down is in some sloppy editing, which presumably comes from a slightly rushed process of preparing a new edition ahead of the sequel film, BR 2049. It wants to tie-in to BR 2049, but there simply isn't the material to do it justice. There is an extra interview here or there, but no great insight. And the poor editing means some repetition of material, or lost opportunities where new parcels of information are inserted without altering discussion of the topic from earlier chapters. The quality of the printed interviews in the final section is variable. It may be quite a coup to get Harrison Ford on the record, but his memory of the shoot is hazy and he seems rather curmudgeonly and resistant to discussion of the more philosophical aspects of the world of BR (that didn't affect his willingness to get the pay check for BR 2049, though). Rutger Hauer on the other hand must have been a delight to interview, very forthcoming and full of musings on acting and the iconic scenes from the film, but his interview suffers from the opposite effect - too airy-fairy, and not enough analysis or detail. One unexpected thing that comes out of the interviews in fact is how hard it must have been for the female actors, physically and mentally. I have a new-found respect for the physicality of Joanna Cassidy (Zhora) and Daryl Hannah (Pris), and for the mental factors of the insecurity amongst Hollywood royalty through the eyes of Sean Young (Rachael).Overall, though, this book is essential reading for anyone who wants to know about the development of a script by Fancher from humble beginnings, based on a seemingly unfilmable book by a paranoid sci-fi pioneer (Dick), its path through studio meddling and the addition of other writers, other ideas (Peoples), and the producer's (Deeley) and director's (Scott) imaginative vision of a distinctive and detailed cyberpunk future which changed cinema forever. Sammon is really well-placed as a film industry insider and journalist and fan to write this, and all circa 600 pages flew by in a few weekends.

This book is lovingly known as "The Bible" to Blade Runner fans, largely due to it's attention to detail. If someone dropped a coin on set Paul M Sammon will tell you, somewhere in this book, the year it was pressed.Well 12 years on from it's original release, much has happened, most notably, the new "Final Cut" of the film. Which, like the making of the original film, did not run smoothly, with the restoration project shutting down for a couple of years. So apart from Paul getting the chance to add all this further detail, he's gone back and added corrections, additional titbits and a kitchen sink, and now runs at a worthy 588 pages!My only negative is the lack of and quality of photographs. There is no section of glossy pages with glossy photos, all we get are several small, dot-screened images that are dark and not even to the quality of newspaper print.Future Noir is not a very polished book, but I don't class that as a flaw. You could imagine you are reading 25 years of Paul M Sammon's blog, its personable, he highlights short-comings with the book, he offers his own opinion and even interrupts himself to shoehorn in yet another fact. But I love it, it's not a bit of PR or cash-in memorabilia, this is a public record of one of the best films of all time, warts and all.

A must read for Blade Runner and sci-fi fans, and a very interesting book about the film making process in general for anyone who considers himself/herself a cinephile. Every single detail of information about the making of the movie seems to have been included here, in what essentially is the definitive book about this cinematic masterpiece. I have to admit that there were a few times that I felt that the writing didn't help, but all in all, this is a fantastic book.Regarding this recent (2017) edition I did notice in some cases inattention to details, resulting in spelling and grammatical errors, and also some repetition, which I believe could have been avoided. Also I noticed a few mistakes too. For example, The Man In The High Castle is first mentioned as a Netflix series, and, in the Vangelis chapter, the author mentions that the greek military coup took place in 1968 (it was actually a year before). Hopefully all these will be corrected and edited in future editions. Last but not least, in a book dedicated to such a fascinating, colorful and richly detailed film I would have preferred to see some colored photos in a few glossy pages from the shoot or the preproduction instead of the low resolution black and white images that have been included, which certainly don't do justice to the world Ridley Scott and everybody involved in Blade Runner created.

Very rapid. Great book by all accounts. Very slightly dog eared by dint of age, but happy with purchase and service.

I didn't expect to read this book from cover to cover. Thought I'd just dip in here and there to answer some queries I've harbored about the film over the years. But once I started reading chapter one I found it hard to put down. There's so much detail all of it interesting and much of it eye opening. There's everything in this book from how the idea was conceived through the various screenplays and rewrites to how the producers, director, cast and technicians became involved, to how individual sets and props were created and used, to how just about every scene was shot. And so much more! If like me you're a Blade Runner fan its a must. If your a film student its a must. If you want to discover the trails and tribulations of getting a film made from conception to completion...its a must. Superbly written too . The only downside perhaps is that the pictures are all black and white and not all are particularly well reproduced. But then its not and "art of ...." book so I'm not going to knock a star off. Brilliant.