It's How Long?

Dangerous Days: The Making of Blade Runner
M'House
DVD
12/30/07 - 12/31/07

So it took a couple of days to get through the nearly four-hour long making-of documentary on Disc 2 of the super-huge box set of Blade Runner. It's fairly exhaustive, yet still doesn't cover everything, which is why there's even more stuff on Disc 4, including a feature on both John Alvin and Drew Struzan's poster artwork (I've got a reprint of Alvin's iconic one-sheet, but nowhere to put it up at the moment) and a feature on whether or not Deckard is a replicant. My favorite bit in that one is Ridley Scott calmly explaining why you're a moron if you can't tell that Deckard is a replicant followed by Frank Darabont effectively explaining why he isn't one.

Dangerous Days (named after one of the early titles for Blade Runner) covers just about everything about the making of the film, although there's one bit towards the end that bugs me. When discussing how they tacked on footage from The Shining at the end of the theatrical cut as part of the happy ending, one of the producers explains that he miraculously was able to get through to Stanley Kubrick to get permission to use the footage.

Which isn't the story that I heard.

A few years ago Jamee and I met Joe Turkel, who played Tyrell in Blade Runner and also appears in The Killing, Paths of Glory, and The Shining. He's a really great guy and had a ton of Kubrick stories. One of which involved Ridley Scott. Apparently while filming Blade Runner, Turkel introduced Scott to Kubrick, mainly because he was able to, because he knew the guy. They hit it off and that's how Scott was able to ask for the Shining footage.

I don't know which version is true. Maybe they both are. It doesn't really matter. But if you get the chance to hear Joe Turkel tell how Ridley Scott turned into a fanboy over meeting Stanley Kubrick, do it.

Anyway, one disc down. Four to go.