“The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long... and you have burned so very, very brightly, Roy.”
Dustin Hoffman was the original choice to play Rick Deckard – until he insisted on making the character completely different. James Caan had also been considered. Deborah Harry was reputedly the first choice to play Pris. Writer Philip K. Dick’s ideal choice for Rachael was Victoria Principal. While the film is loosely based on Dick’s, ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep’, the title comes from a book by Alan Nourse named, ‘The Bladerunner’. William S. Burroughs wrote a screenplay based on the Nourse book. Director Ridley Scott bought the rights to the title but not the screenplay or the book. (The Burroughs version defined a blade runner as a person who sells illegal surgical instruments.) Other titles considered include: Android, Mechanismo, Animal and Dangerous Days. Cityspeak (switching languages in mid-sentence) was Edward James Olmos’ idea. Joanna Cassidy (Zhora) was quite comfortable with a snake around her neck because it was her pet – a Burmese python named Darling. The original released version end titles appear over unused footage from Stanley Kubrick’s, The Shining (1980). As one of the first major films to be reissued as a “director’s cut”, Ridley Scott restored footage and made changes to reflect his original vision. It was editor Terry Rawlings’ idea to eliminate Harrison Ford’s voice-over narration. When Scott re-shot scenes with Joanna Cassidy to clean up the film’s continuity she was amazed that the original Zhora costume still fit her after 20 years. The critics gave this version a much better rating than the original.
