Top 5 Sci-Fi Books

My top five SF books.

5. Foundation by Isaac Asimov

4. Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

3. I, Robot by Isaac Asimov

2. We Can Build You by Philip K Dick

1. The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester

Please, please, please ignore the crappy Will Smith 'adaptation' of I, Robot and read the book. You'll feel a whole lot better for it.

I've just finished watching Blade Runner: The Final Cut. All five (count 'em) discs! That's five cuts of the movie. The pre-release version shown to test audiences is a bit grainy, poor opening credits, and some dodgy sound in places. The US release version has the voice over (put in place for the test audience who 'didn't get it'). The International release version has added violence — about ten seconds of Roy Batter self-harming. Then there's the Director's cut with added unicorn and subtracted voice over and Kubrik-shot 'happy ending'. And finally there's the eponymous Final Cut: a cleaned up version of the Director's cut plus a few re-shoots/re-editing seamlessly included.

Also in the package are pretty comprehensive documentaries on the making, promoting and releasing of all versions. Although Mark Kermode's documentary is missing.

Which version do I prefer? I guess Ridley Scotts favourite one too: The Final Cut. It's a better movie. Simply by not having that voice-over the audience can add their own assumptions and be aware of more details that may (or may not) mean something. After watching the final cut I realised how clunky the voice-over was: lazy, stating the obvious or something we just saw. To be frank there isn't much of it but it's enough to irritate.

The strange thing is I remember seeing Blade Runner on its original UK release back in '82 and I loved it. As I remember it, it was supposed to be like a Phillip Marlowe crime thriller made forty years after Bogart but set forty years in the future. I guess that must've been the marketing people and not the Director or any of the principles involved.

Which gets me to my next point.

I read the Philip K Dick book the movie is based on a while back and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is a completely different animal too. Like all of Dick's books it's funny, inventive and just plain weird. And there isn't that much action in it. It's strange (but understandable) how Hollywood takes a book, story, character and boils it down to the barest of elements. Ridley Scott in Blade Runner made a movie that bares very little resemblance to it source material but still managed to pull down the essence of the author.