Re: The official BLADE RUNNER SE thread. (Check out page 8 and #790.)
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Lord Dalek
Yeah but it doesn't segue in at the same moment, in fact there is no trace of "Love Theme" in that scene at all in the Workprint, Desolation Path just plays all the way through instead of in the DC 5.1 where it sorta wanders in for about 15-20 seconds then wanders back out. My first guess would have been they were trying to cover up some of Harrison's narration but there isn't any in that scene so I'm not exactly sure why they chose to do this if the problem existed with the original element as I think it does. And yes it definitely would be nice to get a true answer before this dissolves into an argument over idealism vs. actual warts-all accuracy.
|
Good catch in that the music segue is slightly different. I offer that theres no way its due to source availability issues (ie due to the VO removal)--because the theatrical and international cuts have no Koawalski (the VO comes in a few seconds afterwards), and every single version has the proper music in the scene with Rachel. Mixing or source availability is not an explanation, these things have been deliberately designed.
Re-reading Future Noir, there are a number of additional changes that were proposed but never implemented, and they were working based on the workprint, not the theatrical cut--in other words, they didn't start with the theatrical cut and then decide how to change it, they started with the workprint and decided how to change it. The workprint was what was reviewed and screened by Scott and the editors who created the DC. So this may explain why additional workprint sound elements ended up in a mix--and Future Noir also states that Scott deliberately ordered them not to correct Bryant's line about the number of replicants (I believe its correct in the WP, so it was "uncorrected" for the DC). But before this could be worked on the deal was cancelled--but meanwhile Warners had prepared a
second version, that neither Scott nor restorationist Michael Arrick was aware of: an Enhanced Workprint. This was the WP, just cleaned up--the elements were remastered and Vangelis' score returned to the final reel. So there were two versions being done simultaneously, each one unaware of the other. As far as Sammon makes it clear this version was completed, and in the confusion Scott actually
signed off on it. But it too was cast aside when the deal was cancelled--all of which resulted in a
third version: the actual DC that was released, completed hastily in twenty-one days, based not on the WP but the theatrical cut. Is it possible that the DC mix on the new set used elements from this Enhanced Workprint master? It would explain why it uses "cleaned up" sounding elements taken from the WP, but re-mixed in a different way (as the Rachel scene music is, and possibly may also be the case for Deckard's intro). Perhaps these were discovered and mistakenly thought to be the original sound masters for the DC--they would have 1992 dates after all.
Based on Sammon's description, the sound mixing of the released DC was very straightfoward-- use the thatrical cut sound masters and simply carefully remove the voice-over. So theres no alternate mix or anything. Here is what he writes:
"Next, Arick digitally remixed the film's soundtrack, using both the film's original two-track mag tape dialog master and four-track magnetic tape M&E (music and effects) master as audio guides. Careful frame-by-frame counting then had to be done to remove the approximately eighty words of Ford's narration heard on the original theatrical release."
So, since it was a simple re-mix based on the theatrical cut's sound elements, I think this rules out that these unheard elements were mixed in at that point but never used. The new elements we are hearing now never appeared in any release of the film except the WP, so they could only be implemented in the DC if the actual masters and raw dialog recordings were unearthed from the Warners archives--which they weren't. On the other hand, the 1992 Enhanced Wokrprint remastered and re-mixed the soundtrack of the Workprint. The music in the final reels was replaced but the Rachel scene is not ever mentioned, and because that music is so subtle and fits in with the scene, it was probably left as it was, barring the enhanced remixing, which explains why the segue and cues are different (and smoother).
So, I might have solved this. As Scott writes, these "Archival versions" were taken from the original six-track masters--
but there were no six-track masters made for the DC, the sound mix was only done for a 35mm release. So when they were making the new DVD and found 70mm six-track masters from 1992 they thought it was proper DC elements--but they are from a never-released Enhanced Workprint that Warners created that year.
Ta-da!
