Ridley Scott is a highly respected, exacting and resourceful visualist with a fascinating filmography, and to hear it from Scott Feinberg and others he may well win an Oscar next month for his direction of The Martian — one of the shallowest, most audience-friendly, Orlando Disney World films he’s ever made. If he wins it’ll essentially be a gold-watch career achievement Oscar. Because just about every film he’s made since The Duellist has been better (more innovative, less predictable, more visually striking) than that Jerry Bruckheimer-level space-rescue movie that Sasha Stone loves so much. Scott films that aren’t as good as The Martian: Legend, White Squall, G.I. Jane, Someone To Watch Over Me, 1492: Conquest of Paradise, Hannibal, A Good Year, Body of Lies, Robin Hood, Prometheus. Scott’s finest (in this order): Alien, Blade Runner, Thelma and Louise, The Duellists, The Counselor (director’s cut), Black Hawk Down, Matchstick Men, American Gangster, Kingdom of Heaven (director’s cut), Gladiator.
The above is a 45-minute assembly of excised Blade Runner footage: (a) Deckard visiting fellow Blade Runner Holden in a hospital room, (b) Gaff and Deckard enter the police building, (c) Additional scene in the sky with hover cars + a document on the replicants, (d) Additional scenes in Leon’s apartment with Leon hiding on the ceiling and Gaff seen to be making his origami man, (e) More scenes in Chinatown, (f) Additional scenes on the streets, (g) Extended love scene between Deckard and Rachael, (h) Deckard and Holden talking at the hospital again being watched by Gaff and Bryant, (i) An alternate scene featuring Roy Batty and J.F. Sebastian as they are ascending the Tyrell building in an elevator and a different outcome, and (j) 2 upbeat alternate endings including “you and I were made for each other.”