An amazing scene. No matter how many times I watch Blade Runner it still effects me. I bet that if made now, with today's strong handed development that puts a premium on explaining everything in great detail the Off-World Termination Dump would be in the picture. It sounds like a scene like that should be in a book. Imagine if Blade Runner were trying as hard as John Carter to explain away all the moments where the audience is supposed to meet you half-way. You can see this downgrade in story telling when you watch the cut that has the voice over.

Which cut/edition is this? I was about to make my usual comment about one of the greatest moments in cinema being ruined by that shitty pigeon shot when I see they changed the shot? W'appen?

It's the bane of exposition. The irony is while studios tend to have a low threshold on that front, tending to think audiences need to be spoon-fed information, my sense of movie audiences today - based upon movies that succeed where exposition is minimized and dealing with college students as I do - is that they actually need less exposition, they actually like to fill in the dots with their imagination. But the default mode of studios is always going to be safety. And heaven forbid a movie should require a viewer to think, unless the filmmaker has a track record like the Coens, etc.

Not sure what cut, Larry. It's from MovieClips which pays rights fees to the studio for footage, so that would lead me to believe this is from what the studio now holds to be the 'official' cut. I'll see what I can find out.

Just this weekend, I caught a bit of an earlier scene where Leon pounds the crap out of Deckard. He also says, "Time to die," as he is about to crush Deckard's skull. It makes an interesting juxtaposition with Roy's poetic end.