Originally posted by: zombie84
I hadn't thought of the whole Zhora/Leon thing, but that sounds like a good idea. One problem might be that the alternate edit of the sequence is not cut that way and might be tricky to lift the V.O--but I'll see how it goes.
One thing that this will do is make a very major and obvious continuity error--the number of replicants. Bryant says that including Rachel there is four--but theres only Pris and Batty left. I know some people might say "Deckards the fourth replicant!" but that makes no sense considering the context of that dialog (ie Deckard should be aware of the discrepancy). Did they accidentally film such a giantly obvious mistake like that and then the re-edit of the sequence order ended up correcting everything by accident? This whole thing is hard to make sense of.
Yeah they fixed the continuity error in the editing originally, but causes Deckard to have cuts on his face from the Leon encounter during the scene with Bryant. These have been removed digitally for the Final Cut though. It's talked about in the book Future Noir (see below):
Just before he's attacked by Leon, Deckard buys a bottle of Tsing-Tao (a Chinese alcoholic beverage) from a sidewalk bar. For some time, a cut on Ford's right cheekbone is clearly visible. Yet during Deckard's fight with Leon in the alley, this cut disappears (so does the bottle of Tsing-Tao). Moments later, however, both items are visible again!
....
What's the story behind Deckard's on-again, off-again wound? According to BR editor Terry Rawlings, this disappearing cut was a result of a post-production editorial decision. "The way that sequence was originally edited," Rawlings explains "it ran like this:
Deckard kills Zhora. He spots Rachael in the crowd and follows her. Leon pulls him into the alley, where Deckard receives his cut. Then Rachael kills Leon, and Deckard and Rachael walk back to the bar. Deckard buys his bottle of liquor. Gaff and Bryant appear, and they talk while Rachael waits on the other side of the street. Then they leave and Rachael starts walking away. Deckard follows her on the other side of the street.
"Now we decided part of that didn't make sense. Because after Deckard gets his drink and after the other two policemen leave, here he is walking down one side of the street while she's walking down the opposite one. Why wasn't she with him? Gaff and Bryant had left, so she should have come over. After all, she'd just saved Deckard's life.
"So all the reshuffling was done because it seemed more logical for Rachael to save Deckard's life and for Deckard to take her home with him. Ridley and I also felt for Deckard to go back and buy that bottle after Leon's death and to talk to the two policemen and chase after Rachael again really stopped the story. It played a little dull in the original cut, frankly"
...
"Re-editing this scene also saved us an embarrasing continuity error," Rawlings adds. "Because if we'd left Bryant saying there were four more replicants for Deckard to get, after he'd killed Leon, that wouldn't have made sense. Because there would have been only three to go--Batty, Pris and Rachael. I think that 'four to go' line was a hold-over referring to Mary, whose part had already been written out by the time we shot the alley fight. But by having Bryant say 'four to go' before he killed Leon, things made sense again. But none of us caught this error at the time--we were just lucky that we re-edited this scene for the reasons I've already stated."
I hadn't thought of the whole Zhora/Leon thing, but that sounds like a good idea. One problem might be that the alternate edit of the sequence is not cut that way and might be tricky to lift the V.O--but I'll see how it goes.
One thing that this will do is make a very major and obvious continuity error--the number of replicants. Bryant says that including Rachel there is four--but theres only Pris and Batty left. I know some people might say "Deckards the fourth replicant!" but that makes no sense considering the context of that dialog (ie Deckard should be aware of the discrepancy). Did they accidentally film such a giantly obvious mistake like that and then the re-edit of the sequence order ended up correcting everything by accident? This whole thing is hard to make sense of.
Yeah they fixed the continuity error in the editing originally, but causes Deckard to have cuts on his face from the Leon encounter during the scene with Bryant. These have been removed digitally for the Final Cut though. It's talked about in the book Future Noir (see below):
Just before he's attacked by Leon, Deckard buys a bottle of Tsing-Tao (a Chinese alcoholic beverage) from a sidewalk bar. For some time, a cut on Ford's right cheekbone is clearly visible. Yet during Deckard's fight with Leon in the alley, this cut disappears (so does the bottle of Tsing-Tao). Moments later, however, both items are visible again!
....
What's the story behind Deckard's on-again, off-again wound? According to BR editor Terry Rawlings, this disappearing cut was a result of a post-production editorial decision. "The way that sequence was originally edited," Rawlings explains "it ran like this:
Deckard kills Zhora. He spots Rachael in the crowd and follows her. Leon pulls him into the alley, where Deckard receives his cut. Then Rachael kills Leon, and Deckard and Rachael walk back to the bar. Deckard buys his bottle of liquor. Gaff and Bryant appear, and they talk while Rachael waits on the other side of the street. Then they leave and Rachael starts walking away. Deckard follows her on the other side of the street.
"Now we decided part of that didn't make sense. Because after Deckard gets his drink and after the other two policemen leave, here he is walking down one side of the street while she's walking down the opposite one. Why wasn't she with him? Gaff and Bryant had left, so she should have come over. After all, she'd just saved Deckard's life.
"So all the reshuffling was done because it seemed more logical for Rachael to save Deckard's life and for Deckard to take her home with him. Ridley and I also felt for Deckard to go back and buy that bottle after Leon's death and to talk to the two policemen and chase after Rachael again really stopped the story. It played a little dull in the original cut, frankly"
...
"Re-editing this scene also saved us an embarrasing continuity error," Rawlings adds. "Because if we'd left Bryant saying there were four more replicants for Deckard to get, after he'd killed Leon, that wouldn't have made sense. Because there would have been only three to go--Batty, Pris and Rachael. I think that 'four to go' line was a hold-over referring to Mary, whose part had already been written out by the time we shot the alley fight. But by having Bryant say 'four to go' before he killed Leon, things made sense again. But none of us caught this error at the time--we were just lucky that we re-edited this scene for the reasons I've already stated."