Why A 'Fascinating' Opening Scene In Blade Runner Wound Up On The Chopping Block
A lot of director Ridley Scott's films have had complicated productions, and his 1982 film "Blade Runner" was no exception. To this day, there's still some debate over which edition is the "correct one" for viewers to watch. Do they go with the theatrical version, where they have to listen to Harrison Ford's over-explanatory narration? Or do they go with the 1992 director's cut, which took out the voiceovers and threw in more ambiguity over the main character Deckard's human/replicant status? Most fans agree that the 2007 final cut is the best one, as that's what Ridley Scott had the most creative control over, but we can forgive newcomers for finding this all a bit confusing. Even among long-term fans, there are a lot of ongoing debates about "Blade Runner" lore that basically boil down to which versions of the movie you consider to be canon.
What makes "Blade Runner" lore even more confusing is that there are deleted scenes that change the outcomes of certain characters, like Morgan Paull's Dave Holden. Holden shows up in the opening scene, introduced as another blade runner tasked with sniffing out replicants who are disguising themselves as regular humans. The replicant he's interviewing realizes Holden's found him out, panics, shoots Holden in the chest and escapes from the facility.
As far as viewers knew, this was the end of Holden. The character didn't make a huge impression on audiences, but his death still served as an efficient setting of the movie's stakes. Replicants are getting smarter and more dangerous, the scene tells us, which puts a lot more tension into Deckard's quest to hunt those replicants down. It's a tension that would've been significantly undermined if a certain deleted scene with Holden had been included later on.
But what if Holden didn't die?
In the deleted scene, Deckard visits Holden in the hospital while he's recovering from the gunshot wounds. Holden here has seen better days; he's happy to be alive, but disappointed in himself for letting a replicant get the best of him. His main purpose in the scene, however, is to warn Deckard about what's ahead of him. "It's a wipeout. They're almost us, Deck. They're a disease," he says.
It's an interesting exchange that establishes how dangerous Deckard's new assignment is about to be, but also sets up one of the central thematic questions in the movie: Should the replicants be wiped out like a disease? The fact that they've become so indistinguishable from humans is scary to all the human characters, but is that the right reaction? As the movie goes on and Deckard's given reasons to doubt his own status as a human, we're left to wonder if maybe these replicants deserve to live just as long as a regular human would be allowed.
The other benefit of the scene is that it would let Holden leave a bit more of an impression on the audience before he leaves the movie for good. The deleted scene leaves him in a deeply sympathetic position, with his health seriously harmed and him quickly developing what seems like a dangerous morphine addiction. It serves as another reminder that Deckard's life is likely unsustainable. Deckard needs to change his line of work, or at the very least his outlook on life, if he ever wants to be happy.
So, why'd Scott cut it?
Despite the many pros to the scene, Scott refused to include it in any of the main editions of the film. In a 2007 Q&A with Wired, the director explained why:
"In a way, it repeated the meeting between Deckard and his boss at the police station. It was a bit of overexplaining, although it was fascinating to see the hospital room and the breathing machine they'd put him in because he'd taken it through one of his lungs."
Rewatching the full movie again, it's easy to see Scott's point. As interesting as the hospital scene is, Holden doesn't actually say anything here that the rest of the movie doesn't already say. All the thematic questions his dialogue raises are explored thoroughly in other scenes, and with a lot more subtlety too. There's also something to be said for the movie's willingness to just leave characters behind, without giving us the comfort of having their fates clarified. All the major editions of the movie give us an opening scene that leaves us with a disconcerting lack of closure, which makes for fun foreshadowing of the movie's ambivalent ending.
The removal of Holden's hospital scene is in line with most of the other changes Scott's made to the movie over the years; from the cutting of the narration to the increased uncertainty over Deckard's human status, it seems like Scott prefers more ambiguous, visual-oriented storytelling. Given the movie's continued popularity over the past forty years, and especially in the eighteen years since he released his final cut, it's hard to argue with his taste.