I
n a meeting room away from the elemental furore
of the set, the once and future Rick Deckard
sets the record straight. “Ridley and I have long
since made our peace with each other,” Ford says.
“Whatever the circumstances were during the
original film, I have great respect for Ridley and
admiration for his work.”
It is well-documented that Blade Runner was
a gruelling production, in which leading man and
director did not see eye to eye. The star came to
believe he mattered less to the director than his
dilapidated fantasia. The director felt his authority
was being questioned. “Of the 50-day schedule, 35
were nights,” recalls a politic Ford. “Which is a brutal
regimen. Anyway, Denis is a very different kind of
director than...” He gives a hint of a smirk. “What
was his name again? Ah yes, than Ridley.”
Loosely, Blade Runner 2049 is about the hunt for
Deckard, with more than one party interested in his
whereabouts. But beyond that, Ford is scrupulous
at keeping the secrets of the new film intact; when
asked about Deckard and K, he responds, “We really
don’t want to name the relationship at this point.”
Gosling, at least, provides a spoiler-scanned
précis of events: “The world has become even more
brutal. People are trying to survive. [K] discovers a
mystery that makes him question his own identity,
and Deckard is the only one who can answer those
questions.”
It was once Ford had committed to the script that
Scott had to face facts. “It was always intended for
me to do it,” he says. “I was working on this script for
two years, but there wasn’t the time.” Other business
called him away: The Martian and Alien: Covenant. “I
felt I had to be reasonable and step out.”
Villeneuve took the reins instead. And happily he
and Ford found they got on just fine. “Denis brings
enormous craftsmanship, cogent thoughts about
storytelling,” says the star. “He is very direct and
straightforward with the actors on the set. He either
deeply loves it. Or thinks it is dog doo.”F
or decades the idea of a Blade Runner
sequel had been no more than a twinkle in a
unicorn’s eye. A dreamy Philip K. Dick-inspired
noir confounded by questions of what it is
to be human, the original has become a cult
phenomenon, fans treating it like a holy relic. Yet
on its arrival in 1982, it was derided by critics
and ignored by audiences, who wanted Han
Solo, not this glum gumshoe with a buzz cut. Its
cloth-eared voice-over and happy ending were
the lame interventions of desperate producers.
Relations between director Ridley Scott and his
paymasters, who held the rights, had become
so contentious that revisiting this world was
untenable.
Even so, Blade Runner always felt like
unfinished business. Scott still smarts that
Pauline Kael spent three-and-a-half pages
scoffing at him in The New Yorker: “Scott seems
to be trapped in his own alleyways, without a
map...” Blade Runner taught him never to read
reviews, but he kept tinkering, searching for
perfection. With seven different versions, it’s
a film with its own existential crisis, treated by
Scott as a kind of rolling art project. “It may be
my most personal film,” he reflects.
When Alcon Entertainment called him in
2012, then, to say that they had reclaimed the
rights to all prequels, sequels, TV, novels and
games (but no remakes), Scott was overjoyed.
“I’ve been waiting for this call for 35 years,” he
told them. Then he outlined to them the idea
that had been lurking in his head since the first
movie, a total justification for a sequel. “And it is
all there in the first film,” he teases.
With Alcon’s backing, he hauled Hampton
Fancher back in. The co-writer of the original film
brought with him that specific cadence — “that
sense of pace and place”— which had such an
influence on the original.
“Not again,” Fancher had groaned, resistance
futile.
The two of them — plus Michael Green,
who joined halfway through — got to work
developing a future-future noir, hooked on
Scott’s secret premise. And finally, out of this
tripart collaboration, emerged a script that has
mesmerised all who read it.
Even, it turned out, Harrison Ford. He had
convinced himself it was never going to happen.
Yet when he laid eyes on the screenplay he
called Scott straightaway. “Ridley,” he said, “you
know that this is the best script ever sent to me.”
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