Ridley Scott for "Blade Runner" 1981 - Bobbie Wygant Archive

[@FirstMultitude]

Ridley Scott was asking for what became the PG-13 rating later in the eighties.

[@jedijones]

From 1968 to 1970, M was used as the equivalent to PG. It was soon renamed to GP and then PG. R and X films were also open to age 16 and up until 1970 when it changed to 17.

[@thiscorrosion900]

Blade Runner has a good deal of violence in it, some quite intense, and the scene wherein Batty murders Tyrell is pretty far over the top, as brief as it is, and is totally terrifying and appalling. There's nothing even in BR 2049, the sequel, that is remotely that violent or disturbing. The film remains a hard R even nowadays. Bobbie didn't seem to really go into all that in this particular interview. Ridley has said they might be both in the same "universe" as it were, in one sense, and it's a decidedly brutal, Heavy Metal type universe. Neither BR nor ALIEN were ever intended for young children, by any means. Even mid-teens, not particularly. Then again I was allowed to see ALIEN at age 11, so there you are! I was already a serious Horror Fantasy and SF geek kid by then, so nothing was really going to stop me from seeing it. I also read Alan Dean Foster's novelization ahead of time. Blade Runner we tried to see opening weekend on a summer holiday in NJ at Seaside Heights, and we couldn't, only because the local yokel theater was sold out for days on BR! Which negates some of the bullshit that went on then about what a flop it was. It did box office, it just didn't do nearly as well as they'd hoped, of course. Plus the movie had stiff competition at the time. E.T. dominated the box office that month or two. Wrath of Khan fared tons better, by comparison, of course. BR was a pretty bleak film, by design, and it also confused a lot of people. I find it ironic that most orig. BR fans consider the theatrical version to be THE BR, but Ridley hated the narration and "happy ending" he was forced to tack on, and so the fans love his own least-loved version, the orig. theatrical version. That narration might've been seen as intentional, a hardboiled noir element, but Ridley never intended for that to be in the film. So, it's safe to say that the Director's Cut and "Final Cut" versions of the film are much more definitive. At least from Ridley's point of view. I still believe the whole thing about Deckard being a replicant is mainly titillation on Ridley's part: why make a BR a weak replicant with no extra strength or endurance? It makes zero sense.