After 1982's Blade Runner tested poorly with audiences, the studio insisted on a "happy ending" and new voice-over from Harrison Ford. The film had a famously troubled production, mostly due to conflicts between the producers and director Ridley Scott. Trying to find a way to end his film, Scott turned to (who else?) Stanley Kubrick, who he knew had shot a great deal of b-roll for the opening of The Shining. This video from Fandor explains the rest. 

According to Ridley Scott, he called Kubrick and explained his dilemma, and then, "The next day I had seventeen hours of helicopter footage; it was stunning. So the end of the film in Blade Runner, that’s Stanley Kubrick’s footage…"

"The next day I had seventeen hours of helicopter footage; it was stunning." — Ridley Scott

The next day, Kubrick called Scott and announced: "It’s Stanley. One other thing. I know you’re going through my footage right now. If there’s anything I used, you can’t have it. Got it?" Scott said that was "cool" with him, and the rest is history. Check out the two side-by-side. First, Blade Runner: 

And now, The Shining: 

And if Harrison Ford's voice-over in the Blade Runner sequence sounds a little less than enthusiastic, well, that's not a product of bad acting. Though voice-over had always featured in the film, according to the actor, neither he nor Scott were particularly happy about having to craft this new, "happy" ending: "I had no chance to participate in it, so I simply read it. I was very, very unhappy with their choices and with the quality of the material. I contested it mightily at the time. It was not an organic part of the film."

Luckily, years later, the director's vision would be restored inBlade Runner: The Final Cut, though that meant the deletion of Stanley Kubrick's Shining footage. Still, though, it's an interesting footnote to the history of two great movies. 

Source: Fandor

blade runnerthe shiningridley scottStanley Kubrick
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