Cheap Cds - Blade Runner Trilogy 25th Anniversary

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Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating:

Summary: Another missed opportunity
Comment: It's great to have some new sections of the soundtrack on CD for the first time, but I see this
release as yet another missed opportunity in the continuing saga of the Blade Runner soundtrack.
Disc 1 is exactly the same as the 1994 version, so it still has the intrusive dialogue sequences
spoiling the music. The "Tears in Rain" track on disc 2 (under the name "Fading Away") has an
appalling electronic wind noise rising and falling thoughout the piece which completely ruins it.
Maybe Vangelis is looking towards the 30 year anniversary and is holding back the definitive, clean
version of the ACTUAL soundtrack, which most fans want, so that he can cash in again in 2012?

Customer Rating:

Summary: Why release what you've already got?
Comment: Okay first of all, yes, advertising this release as being the complete soundtrack is bad form. />
This is speculation, but I think the release of this 3 disc album broke down something like
this:

Vangelis's people would have made him aware of the various bootlegs that have
sprung up over the past 15 years. (I think it's safe to say that there have probably been more
bootleg variation of the Blade Runner soundtrack than any other movie, some 3 dozen of them in fact:
go check out such sites as vangelis-rarities for a list of some of the examples.) So what I think
happened was this: Vangelis took a look at all this stuff and thought, "Well, if die-hard fans
already have all this stuff, or even some of it, then what's the point of me giving them it all over
again?!"

(The point, of course, is that it would have been 'official' and would have
been in digitially remastered sound, but of no moment...)

So instead of repackaging all
the cues from the bootlegs into an 'official' release Vangelis decided to give the fans almost
entirely new music.

It's interesting to note that almost all the fans over on the
International Vangelis Forum are delighted with this release. Why? Precisely because it's 'all new
music'! The ones who are whining are the film's fans who simply want the actual soundtrack as it
appears in the movie. (In which case virtually all of these fans already have it, in the form of the
widely available bootlegs, such as the Esper Edition and the Deck Definitive release.)
/>Now, mind you, I'm a huge fan of the movie (like most people here I have the 5 disc boxset) and I
can understand people's wish to simply have the soundtrack's cues sans sound effects and dialogue,
and to that end I would have preferred if Vangelis had removed the dialogue from the first disc of
this 3CD release, as opposed to simply including the '94 edition unaltered.

It helps,
however, to remember this: Vangelis has NEVER revisited the soundtrack to any of the movies he's
worked on. Blade Runner is the exception. It's interesting to note that nowhere - unlike ALL of his
other official soundtrack releases, including the recent Alexander and El Greco - does the legend
'Original Motion Picture Soundtrack' appear on the '94 release, or for that matter this '07 release,
other than that red sticker. This is a 3CD 'album' in celebration of the movie, NOT a soundtrack.

Vangelis has NEVER been interested in taking the exact edits of his cues from a movie
and packaging them onto a CD. THIS is what Blade Runner's film fans want. Vangelis will never do
this (and precisely BECAUSE there are so many bootlegs that do exactly that he no doubt feels,
"What's the point, you have all this material already?") Instead Vangelis prefers to have his
soundtrack releases stand on their own as legitimate albums, and not merely a collection of cues, to
the point where he will often rearrange certain tracks for their official album release. This is
clearly evident on 1492: Conquest of Paradise and Alexander, where the tracks are not only shorter -
or in some cases even longer - than how they appear in the movie, but in addition they have been
subtly rearranged. Both of these movies boast 2CD Complete Score bootlegs. Both of these bootleg
releases are inferior to the far shorter official single disc releases. Why? Because they're bland,
flat - THEY'RE TOO LONG! They don't stand on their own as albums. Most film cues are only a minute
or two long, especially in the case of Blade Runner, and whereas these work terrifically within the
context of the actual movie, they rarely stand on their own, or even if they do they simply don't
flow properly if ran together with the film's other cues when placed onto an album.
/>Vangelis has always been more concerned with his soundtrack releases maintaining their own sense
of cohesion than simply taking the easy route of lazily throwing a whole bunch of cues onto a disc.
Sure, this would have delighted the film's fans, but the film and the separate release of the music
on CD are two different things, two different mediums.

The majority of Vangelis fans
are happy with this 3CD release because it gives us two CDs of brand new music which COMPLIMENT the
bootlegs which almost all of us already have.

And, for those few who don't owned the
bootlegs, please don't buy them from eBay. Members of such sites as the yahoo group
bladerunner_soundtrack will happily provide them free of charge.

Blade Runner's film
fans are simply going to have to learn to listen to this release as they would an ordinary album;
it's clear that this release was meant for Vangelis fans and not Blade Runner's film fans per
se.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Most of the new material IS IN THE MOVIE. Please read...
Comment:
I'm getting a little annoyed by some people giving negative reviews of this 3CD set when they
simply don't appreciate what they have here. Now, don't get me wrong, this is NOT the complete Blade
Runner score. For some reason, they've never seen fit to release it. But taking a balanced look at
what IS in this release, here is a break down of the tracks on CD 2, which is the disc containing
previously unreleased pieces of the score.

1) LONGING. This track does not appear in
the movie as far as I'm aware, although it isn't listed as a bonus track. Instead, it offers a
fairly short introductory piece which leads nicely into Track 2. Yes, these tracks are abridged, as
Vangelis did with the 1994 soundtrack release (CD 1 in this album set).

2) UNVEILED
TWINKLING SPACE: This cue is the last piece heard in the film, when Deckard 'rescues' Rachael and
they flee his apartment. It includes the beautiful, haunting tones where Deckard is looking at the
origami unicorn.

3) DR.TYRELL'S OWL: This cue is mixed quite low in the movie but plays
all through Rachael's Voight-Kampff test at The Tyrell Corporation. It begins with Deckard's line
"It's too bright in here."

4) AT MR.CHEW'S: all this music corresponds to the scene in
the freezer where Roy and Leon ask Chew questions about Tyrell. In the movie this cue is around 3
minutes whereas here it is 4:47, which suggests that Vangelis may have scored a longer cut of this
scene.

5) LEON'S ROOM: (erroneously called LEO'S ROOM on the back of the CD). This
music is actually the music covering Deckard's Esper analysis of Leon's photo in his appartment. You
can hear it quite clearly in the movie, although occasionally it's mixed low and those lovely Esper
bleeps get more of your attention.

6) ONE ALONE: A bonus track, which has echoes of
Vangelis' work from other albums. It reminded me of L'apocalypse Des Animaux in particular. />
7) DECKARD AND ROY'S DUEL: This is actually "Wounded Animals", the final confrontation, but
on the CD this cue is 6 minutes long whereas in the film it's almost 11 minutes. This music, in a
different form, has already been released.

8) DR.TYRELL'S DEATH: Well, this is the
choral/gothic cue playing during Tyrell's demise. This version is much longer than the one in the
movie.

9) DESOLATION PATH: The album says it's a bonus track, and technically it is as
it doesn't appear in any of the official released versions of Blade Runner. However, this is
actually the ALTERNATE LOVE THEME that can be heard (with the film) in the famous "Workprint" that
can be found in the 5 DVD set of BR. It's a fascinating and different take of the scene. It's
interesting to note that this version and the final one in the workprint vary in length and some
content.

10) EMPTY STREETS: This one I'm not sure about. The album doesn't list it as
bonus material, but I can't place it in the film. Definitely there are tones from it that can be
picked out, but as a piece I'm not really sure it's there. Over to you ;-)

11)
MECHANICAL DOLLS: I read another review saying this track is also not included in the movie, but as
far as I can tell it's mixed quietly into the background at Sebastian's apartment at different
points. It's a nice piece, regardless, feeling childlike yet empty.

12) FADING AWAY:
Well, this is "Tears In Rain" but without Rutger Hauer's monologue. Here it is spoiled somewhat by
an added background "wind" effect. I have no idea why they renamed it, as this track has been known
for years as Tears In Rain. Perhaps it's simply to differentiate it from the original track (with
dialogue) included on Disc 1.

And there you have it. That's the best I can do, but I
hope it's some use to you.

What many fans can't appreciate, unfortunately, is that
composers often feel their music needs to work independently of the images they were scored to
accompany. That is their right, I feel, as it's their music. Some fans just want all the cues as
they were heard in the movie, in that order, regardless of the dramatic flow when isolated from the
imagery. That isn't what many composers do. Jerry Goldsmith hated doing it, John Williams even
avoids it. Vangelis certainly does.

Basically, this second CD is a direct companion to
the original soundtrack release, with pieces extended or altered to form coherent thematic cues
which together create an arc to the experience of the album. That's what was done with the first,
and that's what has been done here, including the abridging of tracks. It isn't a complete score,
no, but it's a beautiful extension of the original 1994 soundtrack album and, as explained above, it
does contain a substantial amount of music from the film.

It's not the scene-by-scene
score. If you want that, seek out the bootleg scores that are around, but be aware, complete as they
claim to be, they're not. And what they certainly are not is an experience.

Customer Rating:

Summary: A wonderful cd set
Comment: After a long waiting, with several *unofficial* (well, bootlegs!) editions appearing to provide the
fans with the taste of Vangelis music for the 1982 cult movie Blade Runner it finally reached the
market a brand new CD set with its soundtrack. Well, the official soundtrack was released back in
1994 with Vangelis supervision but there was always something missing to truthfully encompass all
the nuances of the music.

This new CD set, containing 3 CDs, provides the 1994 release
(on CD 1), never released soundtrack material (on CD 2) and a completely new Vangelis CD containing
music composed using the film as inspiration (CD 3).

Well, the first CD is more or less
known by the generality of fans so I'll focus on the other two. The previously unreleased material
takes us along a second journey to the Blade Runner world. There are no dialogs or film sounds along
with the music but it is the same spirit. There are several calm melodies on this CD and the somehow
"noir" atmosphere of the first CD (and of the film) is strongly present. I think it emerges as a
very natural continuation to the first CD.

Well, the third CD was the one I was most
curious about because it contains fresh new material from Vangelis. The first thing is that,
although there are several cues to the Blade Runner soundtrack and the "noir" atmosphere is kept,
this CD sounds a bit different, with a cleaner sound and with that kind of vision one gets from
looking back to a gloomy period of our life. We will surely recall the sadness but will definitely
paint it with our current spirit. Vangelis goes along a path of experimentation, with several
sounds and styles, which clearly shows how fresh his composition spirit still is.
/>Regarding the packaging, it is of good quality (well, I would say there's something missing, but
cannot tell what) and has film pictures inside along with a short booklet with more pictures and a
Ridley Scott foreword about the release of the new Blade Runner Director's Cut version and the
importance of Vangelis music.

To conclude, being a fan of Vangelis and of Blade Runner
I find this a wonderful set, surely worth the money, which captures the film spirit and shows us a
more complete vision over that 2019 Los Angeles. And the release of new Vangelis material is
wonderful.

If by any chance you don't know the film and do not know Vangelis work with
some detail I would advise you to see the movie before buying this set. It may happen you don't like
the style. The rest of you, there are no doubts here.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Brillant!
Comment: I can't believe all the whinging that has greeted this release....!

This to me is
simply a delight. Perhaps purists will lament that this piece or that piece is missing, but frankly
Vangelis is a genius and I trust his instincts implicitly. And how can people complain this is a
'rip off'...it's a 3 CD set for a paltry £12.95. To me that's a bargain!

CD 1 is the
masterpiece we all know and love. I can't say any more than this: it's one of the best soundtrack
albums ever released. In fact, forget the film: it's a masterpiece in itself. CD 2 is a downtempo,
dark and melancholic collection of low-key pieces, some of which I recognise from the film, many of
which I don't. No matter, the sheer atmosphere is totally befitting the film. And how! CD 3 is a
delight for me...Vangelis is back making the kind of music he truly excels at. It's been a long time
since we've had a new studio album from the man and it doesn't disappoint. I don't want to say much
other than this...ignore the naysayers. This is sheer bliss from start to finish. Smooth,
sophisticated, nicely experimental and recalling the touches of maverick genius that exemplified
Vangelis's finest works from the 70s and 80s. Brilliant. This CD set is a bargain - and not to be
missed. I've enjoyed and savoured every minute of it.

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