10 Blatantly Unfinished Movies (That Were Released Anyway)
4. Blade Runner
At last, a decent film made
it onto this list!
Well, semi sort of decent. Ridley Scott’s seminal adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s paranoid android thriller has gone on to become an iconic piece of sci fi cinema, and even in its original unfinished splendour the film was striking enough to make Neuromancer scribe William Gibson leave the cinema halfway through its lengthy runtime, afraid of subconsciously ripping off the impressive flick.
Despite this, the original cut of the film is pretty clearly unfinished, and while it’s still a great piece of cinema, it’s not hard to spot where the studio decided anything resembling reshoots would be too expensive.
Take for example the sloppy stand ins and stunt doubles, some of whom don’t even match the gender, let alone the appearance of the actors they’re replacing. Not obvious enough? Fair—how about the cobbled together happy ending, complete with sweeping shots of the mountainside winding up to the Overlook Hotel?
That’s right—the footage
looks recognizable because it’s taken from Kubrick’s B-roll. Necessity is the
mother of invention, after all.