Ridley Scott | Kubrick Footage in Blade Runner

I’ve got a very nice story about Stanley. I’d finished Blade Runner and it was a disaster. And my investors who were giving me a really hard time, said…’You can’t end the film with this picking up this piece of origami, looking at the girl, walking in the elevator, and nodding, that’s called a film noir.’

I said, ‘What’s a film noir.’…

‘We have to test this with an uplifting ending where they will go off into the wilderness together.’

I said, ‘Well if they can go off into the beautiful wilderness, why are they living in this dystopian environment?’
‘Allright, I’ll do it.’

So by then, I had talked to Stanley a few times. I called him up and said listen, ‘I know you shot the hell out of wherever it was in The Shining, and I know you’ve got four and a half months of helicopter stuff…[inaudible]. Can I have some of the stuff because it will suit me fine.’

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…

But he said,’You got a vehicle, what is it?’

‘It’s long.’

‘Oh shit, every shot I have has a Volkswagen in it.’ Then he went, ‘Oh, what did you shoot?’

I said, ‘Anamorphic’

“Ah jolly good, when you project mine, it’ll look oblong. You’ll be fine.’

Then a day later he called me.

‘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?’

I went, ‘Okay cool.’

That was it. That was Kubrick.

– Ridley Scott