I, as well as the majority of the geek population, love the movie Blade Runner. Love it.

The thing is, though, when I fell in love with it, I fell in love with the original theatrical version - the one with the voice-over and modified “happy ending.” The Blade Runner purists will argue that wasn’t as good, that the Director’s Cut was much better as it stuck closer to Ridley Scott’s original vision. That’s all fine and good, but it’s akin to fighting over who the best James Bond was - generally speaking, you’re going to like the Bond whose movies you saw first. (I’m for Pierce Brosnan, but I used to be a Roger Moore man. Alas, that’s another blog entry.) I liked the voice-over. I liked the happy ending. I thought the Deckard-is-a-replicant thing was dumb. I thought the unicorn thing was dumb.

(And for the record, no version was like the book, so we won’t even go there.)

The problem is, they only released the Director’s Cut on DVD. If you want to see the original version, you have to go to Blockbuster and rent the one copy of the videotape that they have and try to watch it in its half-demagentized state (if someone hasn’t just stolen the tape altogether).

My problems are solved. According to Sci Fi Wire, they’re going to press a new DVD with a remastered version of the original Director’s Cut; create a new Director’s Cut (the “Final Cut”), release that to theaters in 2007; and issue a special-edition DVD after that with three versions of the film: remastered Director’s Cut, expanded international theatrical version, and original theatrical version.

My day just got made.