For hard-core Blade Runner fans, or anyone interested in the filmmaking process, Paul M. Sammon's book Future Noir, The Making of Blade Runner (Harper Prism) is required reading. Future Noir was a labour of love for Sammon, who collected material for the book from the early days of Blade Runner's conception in the late '70s to 1995. Along with detailed descriptions of the entire filmmaking process from Syd Mead's conceptual drawings to the Director's Cut, Future Noir contains interviews with Ridley Scott, the cast, the crew and the late Philip K. Dick, whose novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep provided the source material for the film.
The merely curious or casual fan of Blade Runner may find Sammon's exhaustive research and attention to detail somewhat tiresome (even the author suggests that the casual fan skip a few chapters). But anyone who perseveres through the entire book will have a new appreciation of a classic film and the minor miracle involved in getting anything of quality onto the silver screen. Besides, who can resist knowing whether or not Ridley Scott intended Rick Deckard to be a replicant?
