director's cut

To take an extreme example, what about the eight separate versions of Blade Runner, at least half of which have been widely shown? These have included, apart from the initial 1982 release, cuts known respectively as the "original director's version" (though, ironically, disowned by its director, Ridley Scott) in 1990; three subsequent versions, all purporting to be "director's cuts," growing out of Scott's objections to the 1990 release; and, finally, the one that was actually approved and released in 1992. Yet even these five versions—all described in copious detail, along with two more, in Paul M. Sammon's once-exhaustive 1996 book, Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner—have finally been succeeded by a more carefully wrought 25^th anniversary edition, hopefully definitive, known simply as Blade Runner: The Final Cut, prepared by Scott and released in 2007.

- Death by a thousand cuts: How DVD marketing is rewriting the history of film