Encore showed marathons of all three versions a couple weeks ago, celebrating the 30th anniversary. I'd never seen the theatrical version, and now I can see why Harrison Ford abhorred those voice-overs -- they're senseless, and bludgeon the film's character.

the third and "final" edition of the movie gets more and more brilliant, however. the human condition theme is quite basic in general, but delivered with such nuance that it becomes ingenious. "is this an empathy test?" + Rutger Hauer's final monologue + the warning from Gaff*...I could go on.

this was already one of my favorites, but it's moving rapidly up the list. maybe even top ten at this point.

*I wonder if all the Blade Runners are replicants. never read Dick's novel (it's on my list of favorite movies I don't want to fuck up by reading the book, joining No Country For Old Men and Fight Club), but that makes sense to me. either the "true" Blade Runners are humans like Gaff, who oversee their replicant sub-detectives, or Gaff was another replicant brought to watch over Deckard because he was a rogue.

ETA: now that I think about it, I'd wager the Blade Runners are human and use unknowing replicants as assistance. Gaff knew Deckard was a replicant, so you would have to assume Gaff himself is not -- otherwise, his ability to hunt down his "own kind" might be compromised (a la Deckard).