Ironically, for a film populated with brilliant creations cursed with brief life spans, Blade Runner has enjoyed many a critical and financial rebirth since its disappointing reception in 1982.

Grumblings about Ford’s unsympathetic hero and an opaque plot gave way to an appreciation of Scott’s visual achievement and attempt to expand the horizons of big screen sci-fi.

And although it had audiences furrowing their brows upon first release, the movie’s plot is admirably straightforward, told in under two hours and without the surplus of characters that has blighted many a recent blockbuster.

2019, Los Angeles. While the world’s population is fleeing a polluted planet, the Tyrell Corporation has perfected android technology for off-world construction work.

These “replicants” are physically and intellectually superior to humans, and so self-destruct after four years.

Rogue replicants are hunted by 'blade runner' units; policemen with license to kill on sight. When four artificial personnel make it back to Earth, Rick Deckard (Ford) is charged with finding them. Matters are complicated when Deckard becomes involved with Rachel (Young), Tyrell’s pet replicant and unaware of her status.

But the real threat comes from Roy (a radiant, dangerous Hauer), a replicant yearning to meet his maker.

Everything that made Blade Runner a classic is present in this Final Cut. Inspired by early-80s Tokyo, Scott’s LA circa 2019 is a sensational mishmash of 1940s film noir and future imaginings with an Eastern twist; the police hover-car gliding by a giant video screen geisha adorning a skyscraper is a key sci-fi image.

That troublesome plot was merely dark before it was fashionable. For all their lethality, Roy and his fellow runaway replicants (played by part-time big names Daryl Hannah, Joanna Cassidy and the late Brion James) are essentially children looking for longer lives, so there is little heroic in Deckard’s gunning them down.

Ford rarely receives credit for the brave performance his Deckard is, worlds away from Indy or Han Solo. As with 1992’s so-called Director’s Cut, this version omits the original release’s nice-guy narration, making Deckard a reticent, troubled hero, only able to kill women, one of whom he shoots in the back - Joanna Cassidy, replacing what was clearly a stunt double in the previous releases.

Also reinstated is some eye-gouging gore and violence, and tell-tale wires on the hover cars have been digitally erased. Although he resists George Lucasing his movie, Scott does have the replicants’ eyes occasionally glow red which nullifies the blade runners’ Voight-Kampff test but muddies the argument that Deckard is an android, although the famed unicorn scene and darker ending remain.

Empty apartment blocks and defunct product placement aside, what surprises is how fresh Blade Runner looks.

And while some of the philosophical musings seem half-baked, its dark tone and visual genius future proof it well-past the actual 2019.

Rob Daniel