Why we still love Blade Runner

Happy Birthday 'Blade Runner'. The seminal sci-fi classic celebrates its 30th anniversary this week (it was released in the states on 25 June 1982).

To mark the occasion, we sat down and watched it on the whopping great TV at Yahoo! Movies HQ and can confirm: yes, it's still a sci-fi masterpiece. Here are just a few reasons why we still love it, thirty years on.

There was a 'curse of Blade Runner'
Many of the companies featured on the film's enormous ad boards either went bust or experienced setbacks shortly after the film was released, including Atari, Pan Am and The Bell System. Coca-Cola also almost imploded three years later thanks to 'New Coke', but recovered.

It was released in the best year EVER for sci-fi films
Also out in 1982: 'Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan', 'E.T: The Extra-Terrestrial, 'Tron' and 'The Thing'.

This pic of Rutger Hauer
It's the chap who played replicant anti-hero Roy Batty. Surely the world's coolest Dutchman (and that's saying something). Plus, who could forget that 'Tears in the rain' speech.

It pioneered the 'Director's Cut'
Love them or loathe them, the 'Director's Cut' is common place today, quite possibly because of 'Blade Runner'. After brainless execs meddled with Ridley Scott's original for the cinema release, the director approved a new version in 1991 that axed the happy ending and Harrison Ford's mumbling voice-over. Its critical and financial success helped convince studios there was a substantial market for alternate or extended cuts, and indirectly spawned George Lucas' terrible updates of the original 'Star Wars' trilogy and Peter Jackson's superb 'Extended' cuts of 'The Lord Of The Rings'.

The ace videogame
The 1997 point-and-click adventure for the PC, also called 'Blade Runner', may not have been perfect, but its moody visuals and alternative endings helped capture the essence of its source material much better than almost all movie tie-in games before or since. A minor classic.

Tyrell's mansion is a real place
Replicant creator and billionaire Dr. Eldon Tyrell's incredible HQ is a real-life Mayan-inspired house in the Los Feliz neighborhood north of downtown Los Angeles. It was even on the market in 2009 for $15 million, but sold for just $4.5 million two years later.

Ford and Scott hated each other, but are now friends again
It's common knowledge that Harrison Ford hated working with Scott, famously saying: "Blade Runner is not one of my favourite films… I tangled with Ridley." In recent times the pair have kissed and made up though, and Scott even wants his leading man back for a 'Blade Runner' sequel, which is currently in the works. "I don't think it'll be Harry [in the lead role]. But I've got to have him in it somewhere. That'd be amusing."

Sean Young's Polaroids
Trust the ever-eccentric Sean Young (who played Rachael) to post Polaroid photos from the set of 'Blade Runner' on her website. Our fave sees Harrison Ford break character and photobomb with a silly face.

The ambiguous ending
Deckard was a replicant all along according to Ridley Scott and the 'Director's Cut', but if you listen to Harrison Ford or catch the theatrical version his detective was an 'ordinary Joe'. What we love about 'Blade Runner' is that this key question is still left up to the viewer, whichever edit you watch.