What Did Harrison Ford Say About Blade Runner at the Oscars?

Harrison Ford stole the show at the 93rd Academy Awards Ceremony on Sunday night, as he shared a series of scathing editing notes about one his most famous roles.

On stage to introduce the nominees for the Oscar for Best Editing, the 78-year-old pulled some crumpled notes out from his pocket which he introduced as "some editorial suggestions that were prepared after the screening of a movie I was in."

While the Indiana Jones star did not reveal the movie in question, it soon became apparent he was referring to Blade Runner.

"Opening too choppy. Why is this voice-over track so terrible? He sounds drugged," Ford said, reading from the notes.

"Were they all on drugs? Dekker at the piano is interminable. Flashback dialogue is confusing. Is he listening to a tape? Why do we need the third cut to the eggs? The synagogue music is awful on the street. We've got to use Vangelis. Up to Zora's death, the movie is deadly dull. This movie gets worse every screening."

The notes provided a valuable insight into "why the editing process can often get a little complicated", Ford continued.

"The possibilities may seem endless, but the editor will work tirelessly, often in isolation, to make thousands of choices, placing the right piece of the right length in the right order to arrive at the best version of what the movie wants to be. It's an extremely difficult process, not for the impatient, not for the faint of heart."

Released in 1982, Blade Runner has since developed into a cult classic, a status few would have predicted when the movie debuted to a very lukewarm reception and was considered a box office flop.

As Ford's notes hinted at on Sunday, the movie was lighted by a well-documented complicated and at times downright bitter post-production process, while the relationship between director Ridley Scott and Ford was similarly tempestuous at the time.

In 2006, Scott told the BBC Ford was the "biggest pain in the a**" he had ever worked with.

"He'll forgive me because now I get on with him," he said.

Now he's become charming. But he knows a lot, that's the problem. When we worked together it was my first film up and I was the new kid on the block. But we made a good movie."

At least seven versions of the movie are known to exist, including two different Director's Cut versions approved by Scott, the second of which was released in 2007 for the 25th anniversary of the movie's release.

In 1992, Ford revealed Blade Runner was "not one of my favorite films" and that he "tangled with Scott".

Harrison Ford and Scott were both equally disappointed with the voiceover narration, so much so that the latter removed it from Blade Runner: The Final Cut in 2007.

In audio commentary included in the version, Ford admitted that he "was obliged by my contract to record that narration, which I found awkward and uninspired."