Rutger Hauer in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner
But let me step back, so I can provide a concise précis of the film (note: spoilers ahead), with the original elements noted when differing from "The Final Cut":
In 2019, androids called Replicants have rebelled at an outer-space colony, and laws back on Earth have made it legal for cops called Blade Runners to execute them on sight. A few are known to have made it to Los Angeles, which resembles a futuristic Tokyo, where an ex-Blade Runner named Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is forced back into service after a fellow Blade Runner is killed by one of the rogue Replicants.
The killer Replicant seems intent on infiltrating the headquarters of the corporation that made them, possibly to force their creator, the company's titular founder and CEO (Joe Turkel), to extend their lives, which are pre-programmed to end after four years. The rebel Replicants know what they are — what amounts to slave labor — despite the company's implanting of false memories to make them believe they are real humans.
The Replicants that Deckard needs to kill are the leader, Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer), plus Leon Kowalski (Brion James), Pris (Daryl Hannah), and an Amazon sex dancer named Zhora (Joanna Cassidy). Deckard's police partner is an oddball named Gaff (Edward James Olmos), whose main contribution to the film seems to be to add "color" by speaking an Esperanto-inspired slang, and leaving little origami figures wherever he goes. Gaff, in fact, is a perfect example of all that's wrong with the Blade Runner screenplay, for despite his quirks he is essentially a cipher. Again, pointless detail is just superfluousness, not depth.
Deckard goes to see Tyrell, and meets his latest version of a Replicant, Rachael (Sean Young), who does not realize she is a Replicant. (They are supposedly outlawed, but let's go with the film's inconsistencies.) Meanwhile, Batty and Leon strongarm their way to get information on how to confront Tyrell. Batty, however, can sense his life is nearing its end.
After some encounters that leave lots of humans and Replicants dead, Deckard and Batty face off in a rooftop melee over L.A. But instead of a final battle, Deckard watches as Batty's life fades away. Before his last breath, Batty utters a cringe-worthy soliloquy:
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. … Time to die.
Here is where the original film works far better. In the final version, this soliloquy is left hanging, invoking not empathy but chuckles for the android who believes himself profound in its grasp of its plight. In the original version, however, we immediately get Deckard's voice-over after Batty's words, which, in its faux 1940s hardboiled style, leavens the soliloquy's unintended humor with its own almost self-knowing silliness. Thus, the original version helps the viewer to more readily accept Batty's spew without guffawing.
Blade Runner ends with Gaff finding Deckard and Batty, as Gaff refers to Rachael (who has improbably fallen in love with Deckard): "It's too bad she won't live; but then again, who does?" Deckard returns to his apartment, and finds Rachael sleeping. As they leave, with him fearing she might be targeted for retirement next, he sees an origami unicorn left by Gaff. He's been there, but let Rachael live.
Here is also where the final and original versions diverge. Gaff's last words clearly show that he knows about Rachael, but won't kill her, so the scene with the unicorn is superfluous. The film (all versions) would have best ended there. It sums up that Gaff knows Deckard's love should be killed, but he will allow Deckard a chance with her.
The final version ends with Deckard holding the unicorn and entering an elevator with Rachael. Now, the unicorn refers to an earlier scene where Deckard dreams of a unicorn. Fans claim this proves Deckard is a Replicant, lest how would Gaff (who seems to know more than any other character) know of his dream's import, unless he had knowledge the unicorn was implanted into the Replicant Deckard? Of course, this makes little sense, and in the original version of the film there is no unicorn dream sequence, so that the origami unicorn is simply another self-important marker that Gaff was there and spared Rachael — not that he knows anything of depth regarding Deckard's identity.
In the original version, Deckard's voice-over speaks of Gaff as he sees the unicorn. That is followed by scenes showing Deckard and Rachael driving in a pastoral countryside (reportedly outtakes from Stanley Kubrick's opening shots for The Shining). Deckard then explains that Tyrell had told him that Rachael had no fail-safe four-year limit built into her, so she can live a "normal" life span (whatever that is for her kind). He echoes a version of what Gaff said, stating that he does not know how long they will have together, but who does? It's ironic that, while neither version is near a great film, the original voice-over version is clearly superior, even though both Scott and Ford objected to it.