The Bladerunner 2049 thread (SPOILER ALERT)

[MissKittyFantastico]

I was fascinated by Joi, and I felt disappointed that - as I saw it - her and K's relationship kind of got dropped in favour of tying him to Deckard's story - the big purple butt scene seeming to be there to wash away any sense that K's 'humanity' could step from that relationship, and instead should be seen as deriving from his willingness to get his ass killed by Lady Sourpuss on Deckard's behalf. Was she just saying 'everything he wanted to hear'? Early on (ditching the suggestion of reading a book, for instance) she seemed to be adapting to his desires in a pretty transparent way, yet we also saw her act quasi-independently - hiring him a hooker, volunteering to delete herself from the apartment system to cover his tracks - in a way that, if it was her reacting to his wants, must have been the result of some very subtle character analysis on her part that almost suggests she was capable of manifesting a kind of free will in response to his unstated desire for her to have free will. If it was all programmed, why so clumsy to begin with? Was she capable of intentionally underperforming in non-critical moments so that she could exceed his expectations when it mattered the most, to more convincingly mimic independent action at critical points in their relationship? That's some pretty fancy programming there.

And if the 'most human thing you can do' is die for a good cause, didn't she? She didn't outright intend to sacrifice herself, but she knowingly put her existence in harm's way to try to safeguard K. Was that just standard programming, prioritise your owner over your own 'survival'? I felt we were meant to take it that K made a human decision to risk his life for a good cause - reuniting Deckard and Ana - but at the same time, he chose to prioritise a human (question mark) life over his own; replicants are designed to do that, Nexus Dawn makes that really clear (BTW, if it's important to the movie, put it in the goddam movie). Joi prioritised a replicant 'life' - no question mark at all - over her own. Was her desire to be one step closer to 'real' - how she convinced K to let her be 'mortal' - just feigned because she could tell he wanted her to be real? What line of code made K capable of being more than his programming, but not her? Because his species can, at least in one instance, be 'born' instead of made? Big deal, cockroaches are born.

So I'm actually pretty pleased I got a lot to think about from the movie - not really things I hadn't thought of before, what with y'know, having seen sci-fi already, but Joi is a refreshing new avatar for me to have these conversations with myself, and that's worth three hours sitting in a cinema any day. I just wish I felt the movie didn't ultimately have something else on its mind, because - maybe this is more on me than the filmmakers - I didn't need to know what happened to Deckard after the credits rolled on the original.

(On a tangent, I did for a moment entertain the idea that she'd transferred her program into the replicant (assuming it was) dog to escape being 'killed', which would've made for a fantastically awkward relationship once they reunited. What is it androids dream about the electric sheep? Best not wonder.)

However, HOW THE HELL DID 'K' GET BACK IN THE CITY!? I know this might sound like nit-picking but seriously? How did he get back in?

I thought the car was okay - the electricals came back in time to fire thrusters and pull out of his dead dive into the trash, it just wasn't quick enough to avoid the ground entirely, and K got knocked out; by the time he woke up he had Sybok's followers trying to void his factory warranty, and after that he evidently figured out (somehow) that he was close enough to where he wanted to be to walk.

I totally missed the blind watchmaker reference though.

I missed that he was blind, I thought the eyes were implants, and the hovering doohickeys were remote tools - I was expecting one of them to kill the newborn replicant he examined. Kind of a cool idea while it lasted, these creepy little extensions of his will floating around, rather than just seeing-eye pods.

Edit: I forgot to have my nitpicking moment - sure Deckard died in the crash, because the psychotic multi-eyed Jesus guy will never wonder if maybe there's a slim chance the key to his dream of truly mastering all of creation didn't just get wiped out of existence by a drive-by. What's he going to do, get a fake ID in the name of Hans Olo - he doesn't even have K to help him from inside the LAPD, K's lying dead on the doorstep of his daughter's house, which she'd be a nightmare to relocate from, in the event that anyone curious about why his police-registered car launched an aerial assault on a Wallace Corp convoy wonders why his corpse ended up on that particular doorstep, assuming whatever tracking data Chief Buttercup used to learn that he'd visited her earlier (and have him arrested on that very spot) isn't still in her computer to make it even easier. Is the Resistance able to hide him beyond Wallace's reach? If so, why wasn't that Plan A, instead of 'screw it, just kill him'?

[SlackerinDeNile]

Edit: I forgot to have my nitpicking moment - sure Deckard died in the crash, because the psychotic multi-eyed Jesus guy will never wonder if maybe there's a slim chance the key to his dream of truly mastering all of creation didn't just get wiped out of existence by a drive-by. What's he going to do, get a fake ID in the name of Hans Olo - he doesn't even have K to help him from inside the LAPD, K's lying dead on the doorstep of his daughter's house, which she'd be a nightmare to relocate from, in the event that anyone curious about why his police-registered car launched an aerial assault on a Wallace Corp convoy wonders why his corpse ended up on that particular doorstep, assuming whatever tracking data Chief Buttercup used to learn that he'd visited her earlier (and have him arrested on that very spot) isn't still in her computer to make it even easier. Is the Resistance able to hide him beyond Wallace's reach? If so, why wasn't that Plan A, instead of 'screw it, just kill him'?

K didn't die, I don't know where you're getting that from, he just decided to lay down and rest for a while, clearly overwhelmed by the events of the past few days.

I agree with the rest of your nit-picking, I have a feeling this film will underperform and not get a sequel so your questions will never be answered, probably for the best.

[Robovski]

K's death at the end is arguable - he's got blood loss, been in several fights where he's had the crap beat out of him and he's in the cold, and the cold's embrace is a sleep you may never wake from in that state.

But yes, he could just be having a hypothermic nap.

[MadAmosMalone]

(BTW, if it's important to the movie, put it in the goddam movie).

Amen! I mean I enjoyed the prequel vignettes and it did seem like they explained these things in the movie but I'm glad I watched them before I saw the movie. It seemed like things were clearer to me having watched them and I wondered if it was so for other viewers who had not.

Big deal, cockroaches are born.

Was thinking the exact same thing. I liked Chief Buttercup's (nice nickname there BTW) line about him having been doing fine without one (a soul.)

So I'm actually pretty pleased I got a lot to think about from the movie - not really things I hadn't thought of before, what with y'know, having seen sci-fi already, but Joi is a refreshing new avatar for me to have these conversations with myself, and that's worth three hours sitting in a cinema any day.

I agree. In fact I like her so much, I'm going to name my cellphone "Joi."

(On a tangent, I did for a moment entertain the idea that she'd transferred her program into the replicant (assuming it was) dog to escape being 'killed', which would've made for a fantastically awkward relationship once they reunited. What is it androids dream about the electric sheep? Best not wonder.)

In my own headcanon, they went back for the dog later. Being a dog lover, it would bug me no end to just abandon him out there in the desert. Come to think of it, this really lends credence to the idea Deckard is a replicant. How else could he survive out there all this time? I have never been in the "Deckard is a replicant" camp so it's good they at least preserved that ambiguity of the issue.

[SlackerinDeNile]

K's death at the end is arguable - he's got blood loss, been in several fights where he's had the crap beat out of him and he's in the cold, and the cold's embrace is a sleep you may never wake from in that state.

But yes, he could just be having a hypothermic nap.

True, but I was thinking back to when that replicant (I forget his name sorry) in the original Bladerunner dipped his hand in the freezing goo at the artificial eye workshop. Ryan Gosling may not be a totally recent model but the film shows that he is a near-unstoppable badass, I doubt taking a nap in arctic conditions is going to stop him.

[MadAmosMalone]

K's death at the end is arguable - he's got blood loss, been in several fights where he's had the crap beat out of him and he's in the cold, and the cold's embrace is a sleep you may never wake from in that state.

But yes, he could just be having a hypothermic nap.

True, but I was thinking back to when that replicant (I forget his name sorry) in the original Bladerunner dipped his hand in the freezing goo at the artificial eye workshop. Ryan Gosling may not be a totally recent model but the film shows that he is a near-unstoppable badass, I doubt taking a nap in arctic conditions is going to stop him.

That replicant's name was Leon.

I think maybe K's "death" was intentionally ambiguous. It seemed sorta like an echo of Roy's death in the original but, like you said, the cold really shouldn't affect him the way it would a normal human.

[SlackerinDeNile]

Also, in the first Max Payne game (a bad example I know), the titular character left a gangster to die from bullet wounds in the middle of the night at the height of a blizzard in New York. That gangster is an important supporting character in the sequel, I'm kind of used to characters surviving the odds in fiction.

[Ordo]

Well according to box office mojo this film (despite positive critical reviews and a rating of A- from audiences) the movie made 32 Million in it's 3 day US release and 81 million world wide against a budget of 150 million. The original projections for this film were 50 million in the USA during opening weekend. The studio hopes the film will have legs to carry it through (positive word of mouth, lack of anything else coming out etc).

It's possible the studio wanted a franchise out of this, but I don't know if that is feasible. I mean the Replicant revolution could lead in that direction....but since K seemed to ignore their wishes when it came to Deckard (IE Terminate) they don't really strike me as the 'Heroic' option.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

I assumed he was dead, just from his pose, the theme of sacrifice, and the exact same music that played during the "tears in rain" scene in the original.

Edit: I forgot to have my nitpicking moment - sure Deckard died in the crash, because the psychotic multi-eyed Jesus guy will never wonder if maybe there's a slim chance the key to his dream of truly mastering all of creation didn't just get wiped out of existence by a drive-by. What's he going to do, get a fake ID in the name of Hans Olo - he doesn't even have K to help him from inside the LAPD, K's lying dead on the doorstep of his daughter's house, which she'd be a nightmare to relocate from, in the event that anyone curious about why his police-registered car launched an aerial assault on a Wallace Corp convoy wonders why his corpse ended up on that particular doorstep, assuming whatever tracking data Chief Buttercup used to learn that he'd visited her earlier (and have him arrested on that very spot) isn't still in her computer to make it even easier. Is the Resistance able to hide him beyond Wallace's reach? If so, why wasn't that Plan A, instead of 'screw it, just kill him'?

Some of the stuff related to the police and Wallace felt a little sloppy to me. I don't remember it being made clear who Deckard's daughter was working for, or why there was no protection (or cameras if Deckard is going to just walk straight in there?).

They don't come out and say as much, at least not that I can recall, but it seemed to me that the world of Blade Runner must have gotten a lot worse since our last visit in 2019. In the original, Los Angeles was teeming with life and activity, and you got a sense of how overcrowded the place was. There were a small handful of scenes with a decent number of extras in this one, but otherwise the city and the landscapes felt remarkably empty.

It feels crazy to criticize anything cinematography-related with this film and as far as I'm concerned Deakins should finally win an Oscar, but as beautiful as everything was I still didn't get quite the same sense of "place" as I did in the original film. Which is really hardly a criticism, since Blade Runner might be the best sci-fi film out there in that regard.

As far as a potential sequel, I have my doubts that it would happen, but in the right hands it could work. I really hope this movie has long legs, for a lot of reasons. I wouldn't mind seeing more Blade Runner, but I would also love for more studios to feel that they could take a chance on a film like this- a beautifully crafted, smart film with artistic vision and a blockbuster budget.

[MadAmosMalone]

It's like I said in another thread, the original did poorly in its initial release too. I guess I was about 16 when the original came out and I saw it twice in the theater back then. Each time there were very few other moviegoers in the theater with me. Since that time, the rest of the world seemed to have gained a better appreciation for the original which is why it kinda shocked me to see so few other people in the theater with me for this movie.