Blade Runner 2049 (Post-release)

Box office not so hot, I guess I shouldn't have expected different but I was hopeful. Aiming to see it tonight and stay unspoiled til then!
 
Yeah it did not do as well as they thought, hopefully there goes the sequels! :thumbsup
 
I give them some credit for taking the risk on an '82 box office bomb, but it is not unexpected at all.
Will China bail it out next month?
 
A classic of Sci-Fi movies!! The story, the questions about our humanity, our finite life and our memories. The visuals and the music were fantastic as well as the sets, props, costumes, etc...Tom Southwell (graphic artist in the first BR) wrote to me: "Ridley Scott can look and see the "child" his own Blade Runner had in "some ways" germinated".
I'm not easily impressed, but I'm still digesting what I just saw and it's overwhelming! That movie will get many Oscars!
 
I really couldn't give a damn,.....obviously the studio wants a return in Box Office,....but the world has another milestone piece of art,....if people don't go to see it, or do't get it, it's their loss.

J
I don't care either, sure it's a movie and the only things I don't like about 2049 are pretty standard bypasses of absolute reality you get in movies.
otherwise it's so on point it rivals the very best sequels ever.
Kind of don't mind if the leave it alone now.

Either way you can't take these two movies away from me now.
Like Star Wars and Empire.
They are mine.
 
I don't care either, sure it's a movie and the only things I don't like about 2049 are pretty standard bypasses of absolute reality you get in movies.
otherwise it's so on point it rivals the very best sequels ever.
Kind of don't mind if the leave it alone now.

Either way you can't take these two movies away from me now.
Like Star Wars and Empire.
They are mine.

Exactly.....a gift

J
 
Seen it and absolutely loved it. My 9 year old son did also. Need to see it again asap. I can't stop thinking about it now. :)



Ben
 
I saw it and loved it. It's well written, well acted, is absolutely stunning, and, in my opinion, in no way diminishes the original.

That being said I'm not surprised that it's under performing at the box office. Who's the genius who approved a slow paced, thought provoking sequel, based on a slow paced, thought provoking, 35 year old movie that flopped, both critically, and financially?
 
I think I really loved it, but it's too soon to say for sure. It will probably take another viewing (& a lot more contemplation) before I know for certain.

The entire theater was silent during (& after) the credits, & I barely spoke to anyone for hours afterwards. It was a strange feeling...
 
I watched the original the other day as a refresher before seeing 2049. Man I forgot how boring that movie was and how unremarkable it is story wise. I wound up watching most of it at double speed as it has so much filler. It doesn't get philosophical or pose any real questions until the end. 2049 takes that ball and really runs with it. I will go see it again but first impression is I love it. These two reviews pretty much are what I feel about the original and sequel.


Spoiler alert
 
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My wife hated it so that's a good sign :p

I really liked it though. Production design was incredible but admittedly lacked some of the charm of the original. I'll chalk that up to 2049 being in a bit of a cultural boom as compared to 2019. If I had a real gripe it would be the slight overuse of JOI. K's moments of solitude were broken by that JOI chime just a couple too many times for me. Disliked little things like all the holograms and touch screens but that's a minor complaint.

Overall I thought the story and acting were great and I was surprised that the run time really didn't weigh on me while watching, I was engrossed the whole time.
 
was the new replicant Wallace kills a Joi? Does anyone else think the blaster sounded different when fired?

The reason it isn't doing well at Box office is tis too long, and most feel you need to be a fan of first one to like it

I think some of the sets were too cheap, the Wallace room was dark and felt cheap, the info desk at the wallace building same thing the fight in the water and dark seemed cheap too, darkness =less detail needed and easy to hide special effects flaws that why the biggest Godzilla scenes are at night, it was like they ran out of money for sets mid way in

d you think they could re edit it to make it last just 2hrs
 
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Blade Runner is a film that has been with me since I discovered it on late-night TV and VHS in the mid 80s, and has grown to be a film that I hold very close to my heart even as I'm able to step away and see it for its beauty and its flaws.

I'm really uncertain of what to feel about a sequel I didn't feel was warranted or wanted and the choices that were made, even if done with love for the original.

Having seen it now, I feel like they had an interesting continuation that was unexpected and worth exploring; so I felt relieved and pleased ultimately with the narrative choices they made- however ultimately it didn't make me feel anything the way the original did. There's still a lot to unpack and some of it detracts from my ability to say "this was a good sequel to Blade Runner".

One of my biggest letdowns has to be the musical score. My first thoughts were "this could be good, they've started to capture the spirit of the original Vangelis score"- but as the movie went on, I noticed that there was almost no "score" to speak of- rather, just occasional ambient humming sounds and synthesizer effects that were jarring, and in some cases, indistinguishable from sound effects. Where are the themes? No "Blade Runner Blues". No "Love Theme". Nothing to provide an emotional emphasis to anything happening on screen. The only scene where I felt the music amplifying the narrative was K's exploration of the furnace- but it wasn't because I felt like it was a well-composed piece of music, rather it was just ominous minor chords that screamed "TENSION RISING".

And there were numerous questions I couldn't shake after thinking about the film for a bit- and would love others' perspectives on these:

- Why were the rebelling replicants even necessary for this story? They really served no purpose other than to "rescue" K after the Vegas fight. The themes of identity, the implications of what it means to choose to be human, and the ramifications of a replicant who can reproduce were all evident without their presence in the film. Their direct involvement in the story made the everything feel somehow less personal, which I felt was a bit of a mistake.

- Why was K shot down over the junkyard? Minor quibble, but the whole sequence seemed pointless and easily left on the cutting room floor. K is conveniently rescued by Luv and moves on to the orphanage, never even questioning what happened. Everything that happens after would be the same as it would have without his being shot down.

- When K goes to visit the memory-maker, LAPD immediately knows about it and there are police waiting for him. Yet when he shows up with Deckard at the end, no one's the wiser. He's still wanted by the LAPD as a rogue replicant, and whatever means they had of finding him there before wouldn't have changed.

- Why did K have her memories to begin with?

- I'm still not entirely sure what K's character arc actually was. At first, he's the duty-bound replicant Blade Runner. Then his world is turned upside down when he feels he might be the "miracle" offspring of a replicant. So his search for Deckard becomes more personal at that point. But once he finds out he is not the child, what reason does he have to come back for Deckard other than because they told him to kill Deckard (which itself seemed contrived to create that conflict and push K toward the climax of the story)? I feel like the rebels were meant to help explicltly convey the ideology that some things are worth dying for- and in doing so, replicants can be considered to be alive or having a soul; but I never got the sense that K had really adopted that perspective.

- How did Wallace even come to be aware of the discovery of Rachel's bones and of her offspring? Luv just shows up at the morgue, collecting the bones- but there's never any indication that information was available to them. I can give a pass to Wallace knowing that Tyrell had made some strides toward replicants who could reproduce, but I couldn't see how Wallace would have known specifically of K's find or of Rachel as that achievement.

- Without knowing how replicants are actually engineered and produced, it's impossible to know why Wallace couldn't produce enough to meet the demand he had, but it just seems like an arbitrary restriction that isn't given enough explanation.
 
- Why was K shot down over the junkyard? Minor quibble, but the whole sequence seemed pointless and easily left on the cutting room floor. K is conveniently rescued by Luv and moves on to the orphanage, never even questioning what happened. Everything that happens after would be the same as it would have without his being shot down.
Agree. The only reason I can think of is to show the audience that Luv is tracking him, using him to find the offspring. But that could have been done in all sorts of other ways.,

- How did Wallace even come to be aware of the discovery of Rachel's bones and of her offspring? Luv just shows up at the morgue, collecting the bones- but there's never any indication that information was available to them. I can give a pass to Wallace knowing that Tyrell had made some strides toward replicants who could reproduce, but I couldn't see how Wallace would have known specifically of K's find or of Rachel as that achievement.
First, Wallace was aware that Rachael was a special model so he had Luv put a watch out for any info on her.
K brought a lock of Rachael's hair to the Wallace archivist. Its presence was an indication that the police could have more of her remains.
Then, we could expect that Wallace's people came to the same conclusions as the coroner, and/or that the coroner had data that Luv also stole.
 
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