Blade Runner 2049 (Post-release)

Wow I couldn't disagree more. The fact that it took its time with each scene was a breath of fresh air for me in this day of ADD fuelled,explosions every 2 seconds, clutter fest movies of modern day.

Eye of the beholder, brother.
 
The pacing was excellent. The cinematography was excellent. The art production was excellent. The VFX were excellent. The action set pieces were clever and surprising.

I just wasn't impressed with the story.
To me, it was just more of the same blatant fan-service that's ruining other franchises right now.
Very well crafted fan-service, but still fan-service.
 
I'm an editor. A lot of movies I see (probably a majority) I would like to tighten significantly.

Yes, it could be cut down by at least a half hour and still retain plot.

But what about artistry?

When a film is crunched down to the bare minimum, it's just a glorified trailer. You get the information, but not the experience. Imagine reading an IMDB summary of the film instead of the film itself. That's what eliminating atmosphere does to a film.

I wouldn't touch BR 2049.
 
Was just talking with one of my friends yesterday and he still has not seen it, has no inclination to.

Still trying to convince him he needs to at least do a" one and done"


Yah - I wasn't sure if I was ever going to watch it, because the mere idea of a BR sequel kind of offended me.
But yesterday I said "Might as well get it over with..." and I rented it.

It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't great. Didn't make a dent in my top 50 movies of all time.
 
The fact that it took its time with each scene was a breath of fresh air for me in this day of ADD fuelled,explosions every 2 seconds, clutter fest movies of modern day.

Ben

carn't have gorgeous long single takes nowadays in the theater...the ADD kids would be climbing the drapes and chewing on the theater seat cushions....
 
I was quite worried about 2049 that it might taint the original for me.
I needn't have worried. It was, in my opinion, a worthy sequel. Visually stunning. Lots of nice nods and connections to the original and a beautiful soundtrack.
Questions. For the musicians out there, was the key that was stuck on the piano in Sappers dwelling the same key that Deckard played before the unicorn dream?
Did you notice Gaff talking about Deckards eyes and that he was "retired"?
Was the wooden horse actually a unicorn with the horn snapped off?
Did I also hear the line "another prodigal son returns"?
 
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Questions. For the musicians out there, was the key that was stuck on the piano in Sappers dwelling the same key that Deckard played before the unicorn dream?
Unfortunately not. The stuck key on Sapper's piano is E6. The key K plays on Deckard's piano is D6 (the next key down). The note heard on the soundtrack is actually D5, one octave lower than the key he presses.
Did you notice Gaff talking about Deckards eyes and that he was "retired"?
Yes, he says "he wasn't long for this world, something in his eyes"..
Was the wooden horse actually a unicorn with the horn snapped off?
The pictures of the prop show a lump in the centre of it's forehead that would suggest something has been here and broken off.
Did I also hear the line "another prodigal son returns"?
Luv says "Another prodigal serial number returns" when she gets handed Rachael's DNA record card.

"Too Many Questions."
 
Unfortunately not. The stuck key on Sapper's piano is E6. The key K plays on Deckard's piano is D6 (the next key down). The note heard on the soundtrack is actually D5, one octave lower than the key he presses.

Thats put that one to sleep then

Yes, he says "he wasn't long for this world, something in his eyes"..

The pictures of the prop show a lump in the centre of it's forehead that would suggest something has been here and broken off.

Luv says "Another prodigal serial number returns" when she gets handed Rachael's DNA record card.

aha. Makes sense
i need to watch it again.

"Too Many Questions."

Thanks for answering.
 
Working in? I thought he was residing in.

Same, but he's wearing a fairly official and clinical looking outfit, while others are shuffling around in dressing gowns. He was always a sharp dresser, so that could explain it, though the orderly who walks past is dressed the same as he is. Either way nobody is wearing shoes.

At least he didn't call K a horse dick.
 
Kind of a tiny thing but I thought it was neat; Watching through the making of Alien documentary, they're talking about building the Ash gag with his severed head on the table, and Ridley specifically mentioned the glass marbles in among all the milk and pasta and whatnot being used for storing memory. Spin forward a few decades and we have the clear glass marble memory bearings in 2049.
 
Im going to be the in the minority here but I didnt like the film much. The Leto character is terrible and likely my biggest issue. Ive not read much on this thread but has anyone brought up the missed opportunity plot device to drive K to make a choice between the ending we have and his yearning to transfer Joi into a living replicant? If he was driven by inner conflict for his own gain and want, by making Joi into a real person, it would have likely kept me interested. Instead he is told what he is and just accepts it with only a memory implant as conflict. He obviously was never a child, being a replicant, so how could anyone buy into the "youre special Joe" mumbo jumbo? If we have K discovering how memories are implanted as we did see how they are created, why wouldnt he want to transfer Joi into a real person then go on the run with her? To me, its a huge missed opportunity.

Now, onto the child.
This is something long ago I brought up to a good friend thats also a huge BR fan, what if Rachael, being a one off, was made with human transplant organs? This would be why she had no expiration date as she was an experiment to see how long those organs would survive in a replicant. Fast forward all these years later and we somewhat get that as she birthed a child and died in the process. This could even be a business venture for Tyrell as the new four year life span replicants, Nexus 7, would yield a plethora of readily available healthy cloned human organs. Instead of a hunk of dead meat after four years thats discarded, Tyrell Corp would have a cash cow explosion "reprocessing" that meat.
 
Im going to be the in the minority here but I didnt like the film much. The Leto character is terrible and likely my biggest issue. Ive not read much on this thread but has anyone brought up the missed opportunity plot device to drive K to make a choice between the ending we have and his yearning to transfer Joi into a living replicant? If he was driven by inner conflict for his own gain and want, by making Joi into a real person, it would have likely kept me interested. Instead he is told what he is and just accepts it with only a memory implant as conflict. He obviously was never a child, being a replicant, so how could anyone buy into the "youre special Joe" mumbo jumbo? If we have K discovering how memories are implanted as we did see how they are created, why wouldnt he want to transfer Joi into a real person then go on the run with her? To me, its a huge missed opportunity.

Now, onto the child.
This is something long ago I brought up to a good friend thats also a huge BR fan, what if Rachael, being a one off, was made with human transplant organs? This would be why she had no expiration date as she was an experiment to see how long those organs would survive in a replicant. Fast forward all these years later and we somewhat get that as she birthed a child and died in the process. This could even be a business venture for Tyrell as the new four year life span replicants, Nexus 7, would yield a plethora of readily available healthy cloned human organs. Instead of a hunk of dead meat after four years thats discarded, Tyrell Corp would have a cash cow explosion "reprocessing" that meat.

The point about K and his memories is that once you are in a universe where memories can be created and implanted, how do you know what's 'real'? He presumably was created with the knowledge he was a replicant implanted in his memory (or was told he was very early after his creation) and has had that status reinforced during his life, but how does he know that was real and he wasn't a human who had his memory wiped as a child and replaced with memories about being a replicant to cover up his origins (which very much leads into themes developed in other PKD stories, like We Can Remember it For You Wholesale)? The only memory he has of his 'childhood' turns out to be provably real, which means everything he thinks he knows about his life is brought into question (a very similar situation to what happens to Quaid in Total Recall). The other thing is that like any other sentient being, replicants also develop the need to be 'special', to have been created with a purpose. Joi's built-in programming in that sense acts like a feedback loop to K's own desire to be special, constantly reinforcing that desire until with the discovery that his memory really happened he makes the logical leap into believeing he was Rachael and Deckard's child. Freysa later says to him that all replicants develop that desire to be special and to be wanted, which is another common trait they have with humans (Luv also shows this desire, she constantly desires to be wanted by Wallace and will do anything for his approval and attention).


The point about replicants is that they are effectively no different to humans. They are genentically engineered using human DNA as a tamplate and can have their abilities and physical attributes tailored to whatever role the customer wants to use them in. The 2 main differences from naturally-born humans are that the neural connections are pre-configured and they do not have the ability to biologically reproduce. The 'problem' they have always had is that like any sentient being they develop their own emotions and begin to question their origins and purpose. Without the 20-odd years of life experience to fall back on to handle the impact of those emotions they would violently rebel against their enslavers. The Nexus 6s were limited to a four year lifespan as that was around the point it was noticed their emotional problems started.

Rachael was special in that she was a prototype for the next generation (Nexus 7). In a bid to solve the emotional problems, Tyrell developed memory implants, on the basis that the experiences from implanted memories would act as a stabilising factor once they started to develop emotions. Naturally to test this technique she wasn't created with a preset lifespan. It was only once Deckard revealed to her that those memores were implants (though Tyrell says he thinks she was beginning to suspect herself) that she then rebels. It was also revelaed in this film that Tyrell had also perfected the ability of biological reproduction and used Rachael as a test subject for this (though it was presumably kept secret even from the rest of the company). Why he did it is not explained - it's possible he wanted to use reproduction like Wallace does as a faster, cheaper way of mass-producing replicants, or he may have done it as a vanity project just to satisfy his own 'God complex'. As I've mentioned before, there was an unfilmed scene in the first film that had Roy discovering that the Tyrell he killled was a replicant, the real one being cryogenically suspended with a terminal illness. In that case he may have developed the Nexus 7 prototypes as a 'perfect human' that would allow him to live on after his death.

I'm not sure there is a need to create replicants specifically as organ farms for humans - we are shown in the first film the technology exists to grow organs outside of a host (Chew is growing eyes in his lab). Replicants aren't allowed on Earth anyway, but there's nothing to say that when they die offworld their organs aren't harvested for transplants anyway (on the basis of Roy's death it seems the Nexus 6s died 'naturally' through a nervous system-based muscle paralysis). They are obviously very expensive and time-consuming to create, so I can't see them being simply discarded once their lifespan expires (depending on the condition of their health at that time - a replicant that spent their life working in a hazardous environment may not be worth harvesting from anyway).
 
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