Blade Runner 2049 (Post-release)

Not surprising that it did not hit big at the Box office.
Great movie....That Luv character and her blaster are so cool.
It has a list of things that worked against it from a marketing business sense.
For example. It is a very expensive Art House movie.
Would have helped if it was not R 18+ rated. In the big USA market, it has a R-rating.
Here in Australia it is MA15+ rated (Mature Audiences 15+).
 
I knew that scene with K getting a holographic meal from Joi reminded me of something!
Plankton, and his holographic meat loaf. (Yes, I watch Sponge Bob).
evHTpVn.jpg
 
I wonder how this effects Villeneuve's DUNE?
That seismic drop in only it's second week, has got to hurt.
On a positive note, it will sure be very easy to cosplay as Deckard for Halloween this year!

But given its box office performance who could tell who you are dressed up to be?

The effect on Dune is something I worry about. Its a slow, thoughtful story that admittedly builds to a climatic battle (though the sandworm visuals would be epic). Its simply the cost of Bladerunner 2049 that is killing it. I've a nasty feeling that Mr Fords salary is a huge factor in this. As much as I thought the film looked incredible I struggled to see what they spent the money on in comparison to many others.
 
The blackout was an EMP (see Blackout anime short). Las Vegas was a dirty bomb, K mentions it in the discussion with the guy who tests the horse.
The device in the Blackout 2022 short was a nuclear bomb. A strong electromagnetic pulse happens when you detonate a nuclear bomb at a high altitude.
If you want to know more, you could search the web for "Starfish Prime".
 
The device in the Blackout 2022 short was a nuclear bomb. A strong electromagnetic pulse happens when you detonate a nuclear bomb at a high altitude.
If you want to know more, you could search the web for "Starfish Prime".

Watched that bit again, yes you are quite correct. I didn't know about Starfish Prime, fascinating stuff. So I think we can safely say that the Vegas dirty bomb is a part of the mythology that will remain mysterious (bar possible DVD extras)
 
There were a few plot coincidences that bugged me-- like K randomly having lunch in front of the brothel that was the front for the Replicant rebel army... or the fact that K just happened to have been given the false memory from Rachel's child (remember Joi told him to go there completely independent of his investigation)... or that the memory expert didn't find it odd that this random Replicant cop came in with one of her personal memories.. or how K knew she was the daughter...

I feel like there's cut scenes that could connect these dots.

That said, I didn't care so much about these plot contrivances because the sheer visual beauty of the movie was so moving. That and K, Luv, and Joi all had really interesting character arcs.

I was in credibly reticent about this because Blade Runner is my favorite movie of all time. More than Star Wars. More than anything really. I was very nervous this would just crap all over the legacy. But it was exactly what a sequel should be-- it kept the core vibe, tone, and respected what happened before, and yet found new stories to tell with the same tropes and concepts. It could have been a disaster, but it;s clear the people involved had a great love for the original.
 
It was suggested that she gave those memories to a great many replicants. Remember how missing-eye-lady said they all had thought they were the one?
 
I’ve seen this movie 3 times since its release.... It’s still haunting me... It is Sci-Fi Art, and I absolutely LOVE it! I understand it’s not for everyone, but damn I wish it got a better response here in the states... it’s actually doing much better outside the US, hope that trend keeps going! So visually compelling and subtle in the best sense... The only bright spot about the box office is that I might be able to purchase a 4K Blu-Ray of it sooner than later.
 
There were a few plot coincidences that bugged me--

like K randomly having lunch in front of the brothel that was the front for the Replicant rebel army...

I'd say there are probably "recruiters" at every brothel in the city among other known replicant hang outs. They are trying to build an army after all, so they would stretch out where ever they can, not just pick a single location. Different factions, part of something bigger, etc.

or the fact that K just happened to have been given the false memory from Rachel's child (remember Joi told him to go there completely independent of his investigation)...

I believe Deckard's daughter implanted this memory into many replicants. Maybe not all of them, but I bet she slipped it in where she could. Maybe she was leaving this as a bread crumb hoping one of them would find the location where it actually happened and retrieve her unicor . . . um, I mean horse ;)

or that the memory expert didn't find it odd that this random Replicant cop came in with one of her personal memories..

Again, she didn't find it odd because she implanted this memory into many replicants with purpose. It was expected that one of them would eventually come find her at some point. She was absolutely starved for social connection. Maybe this is the first time she has watched it in a while, so it brought the emotion back for her seeing it in full again.

or how K knew she was the daughter...

Didn't Deckard explain to K how they kept her hidden. I can't remember how it all went down exactly, but I remember thinking in my head at some point, "Oh yeah, it's that memory maker girl!"
 
Those certainly help make the connections-- doesn't make them any less handy of coincidences. Imagine, in a world that over-populated after hearing the story of a girl hidden from birth you realize it just so happens to be this girl you met a couple days ago.

I'm not one for holding an audience's hand-- but when you're working a mystery, you need to connect all the dots.

Again though-- I'll happily take these rationalizations since I still loved the movie.
 
Saw it last weekend and thoroughly enjoyed it. I have to say though, that while it was good to see Ford, he's not exactly reprising the role, IMO. Nothing about that performance resembled the Deckard character. It seems like Ford has played the same grumpy curmudgeon in every movie he's done in the last decade.
 
Yeah, but the Deckard we saw in the original Blade Runner was not Rick Deckard at his best either. That was a depressed Deckard, out of work, left by his wife (in memory, anyway), with a history of being a killer and all that on his conscience. I would think that Rachael would have changed him a whole lot during the time they had together. Then he lived for 28 years by himself.

Hey, Harrison Ford himself looked like a very different person 28 years ago when he promoted Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade than he does in interviews now.
 
It's funny, cause I felt the same way and was glad his role was fairly limited. That said, when I tried to think about what an older Rick Deckard would be like I came up blank-- he was so fatalistic. He was living like a replicant, just destroying himself until his cycle was up. Finding out he was going to live should have either changed him significantly, or ruined him further.
 
I finally got off my butt to watch this film last night.

It was magnificent.

I'm eating nothing but crow because, going into this movie, I had a lot of concerns even after the trailers and shorts.

There's no way this should have worked for me. Blade Runner 2049 was a "no win" proposition in my heart and mind with endless potential pitfalls:
- if it expanded on the film's world-building it would easily violate the claustrophobic tonality of the original
- if it tried to preserve the feel of BR it might just become derivative and unnecessary
- if it continued the story it could have become laden with needless exposition where BR was refreshingly sparse
- I was worried it might have been too rapidly paced and edited as so many modern films are
- I was concerned this would be another chase film dressed as hard sci-fi which simply applies a known property for a backdrop - c.f. Total Recall
- I was afraid it might become too ambitious in scaling up the film that it loses the characteristic intimate scale of BR
- I was afraid because I was one of the few people who thought Arrival was overrated

I hold Blade Runner in such reverence there was no way this could have been good enough for me.
.... but it was. It was better than I dared to hope and even enhances my appreciation of BR.

Dennis gets it. He gets it hard. He made a film that Ridley himself is incapable of making. He made a film that straddles the line between being an entirely original (and credible) extension of the first film and wallowing in its shadow. I love this movie.

First of all, I love how Blade Runner 2049 creates a wonderfully detailed and cacophonous tapestry of ambient (and often inexplicable) city noises blended with the soundtrack just as Blade Runner did.

The characteristic BR pathos is infused in this film as well.

For me Carla Juri as Dr. Stelline was the standout among the entire cast of outstanding performances. It's her performance that still haunts me most.

Ryan Gosling as "K" was wonderful. Before the film I was afraid of "Gosling fatigue" but he was legitimately engaging and tragic. What an engrossing personal arc.

I haven't changed my mind about Leto but he was, thankfully, not at the core but resigned to a small corner of the film to chew. (and he didn't "chew" as badly as I thought he would) I am very, very grateful for that.

Though it touched upon a replicant uprising I'm grateful it didn't go all Matrix Revolutions. I also like how it didn't go Off-World.

Prior to this movie the idea of Deckard as a replicant made no sense to me - but that revelation didn't derail the film for me. But I'll have to digest it a bit more before I know how I ultimately feel about that.

I thought the Blackout was a great way to explain any subtle incongruences in setting and design between the films.

And then there are the countless bits that only a solid BR fan could appreciate. But they weren't just fan service - they were enhancements. I haven't read any other post here yet but I'm sure most of them have been mentioned. e.g. the sex-worker attire ("fur" bolero) that called back to Pris - which also confirms that Pris was likely a sex-worker on Earth in BR as she was Off-World. Or the almost faceless folks of the shanty towns who spoke German like the little vandals who jumped on Deckard's car in BR. etc.

Blade Runner 2049 didn't explode in the box office but I have absolutely no doubt it will stand by Blade Runner as an enduring classic. It's a much better film than I deserved to expect.
 
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... or the fact that K just happened to have been given the false memory from Rachel's child (remember Joi told him to go there completely independent of his investigation)...
Here's how I read it. While the baby daughter went to the orphanage, at some point, Deckard hacked records to show both a boy and a girl. He had her memories implanted into a random replicant (which happened to have been K) so that, should anyone go looking for the child, they'd be looking for a boy instead of a girl. It's a coincidence yes, that it happened to have been the same replicant who ended up searching for her... but maybe there aren't many Blade Runners?
It was suggested that she gave those memories to a great many replicants. Remember how missing-eye-lady said they all had thought they were the one?
... or this.
.or that the memory expert didn't find it odd that this random Replicant cop came in with one of her personal memories..
oh but she did know that it was an implant. She told him it was real because it was an implant of a real memory. She didn't want to tell him the whole truth since implanting of real memories, as she said, was illegal.
This memory being hers is why she was so affected by it.
or how K knew she was the daughter...
Yeah, that one bothered me, too. My best explanation is ... because he's a detective?
 
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I finally got off my butt to watch this film last night.

It was magnificent.

I'm eating nothing but crow because, going into this movie, I had a lot of concerns even after the trailers and shorts.

There's no way this should have worked for me. Blade Runner 2049 was a "no win" proposition in my heart and mind with endless potential pitfalls:
- if it expanded on the film's world-building it would easily violate the claustrophobic tonality of the original
- if it tried to preserve the feel of BR it might just become derivative and unnecessary
- if it continued the story it could have become laden with needless exposition where BR was refreshingly sparse
- I was worried it might have been too rapidly paced and edited as so many modern films are
- I was concerned this would be another chase film dressed as hard sci-fi which simply applies a known property for a backdrop - c.f. Total Recall
- I was afraid it might become too ambitious in scaling up the film that it loses the characteristic intimate scale of BR
- I was afraid because I was one of the few people who thought Arrival was overrated

I hold Blade Runner in such reverence there was no way this could have been good enough for me.
.... but it was. It was better than I dared to hope and even enhances my appreciation of BR.

Dennis gets it. He gets it hard. He made a film that Ridley himself is incapable of making. He made a film that straddles the line between being an entirely original (and credible) extension of the first film and wallowing in its shadow. I love this movie.

First of all, I love how Blade Runner 2049 creates a wonderfully detailed and cacophonous tapestry of ambient (and often inexplicable) city noises blended with the soundtrack just as Blade Runner did.

The characteristic BR pathos is infused in this film as well.

For me Carla Juri as Dr. Stelline was the standout among the entire cast of outstanding performances. It's her performance that still haunts me most.

Ryan Gosling as "K" was wonderful. Before the film I was afraid of "Gosling fatigue" but he was legitimately engaging and tragic. What an engrossing personal arc.

I haven't changed my mind about Leto but he was, thankfully, not at the core but resigned to a small corner of the film to chew. (and he didn't "chew" as badly as I thought he would) I am very, very grateful for that.

Though it touched upon a replicant uprising I'm grateful it didn't go all Matrix Revolutions. I also like how it didn't go Off-World.

Prior to this movie the idea of Deckard as a replicant made no sense to me - but that revelation didn't derail the film for me. But I'll have to digest it a bit more before I know how I ultimately feel about that.

I thought the Blackout was a great way to explain any subtle incongruences in setting and design between the films.

And then there are the countless bits that only a solid BR fan could appreciate. But they weren't just fan service - they were enhancements. I haven't read any other post here yet but I'm sure most of them have been mentioned. e.g. the sex-worker attire ("fur" bolero) that called back to Pris - which also confirms that Pris was likely a sex-worker on Earth in BR as she was Off-World. Or the almost faceless folks of the shanty towns who spoke German like the little vandals who jumped on Deckard's car in BR. etc.

Blade Runner 2049 didn't explode in the box office but I have absolutely no doubt it will stand by Blade Runner as an enduring classic. It's a much better film than I deserved to expect.

I think they intimated Deckard COUKD have been a Replicant but that was only part of Wallace's speech to him towards the end, hinting perhaps Tyrell made him and Rachel with procreation in mind. But it's more profound to have a human/Replicant pairing. It is curious there is no Nexus 7 mentioned in the film, perhaps that was the Deckard model with extended life but that contradicts the first film, Tyrell hadn't solved that. And Deckard is human in regards to his physical strength.
 
I think they intimated Deckard COUKD have been a Replicant but that was only part of Wallace's speech to him towards the end, hinting perhaps Tyrell made him and Rachel with procreation in mind. But it's more profound to have a human/Replicant pairing. It is curious there is no Nexus 7 mentioned in the film, perhaps that was the Deckard model with extended life but that contradicts the first film, Tyrell hadn't solved that. And Deckard is human in regards to his physical strength.
You're right. I forgot Wallace's speech was entirely speculation. I don't want Deckard to be a replicant.
 
I DO want Deckard to be a replicant. :) ...but I'm glad the movie left it ambiguous so as not to ruin anyone's preferred cut of the original.

In my head, Roy and his crew were the Nexus 6 series and had the limited life span. Rachel, (and possibly Deckard) are the 7s.
 
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