Blade Runner 2049 (October 6th, 2017) *SPOILERS*

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I watched this film for the 3rd time at the weekend....it really is a wonderful film. Very few films out there that top the first.
 
seen this 5 times already...cant believe anybody could love TLJ after this...
 
seen this 5 times already...cant believe anybody could love TLJ after this...

I love The Last Jedi.
And also love BR2049.
Adults are allowed to like loads of things at the same time, lol.
I reckon BR2049 is a cut above almost everything else i have ever seen, but i don't have to love it to the exclusion of everything else.
The Last Jedi occupies a strange niche in Star Wars by being very different from what we are all used to, but i don't think it means it's bad. Just different. I think that, in time, The Last Jedi might be judged less harshly. Time will tell.
 
Can we NOT talk about Ster Whores at least in this one thread, please?
There are tons and tons of SW specific threads in just this one section of the board.
 
I love The Last Jedi.
And also love BR2049.
Adults are allowed to like loads of things at the same time, lol.
I reckon BR2049 is a cut above almost everything else i have ever seen, but i don't have to love it to the exclusion of everything else.
The Last Jedi occupies a strange niche in Star Wars by being very different from what we are all used to, but i don't think it means it's bad. Just different. I think that, in time, The Last Jedi might be judged less harshly. Time will tell.
If TLJ was NOT SW...I agree...BR series and POTA series both new and old my favorite Sci fi films all time
 
I watched this film for the 3rd time at the weekend....it really is a wonderful film. Very few films out there that top the first.

Just watched both in a row.....

BR 2049, takes the first and amplifies the story and stakes by about 1000%.

The first is a classic , but as far as the moral and ethical quandaries , BR 2049 takes the cake.

I am still amazed at the hint that Deckard daughter set up the entire thing to get a BR to find her dad and bring him to her....


Sent from the inside of a giant slug in outer space.....
 
In the spring I saw an art exhibit featuring the works of Syd Mead. Afterwards, I ended up buying the hardcover of his movie designs, and that inspired me to track down some toys. I got the Spinner made by Medicom a few years ago. It was expensive. Hollow and fragile too...felt some buyer's remorse after that.

Syd Mead Blade Runner Spinner Medicom.jpg

I also bought a Medicom TRON lightcycle while on my Mead kick...

Syd Mead Tron light cycle medicom.jpg

Anyway, back to Blade Runner....

I'd been meaning to rewatch it all year, since it's 2019. And then after Rutger Hauer died, it really seemed like it was time to watch it again.

I've never seen the theatrical version, and probably never will. I saw the "director's cut" when I watched it the first time. And I even saw "The Final Cut" in its limited theatrical release. That's the only version I watch now.

Blade Runner holds up. The sets are amazing, the characters are interesting....Sean Young was hot as hell with that black eye shadow and bright red lips. Roy's death scene as poignant as ever. It's a timeless classic.

It is very slow though. It's hard to get through it one sitting.

Deckard is a Replicant. It couldn't be made more clear in that version of the movie. I like to think they "activated" him about an hour before they meet him at the noodle place. He's sitting there, thinking he's human, thinking he's this badass that's killed a bunch of Replicants...but really he's about an hour old, and all those memories are implants. Of course Bryant is gonna play along, pretend they have a history together. Deckard's apartment and all those old photos are just props, like Rachel's old photo was. There's probably a whole series of "Deckards" that have lived in that apartment over the years. Either they got killed on the job or they finished the job and got "retired." It's too bad she won't live....but then again who does?

(Although....IF Deckard was human, he'd have been born in the late 70s. Meaning he's around my age. I can't believe I never made that connection any time I watched the movie back in the 90s....that I'd be around the same age as Deckard in 2019. Weird.)

So after that, I decided it's finally time to give Blade Runner 2049 another try.

Remember when the movie came out and I said it was really beautiful, but too boring?

I was wr.....I was wr.....I was wro.....premature in my judgment.

Hmmm. Where to start? I remember that a lot of you thought that K's "Joi" was "special" and was somehow capable of love and emotions. I didn't see it that way. Joi is a product; nothing else. People tried to insist she'd somehow gained sentience and was "different" than the other Joi programs. She wasn't. Her first conversation revolves around music trivia, like amazon or itunes trying to sell you a song. K buys the Emanator, an expensive device that lets her leave the room. But to me, that just seemed like an upsell to people who already have home Joi units. She's only there to take K's money and give it back to the Wallace Corporation. She cries when he's upset. She's happy when he's happy. Pretty decent fake girlfriend programming, but nothing more in my opinion.

I didn't like the music. Just loud BWAAAAAAAHHHMMMM all the time. No subtlety at all. And the sound was awful....going from too quiet to LOUD NOISES!!!! all the time.

The movie had some really, really good shots. Painfully beautiful....the cars flying through the city in the rain......it was really nice. But the original still managed to do it better. I guess that's the benefit of being "first." When I think of cars flying through the rain in a gritty urban metropolis, I'm gonna picture the original, with the giant Geisha lady, not the Joi hologram.

I don't know that this was a necessary sequel. Tying it to the original might have been a mistake. Would it have been better if it made no allusions to the original characters? Would it have been more successful as a straight remake; as in, could it have succeeded as a retelling of the original with modern day effects where remakes like RoboCop and Total Recall failed?

It was about an hour too long, I can tell you that.

I rolled my eyes at the whole "Revolution" of the army of Replicants. There's another trope in futuristic dystopian sci-fi movies I could do without. Which reminds me....am I nuts or did we already see those giant naked women statues with BJ mouths in "A.I.?" Anyone even remember that movie?

At the end of the day, it did a lot of things right, at least visually. Story wise, I still think it kinda stunk a little. Nothing really innovative. Nothing we haven't seen dozens of times in the last 25 years of sci-fi, over and over again.

But it looked breathtaking, I'll give it that. I'd have enjoyed it more if the music and sound wasn't so intentionally jarring.

I liked pretty much all the actors. Gosling did his silent tough guy thing. Ford was good in his brief appearance. I liked Jared Leto, like always. The assassin was a decent villain. I even liked Robin Wright, and that's hard to do cause I see her and associate her with Claire Underwood, who is a thoroughly detestable character. So I thought "oh here we go again" with her as a woman of authority, but she actually brought more warmth and humanity to her role here than she did for Claire. I could have done without the "hooker with the heart of gold" and the missing eye Resistance leader though.

In the end, I'm gonna chalk it up as a movie that looks way better than it has any right to, but sadly doesn't have anything new to say. Kind of like how I felt when "Sleepy Hollow" came out 20 years ago. From the trailers, it was the most atmospheric, Halloween-y, Tim Burton-y movie ever made. Great cast and it looked utterly stunning.....but......the story sucked. Just absolutely stunk. I can't even sit through it. So, it's best to just watch the trailer and get a feel of the atmosphere, and that's that.

I think if I want to revisit this gorgeously realized world, I'll just stick to the highlights:

 
I've never seen the theatrical version, and probably never will. I saw the "director's cut" when I watched it the first time. And I even saw "The Final Cut" in its limited theatrical release. That's the only version I watch now.

If you have the theatrical version, i'd suggest giving it at least one watch.
For my part, that was the first version i saw, and it holds a special place in my heart. Not because it is better(I like all the versions equally), but because i will always enjoy the movie, in all it's versions.

It is very slow though. It's hard to get through it one sitting.

That might just be an artifact of modern living(And not watching it in the cinema, where we have "allocated" as long as is needed). I know what you are saying. My wife and i tend to watch an episode of whatever tv show we are currently mired in each night with dinner. If we decide to watch a movie, usually we cut it in half and watch the rest the next night. So i can understand not being able to watch a movie(Even a favoured classic) in one go.
My wife and i always play Xbox after dinner(It's how we met, when i joined the clan she was in), so we sometimes shelve a movie halfway through to finish it the next night.

Deckard is a Replicant. It couldn't be made more clear in that version of the movie.

There's no doubt about this in the fianl cut and the director's cut. Anyone who argues with this point isn't seeing all the facts or is ignoring them because they feel it dehumanises Deckard, when in fact, it makes him(And K) MORE HUMAN, because the "humans" in the movies are so callous and unfeeling.

(Although....IF Deckard was human, he'd have been born in the late 70s.

If Deckard was Ford's age, he would be born in 1980.
But, like you, i always assume Deckard is a special case Replicant, thawed out to work on Replicant hunting cases if a cop gets killed. He thinks like they do and hunts them down well enough that if "people" are in danger, they thaw him out.

I remember that a lot of you thought that K's "Joi" was "special" and was somehow capable of love and emotions. I didn't see it that way. Joi is a product; nothing else. People tried to insist she'd somehow gained sentience and was "different" than the other Joi programs. She wasn't. Her first conversation revolves around music trivia, like amazon or itunes trying to sell you a song. K buys the Emanator, an expensive device that lets her leave the room. But to me, that just seemed like an upsell to people who already have home Joi units. She's only there to take K's money and give it back to the Wallace Corporation. She cries when he's upset. She's happy when he's happy. Pretty decent fake girlfriend programming, but nothing more in my opinion.

Exactly.
She's there for lonely people, trying to connect, but not able to in that dire future world.
I don't agree it was too long. I would watch several sequels in that world(Or a tv show set there).
I love it all.
But i expect there are many here who would agree(And like everywhere in life, many who would disagree, lol).
 
In the spring I saw an art exhibit featuring the works of Syd Mead. Afterwards, I ended up buying the hardcover of his movie designs, and that inspired me to track down some toys. I got the Spinner made by Medicom a few years ago. It was expensive. Hollow and fragile too...felt some buyer's remorse after that.

View attachment 463582

I also bought a Medicom TRON lightcycle while on my Mead kick...

View attachment 463583

Anyway, back to Blade Runner....

I'd been meaning to rewatch it all year, since it's 2019. And then after Rutger Hauer died, it really seemed like it was time to watch it again.

I've never seen the theatrical version, and probably never will. I saw the "director's cut" when I watched it the first time. And I even saw "The Final Cut" in its limited theatrical release. That's the only version I watch now.

Blade Runner holds up. The sets are amazing, the characters are interesting....Sean Young was hot as hell with that black eye shadow and bright red lips. Roy's death scene as poignant as ever. It's a timeless classic.

It is very slow though. It's hard to get through it one sitting.

Deckard is a Replicant. It couldn't be made more clear in that version of the movie. I like to think they "activated" him about an hour before they meet him at the noodle place. He's sitting there, thinking he's human, thinking he's this badass that's killed a bunch of Replicants...but really he's about an hour old, and all those memories are implants. Of course Bryant is gonna play along, pretend they have a history together. Deckard's apartment and all those old photos are just props, like Rachel's old photo was. There's probably a whole series of "Deckards" that have lived in that apartment over the years. Either they got killed on the job or they finished the job and got "retired." It's too bad she won't live....but then again who does?

(Although....IF Deckard was human, he'd have been born in the late 70s. Meaning he's around my age. I can't believe I never made that connection any time I watched the movie back in the 90s....that I'd be around the same age as Deckard in 2019. Weird.)

So after that, I decided it's finally time to give Blade Runner 2049 another try.

Remember when the movie came out and I said it was really beautiful, but too boring?

I was wr.....I was wr.....I was wro.....premature in my judgment.

Hmmm. Where to start? I remember that a lot of you thought that K's "Joi" was "special" and was somehow capable of love and emotions. I didn't see it that way. Joi is a product; nothing else. People tried to insist she'd somehow gained sentience and was "different" than the other Joi programs. She wasn't. Her first conversation revolves around music trivia, like amazon or itunes trying to sell you a song. K buys the Emanator, an expensive device that lets her leave the room. But to me, that just seemed like an upsell to people who already have home Joi units. She's only there to take K's money and give it back to the Wallace Corporation. She cries when he's upset. She's happy when he's happy. Pretty decent fake girlfriend programming, but nothing more in my opinion.

I didn't like the music. Just loud BWAAAAAAAHHHMMMM all the time. No subtlety at all. And the sound was awful....going from too quiet to LOUD NOISES!!!! all the time.

The movie had some really, really good shots. Painfully beautiful....the cars flying through the city in the rain......it was really nice. But the original still managed to do it better. I guess that's the benefit of being "first." When I think of cars flying through the rain in a gritty urban metropolis, I'm gonna picture the original, with the giant Geisha lady, not the Joi hologram.

I don't know that this was a necessary sequel. Tying it to the original might have been a mistake. Would it have been better if it made no allusions to the original characters? Would it have been more successful as a straight remake; as in, could it have succeeded as a retelling of the original with modern day effects where remakes like RoboCop and Total Recall failed?

It was about an hour too long, I can tell you that.

I rolled my eyes at the whole "Revolution" of the army of Replicants. There's another trope in futuristic dystopian sci-fi movies I could do without. Which reminds me....am I nuts or did we already see those giant naked women statues with BJ mouths in "A.I.?" Anyone even remember that movie?

At the end of the day, it did a lot of things right, at least visually. Story wise, I still think it kinda stunk a little. Nothing really innovative. Nothing we haven't seen dozens of times in the last 25 years of sci-fi, over and over again.

But it looked breathtaking, I'll give it that. I'd have enjoyed it more if the music and sound wasn't so intentionally jarring.

I liked pretty much all the actors. Gosling did his silent tough guy thing. Ford was good in his brief appearance. I liked Jared Leto, like always. The assassin was a decent villain. I even liked Robin Wright, and that's hard to do cause I see her and associate her with Claire Underwood, who is a thoroughly detestable character. So I thought "oh here we go again" with her as a woman of authority, but she actually brought more warmth and humanity to her role here than she did for Claire. I could have done without the "hooker with the heart of gold" and the missing eye Resistance leader though.

In the end, I'm gonna chalk it up as a movie that looks way better than it has any right to, but sadly doesn't have anything new to say. Kind of like how I felt when "Sleepy Hollow" came out 20 years ago. From the trailers, it was the most atmospheric, Halloween-y, Tim Burton-y movie ever made. Great cast and it looked utterly stunning.....but......the story sucked. Just absolutely stunk. I can't even sit through it. So, it's best to just watch the trailer and get a feel of the atmosphere, and that's that.

I think if I want to revisit this gorgeously realized world, I'll just stick to the highlights:





Clearly didnt understand it.
 
I still don't buy the "Deckard was a replicant" interpretation. We're to believe that he was specifically designed to hunt and destroy replicants even though he couldn't go toe to toe with your average pleasure model? Nah.
 
I still don't buy the "Deckard was a replicant" interpretation. We're to believe that he was specifically designed to hunt and destroy replicants even though he couldn't go toe to toe with your average pleasure model? Nah.

I'm inclined to agree with you Khev but mainly because I prefer Deckard as a human and that is how the screenplay was written and how Harrison played the part.

However, if Deckard was a replicant I don't think they would make him able to go 'toe to toe' with a pleasure model or any replicant for that matter otherwise the illusion would be shattered and he would know beyond doubt that he was a replicant. They can always role the next Deckard off the conveyer belt if this one fouls up.
 
I'm inclined to agree with you Khev but mainly because I prefer Deckard as a human and that is how the screenplay was written and how Harrison played the part.

Deckard was human in the novel as well.

However, if Deckard was a replicant I don't think they would make him able to go 'toe to toe' with a pleasure model or any replicant for that matter otherwise the illusion would be shattered and he would know beyond doubt that he was a replicant. They can always role the next Deckard off the conveyer belt if this one fouls up.

Well if they inexplicably gave him memories of random unicorns running through the forest then I don't think they were that concerned with maintaining any illusion that he was human, lol. So in my mind it still doesn't work. If he's a replicant and they deliberately made him weak to hide his own nature from himself then they should have given him corresponding human memories as well. Since the unicorn is supposedly the primary indicator that he isn't human then his "weaker than any replicant" strength makes no sense given his job.

Best to just assume that he was human as every other scene and Ford's performance indicates and that he just randomly daydreamed about a unicorn when sitting at the piano.
 
Deckard was human in the novel as well.



Well if they inexplicably gave him memories of random unicorns running through the forest then I don't think they were that concerned with maintaining any illusion that he was human, lol. So in my mind it still doesn't work. If he's a replicant and they deliberately made him weak to hide his own nature from himself then they should have given him corresponding human memories as well. Since the unicorn is supposedly the primary indicator that he isn't human then his "weaker than any replicant" strength makes no sense given his job.

Best to just assume that he was human as every other scene and Ford's performance indicates and that he just randomly daydreamed about a unicorn when sitting at the piano.

Hahaha! It's not just the unicorn scene there is also the lighting foul up where Deckard's eyes glowed by accident. That and the slightly more interesting line of thought that Deckard learns by the end of the movie to appreciate that replicant life but also human life has meaning and worth (something which the other human characters don't seem to exhibit at all but the replicants do). There is certainly scope for making the argument that Deckard is a replicant based on any cut of the movie but this is compounded by Scott's unilateral decision to introduce unicorns in the final and director's cuts.

In my opinion it makes the movie duller and less interesting if Deckard is a confirmed replicant so I like the ambiguous nature of it. Allows for thinking around the issue from both sides. I guess Gosling's officer K satisfies that itch (replicant hunting replicants) to an extent in the sequel in any instance.
 
Very true and I know that Scott himself has gone on record many times saying that Deckard is a replicant even though I believe that like Lucas before him it's a completely retroactive claim. I agree that the film works best to allow for both interpretations (and I freaking *loved* that BR 2049 kept the door open on that particularly ambiguity as well) and to not definitively say one way or another.

Like the "was it all an implant or was it real" ambiguity of the original Total Recall it's just one of those things that's more fun to speculate about than have totally spelled out.
 
Very true and I know that Scott himself has gone on record many times saying that Deckard is a replicant even though I believe that like Lucas before him it's a completely retroactive claim. I agree that the film works best to allow for both interpretations (and I freaking *loved* that BR 2049 kept the door open on that particularly ambiguity as well) and to not definitively say one way or another.

Like the "was it all an implant or was it real" ambiguity of the original Total Recall it's just one of those things that's more fun to speculate about than have totally spelled out.

Absolutely :hi5: I respect 2049 for not answering the question either. Inception is another movie which does this quite well with the spinner in the final scene and the musical score throughout the movie.
 
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