Blade Runner 2049 - The iPhone of Movie Sequels

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Making K NOT the "Chosen One" was subverting expectations, but done the right way.

I respect the shit out of this movie for actually feeling like the original and not becoming a dumb action movie

This is a miss for me man. This movie is an artistic masterpiece and has some of the best cgi I have ever seen and it’s story is beautifully tragic.

You know, K's entire story arc wouldn't have worked if we didn't know that he was a Replicant, right?

I really enjoyed that the movie seemed to trust its audience to actually pay attention without constant explosions

Personally, I love 2049. It wasn't a rehash remake that just did the same thing as the original. And there's a clear love and respect for the original.

I felt that everything is deliberate. The audience is supposed to want Joe's life to have meaning. But the movie keeps finding new and heartbreaking ways to emphasize its meaninglessness in the midst of all the intrigue of the events that surround him. It's almost felt like the audience is desperately searching for its own meaning in parallel to Joe. By the end we desire for Joe "become" the main character in his life and in this movie. All of this is what makes the true climax at the very end so powerful.

As for "why?" 4:55, it is stated in the movie: Wallace Corp cannot keep up with replicant demand required to populate the galaxy. No central production could. This is one of the odd parts of the plot: the bad guy and the good guys effectively want the same thing, reproducing replicants. Just for different reasons.

I think Blade Runner 2049 is the only sequel made after a huge gap of time that actually felt like a continuation.

Also this film has a scene in which love kills joy. Literally. Someone has really dark sense of humor.

I feel like the drinker has missed a few key plot points to 2049, so I'll try to explain bit by bit what I believe he might've let fly over his head. 1.) The New Models of Replicants -The Drinker mentioned near the beginning that he found it was an odd choice to make Officer K a Replicant Blade Runner, even though the movie clearly establishes that Wallace Corp had perfected the obedient artificial slave, and weren't designed with the 4-year lifespan of the original Nexus-6 models. As for what Wallace seeks to accomplish by creating a race of Replicants able to reproduce, I always saw it as a God complex. The man is clearly very in his own head about things, and we do have powerful billionaires who want nothing but more power and control, even if they have plenty of that already. -And yes, K (or Joe, as many fans call him) does inevitably rebel at the end. But I think this was only due to the shocking idea that he might have been a real human this entire time. It ended up not being the case, but imagine the opposite. Imagine your entire life, you've lived believing you were real and you ended up being artificial. That's what happened to Rachael's character in the original movie, and clearly it shifted her entire view on not just her own life, but life in general. K rebelled because he thought he made a shocking discovery about himself. It was enough to break through his obedient programming. 2.) Finding Deckard in Las Vegas -The city of Las Vegas had long been abandoned due to its excessive levels of radiation, so although the search of Deckard would still be difficult, no, there aren't "hundreds and thousands of inhabitants." Whatever went down in Vegas (some have speculated that it was some kind of nuclear war that produced such extreme levels of radiation) had forced everyone who lived there to evacuate. And as one can clearly witness in the scene itself, K used a heat tracker and found the bee farm, presumably put up by Deckard himself. One point the Drinker makes that I think really doesn't take anything away from the film's world-building is all the tech, furniture, and alcohol that was left behind in the city. When a nuclear disaster threatens an entire population, I'm sure the last thing they care about is the resale value of tech that would take a while to uninstall. Now a point the Drinker makes that I do agree with is that concluding that the wooden horse was from Vegas simply by its high levels of radiation doesn't really seem to make much sense. I'll give him that one. 3.) Off-World Torture Techniques -This is a small point, but I always assumed that Wallace didn't want to risk getting caught torturing a man for information. And as only the rich are able to travel Off-World, the chances of anyone actually uncovering it and exposing Wallace for such inhumane tactics would be a lot less of a risk. But I can't say this is concrete, this is just what I believe the case to be. 4.) The Antagonists -I'll agree that I wasn't all that much a fan of Leto's character. In comparison to the original Blade Runner (Roy Batty and his friends) he's pretty flat. But once the Drinker compared him to Tyrell, it got me thinking that maybe that's the point. Eldon Tyrell created Replicants because he genuinely believed he could make the world a better place with them. He completely misfired in that ambition, yes, but he genuinely believe in what he was doing. Tyrell was charming and really thought that his line of Replicants would bring about a positive change in the world. Wallace, however, has none of that. This is why I'm beginning to think his flat delivery of pretentious philosophical lines makes a lot more sense now; Tyrell was ambitious and wanted to make the world a better place while Wallace thinks of himself as a God (i.e, his line about having millions of children when Deckard assumes he has none.) -As for Luv, it's pretty obvious that she suffers from extreme trauma. She cries at the sight of Wallace murdering a newborn Replicant, and is even shown to want to be the best Replicant, or Wallace's "perfect angel." This isn't out of love, (no pun intended) but fear. Deep fear has been instilled into her since she was first created and it's clearly turned her into his tool, not his perfect angel as she might want to believe. When Luv kills Robin Wright's character, she tears up and spouts "I'm going to tell Wallace you attacked first" as if she's just a petulant child, and not a fully-grown woman. I DO see a bit of complexity in her. As opposed to Roy Batty, where what he's been through is basically told to us through exposition, I like that Luv's backstory is only implied. Overall I understand the Drinker's points here and I respect his opinion (as everyone should.) But I do believe that he overlooked a few things that might've made the movie's plot tighter to him. Some of these points were more obvious, and some are clearly just speculation made by myself and other viewers. But I just wanted to share my two cents on this. Thank you for the review

L review. This film is a masterpiece!

CD; you got everything perfect except for "Love", who is in many ways used as a mirror for K. See Wallace calls ALL the replicants by the nickname "Love". It's not her name, it's just a generic nickname Wallace calls the replicants (and by extension, her). She wants DESPERATELY to be important, so her whole character is wrapped up in trying to please and get the attention of Wallace, it's her whole identity, even taking the nickname he calls everyone as her own name so she can lie to herself about how important she is. She wanted to be special and is so wrapped up in her lies she would instinctively lash out at those who WERE special (or she perceived as such). K in comparison also wants deep down to be special, to be more then just a replicant, it's why he works hard to make "Joi" seem more human, it's why he bites so hard on the possibility he was birthed (meaning he had a soul). However in the end, just before the final showdown he's confronted by the ad for Joi, and it all comes together in his head, when she (the ad) calls him by that same nickname his Joi used to call him (see the similarity with wallace and love?)... In the end he faces the truth. He's not special, joi never loved him, but was programed to make him feel like he was loved, and so he goes into his final battle at peace with the fact that he'll never be special. But he also makes an independent choice. He decides instead of killing Deckard like he was asked, like a good automaton should, he brings Deckard together with his daughter. He creates something real, rather then destroy, and dies. It's a lovely if understated tragedy.

i saw this AFTER seeing the last jedi. blade runner 2049 was way more entertaining to watch

I think the Drinker needs to watch this one again, and also the three shorts Villeneuve commissioned to fill in some of the time between the original and this. He seems to have missed a lot. There are still some holes (e.g., how did that serial number get into a cracked bone? Are replicants manufactured or grown? Or both?) but overall this sequel is damn good. The great question, "What makes us human?" gets played with in many ways and in both directions. Joi isn't just a toy. Luv isn't just a cipher.

There will never be another scene like "Tears in Rain..." That scene was so gravitating! Just grabs you by the throat! The original Blade Runner is a masterpiece!

Blade Runner 2049 just oozed aesthetic to the point that you could use nearly any scene as your wallpaper. And it was a pretty great movie to watch.

“Why would Wallace want to make Replicants who can reproduce?” Because someone else did. Wallace considers himself a god, and yet he hasn’t mastered what someone else did.

Batty was simply ICONIC, including his variation of the script with improvised lines, his look, the way he showed emotion and carried himself...