Blade Runner 2049

origamiunicorn ♦ October 8, 2017 ♦ Leave a comment

I can’t have a blog called origamiunicorn without sharing my thoughts on Blade Runner 2049!  I saw the movie two days ago and have had some time to ponder and discuss. I had a lengthy conversation with my sister yesterday and I incorporated some of her thoughts into my write up below.

By itself, the movie is fine. It is worth seeing. The acting is good for the most part, there are some spectacular visuals and the plot is engaging. If you are not interested in a Blade Runner fangirl’s geeky, in depth review, stop reading now! There are many who will be annoyed by what follows and I get that and completely understand.  Read on at your own peril…

The original was scrutinized to the n-th degree by me and many others, to the point where the change of one line of dialog between the Director’s Cut and the Final Cut meant the world to me in terms of the perfection of the movie. 1000’s of Usenet threads on the topic “Is Deckard a replicant” should be a good example of the intensity of the fan base. So, in fairness, I’ll subject 2049 to the same level of analysis as I gave the original.

Warning: Major spoilers from both the original movie and 2049.

Initial thoughts

First, I do need more time to process the movie and I will definitely see it again.  But that said, I have been thinking about it a lot and have some observations. I found some scenes visually stunning and I was moved to tears in some of the scenes. At other times I found myself thinking “wow, that was heavy handed” and “is this really necessary?”

Coming out of the theater I wasn’t unhappy. My biggest fear was that the movie would be completely disrespectful of the original or would be garbage.  Not only were my fears for naught, the movie also had some very lovely high points. That said, it is not the gem that the original is. Period.

What is the point?

I had a lengthy conversation with my sister and she hit the nail on the head when she said that she felt that Ridley Scott’s original Blade Runner was visionary, while the new one seemed contrived. From the pages of Philip K Dick’s short novel, Ridley Scott envisioned a brooding futuristic Los Angeles. After grueling production work and multiple versions of the film, his vision was realized.  The end state took years to get to.

Blade Runner 2049 doesn’t feel as organic. It seems more like a team of people who wanted to figure out a way to start a franchise from the original rather than a vision quest. My sister imagined a conversation “how can we come up with a plot line to continue the story in a way that will engage audiences and pacify the old school fans?” (I’m paraphrasing here – she said words to that effect).

The ending of the movie clearly was meant to leave room for another sequel. To what end? I can rewatch the Final Cut any time I want and soak in the beauty of the cinematography and storytelling. Why does Hollywood insist on creating these franchises? Come up with a new idea. Create your own vision.

Perhaps this film was a vision quest inspired by the original? I don’t know much about the origins of 2049, who conceived of the idea, etc. I can understand being inspired by the original and wanting to build upon the imagery and story, but not sure that a contrived plot line to continue the tale was really the way to go. Why not create a totally different and unrelated story in the same world?

Too long, Too much dumbing down

In the original, a lot was left to the imagination of the viewer. By not revealing too much, the viewer is not compelled to over-analyze the details and discover flaws. Over the course of the three versions of the movie, there was a lesson to be learned, the biggest change being removing Harrison Ford’s unnecessary voice-overs and showing some respect for the moviegoers’ intelligence. 2049 went a little too far into the realm of dumbing things down. For example:

1. Did we really need to see the 6-10-21 date on the horse? The very brief flashback was jarring and sufficient enough. Every time I saw the date after that I felt like I was being hammered over the head with it. Even if that flashback wasn’t enough I feel like I would have figured it out later after some of the other revelations were made.
2. I get wrapped up in visuals and the first time through I often miss things that I catch later. I didn’t realize what was going on with Ana until the end. However, even so, it seemed unnecessary
   for K to have to spell it out. In fact I’m not sure that the ending scene was needed at all. Why did Deckard need to reunite with his daughter? Perhaps K collapsing on the steps there could have been enough.  See also points below about why Deckard and Rachael are in this movie at all.

References to the Original

At times it seemed like the movie had a checklist of references to the original.

1. Origami animal? Check.
2. Zoom in on a photo? Check.
3. Eat food in the rain, cry in the rain, people riding bicycles in the rain? Check. Check. Check.
4. Have Rachael saunter in one more time? Check.
5. Daryl Hannah look alike? Check.

WTF?

1. Wallace was cringe-worthy. He is a religious sadist and has none of the quirkiness of Tyrell. I would have rather seen that character more like Nathan in Ex Machina. Also his actions make no sense. Killing his new creation seemed like it was played for shock value and I felt like it added little to the movie. If they can’t keep up with production why off two fully functional replicants for no reason (the new creation immediately after her birth, and the Rachael clone)? I guess he is driven by comparisons to Tyrell – Wallace’s replicants can’t reproduce and his inability to replicate that is a personal failing for him. Need to think on that some more. But on the topic of reproduction….
2. I can understand why Rachael might have been able to reproduce – she was a special project of Tyrell. But surely a genetic specialist would have made sure that the pleasure models could not get pregnant. And along the same lines, why on earth would you design the male replicants to be firing live rounds? That doesn’t makes sense to me. Or is Deckard not a replicant? Or maybe there is some back story there that the next movie (which this one was obviously setting up for) will address. I feel like all this could have been handled with more ambiguity. My first thought when they discovered the bones and the pregnancy was that perhaps Sapper was the father. Why have Deckard be the father at all? In fact, why have Rachael be the mother? It just seems way too contrived. Why not just start a new story?
3. The fight scenes were all way too long and drawn out. In the original, Deckard’s desperation and pain in his “cat and mouse” scene with Batty had an element of realism. Batty is a Nexus 6 and has some physical gifts, but Deckard is not as advanced. He gets wounded and is visibly in pain. In 2049, I can understand K being engineered to be stronger and to heal more quickly, but how did Deckard become so invincible?

Things I liked

1. I was skeptical of Gosling but I thought his style of acting/non-acting was perfect for the role. The scene when he is confronted by the resistence and sits down with his head in his hands. I cried. K could appear virtually expressionless but the way the movie revealed information you could see twinges of pain and epiphany behind the reserve. The scene with him and Ana was just beautiful – a moment of deep connection and agonizing realization. And then there was the ache I felt when the oversized Joi hologram exposes yet another ugly truth to the already hurting K.
2. LA was awesome. The landscape does not get boring to me.
3. Everything about Ana was gentle, graceful, poetic and dreamy.  Plus I have a soft spot in my heart for characters with autoimmune disorders.
4. Explorations of AI, like Joi, are more compelling to me than the concept of reproduction in giving the replicants humanity. The replicants are sympathetic because they have been engineered to be self conscious and have feelings. The ethical dilemma around their servitude and retirement should exist because of that alone, regardless of whether or not biological reproduction is possible.
5. Sapper’s farm.  The original movie was filled with odd people in strange settings.  I hoped for more of that in 2049.  Sapper’s farm was not as striking as  J. F. Sebastian and his toys or Chew and his frozen eye lab, but it was odd and original – a different kind of farm, a protein farm, a peculiar mix of futuristic agriculture and country cottage quaintness.

Things I didn’t like

1. Wallace’s lair. Too contrived and nonsensical. Unlike Sapper’s farm, Wallace’s floating receiving room lacked any of the nostalgia or practicality of the lab. It was all style.  Maybe that was the point, but I feel like I’ve seen it before.
2. The fight scene with Deckard and K and the hologram Elvis. Very Hollywood.  Back and forth face punches as if they are both superheroes.  All awkwardly interspersed with a hiccuping Elvis performance.
3. The contrived plot (as explained earlier).

Bottom line

I was entertained and at times awed by this movie. At the same time I was disappointed, but not surprised, that it fell so far short of the Final Cut. I think with some editing and fewer references to the original, more subtle dialog and plot points, more ambiguity, it could have been a beautifully told story that could have held hands with the original. Two days later, as I write this, I still feel some emotion about the characters, in particular K and Ana, and some of the images are still floating around in my brain. Time will tell if 2049 is memorable enough to hold a place in my heart.