Spoilers Blade Runner 2049 - Grading and Discussion
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It's funny you say that, because the original Blade Runner probably has, I don't know ... 40 minutes' worth, at most, of actual story in it? Maybe even less, considering it's a relatively simplistic narrative and plot. Whereas 2049 is ridiculously dense ... but honestly the movie, for me, moved at a lightning pace.
I liked BR2049 and really enjoyed seeing it. It's a beautiful looking film and it does a nice job expanding on the themes and ideas of the original. It was better than I expected, and I expected it to be pretty good.
The real "miss" for me is that I don't think they captured the feel of the world, and that was an element that was very important to me. As many have pointed out, the original BR was actually a pretty simple story...but it was that WORLD that added layers and fascination to it.
I can watch the original BR and feel and smell the grit and wet and smoke. It's just such well-crafted experience that it's one of the only truly immersive films I've ever watched. This one strangely missed the mark on that. It's not as atmospheric...the sounds and textures are sort of "smoothed over" and seem to be strangely missing.
Hey, it's better than the 85fuckingthousand bland, repetitive superhero movies that get released every 15 minutes...but I was definitely disappointed in this aspect of the film.
The real "miss" for me is that I don't think they captured the feel of the world, and that was an element that was very important to me. As many have pointed out, the original BR was actually a pretty simple story...but it was that WORLD that added layers and fascination to it.
I can watch the original BR and feel and smell the grit and wet and smoke. It's just such well-crafted experience that it's one of the only truly immersive films I've ever watched. This one strangely missed the mark on that. It's not as atmospheric...the sounds and textures are sort of "smoothed over" and seem to be strangely missing.
Hey, it's better than the 85fuckingthousand bland, repetitive superhero movies that get released every 15 minutes...but I was definitely disappointed in this aspect of the film.
Had a snow day today, so I rented the movie from Amazon and watched it this afternoon. I enjoyed the movie, kept my attention and didn’t seem like it was as long as it really was. As many have mentioned, it was a stunningly beautiful movie, but seemed to be lacking a certain something. I can’t put my finger on it, but perhaps the world building was thin as compared to the original. You feel for ‘Joe’, but are left empty in the end with his story. Deckard is just there, not driving the story forward. Cool to see EJO, but he just felt like window dressing not adding much more than bringing a little smile to my face.
Q2
*edit for typo
Q2
*edit for typo
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Thanks for pointing out my typo.. Fixed now..
Well-deserved though it’s a shame DV didn’t get a directing nod.
It released digitally here midnight Saturday, and I have watched it twice in day.
Man that was fun.
Oh.
And new arguments!
Joe and Ana are twins. There’s much to support it, and nothing to co traditions it, it even makes sense of the Bees.
Though interestingly, since the film doesn’t answer the Deckarep question (though I know what’s real...) some of ‘who is the kid’ depends on which version of the first film, and interpretation of Deckard, you subscribe to.
Man that was fun.
Oh.
And new arguments!
Joe and Ana are twins. There’s much to support it, and nothing to co traditions it, it even makes sense of the Bees.
Though interestingly, since the film doesn’t answer the Deckarep question (though I know what’s real...) some of ‘who is the kid’ depends on which version of the first film, and interpretation of Deckard, you subscribe to.
M
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Loved it. If Hollywood made more movies like this I'd go to the theater more often.
As with 2019, I love that there are open questions to ponder...but looking at what we know for sure, Jo wasn't born. He's a Rep with implanted memories.
I think that whiles that’s more clear cut, so much is left deliberately vague, that no one ever outright says that, or that his belief he is their son is wrong. None of the evidence discounts it either from what I remember.
None of the people involved in the birth ever indicate that there were two. Freysa even shoots him down the moment she realizes what he was thinking.
Also, one of his memories belongs to Ana. How did it get there if not implanted by adult Ana?
Freya’s shoots him down by saying he ‘imagined’ and they all do that. Ana doesn’t say the memory is hers, just that someone lived it. We as the audience know that he did t’imagine’ he has the actual memory, whether implanted or not. (It’s why he’s the only person who knows where Ana is.) in terms of that, it’s a deliberate echo of the ambiguity over Deckards status I expect. In fact, it could be argued that if Deckard was a replicant in film a, then K is a built replicant in film b, but if Deckard was not, then K is not. (There’s a deliberate echo of the previous replicants in their modern counterparts to support the suggestion they both are.)
I think it’s deliberately left ambiguous.
Freysa saw the birth wither he own eyes, and specifies there was a girl. She doesn’t specify that was the only child, only that she ‘dressed her in blue’ (which in itself could be seen as a hint.) and she has since taken out her own eye (or at least been thought retired when she wasn’t)
There’s literally nothing to outright say he isn’t the son, just people telling him he isn’t...same way some people told him he is....the only physical evidence and facts can go either way.
One other thing is, having seen the distress it caused, Ana could have been more specific in whether the memory was real but an implant, rather than just confirming it’s real. Twins explains the complicated birth, their star sign being Gemini, the paralelos between Ana and K (they share a birthday party when they meet, the snow at the end, even the fact he goes to her as the best memory designer on earth, when he could have theoretically asked any of the contractors.)
K is Drone, being sacrificed to protect the queen....why? Because as Rachael’s daughter, Ana, the girl child can theoretically give birth and continue the line (tying with the biblical reference to Rachael, Judaism tracks through the female line...after all, there can be doubt over the identity of a father, but it’s usually obvious who the mother is...) so is more valuable than a male child, from a certain point of view.
As I say, I think him not being the son, and Ana being the only child, is the most obvious read...but, it’s been deliberately set up, even after the reveal, (I.e, when it no longer serves the story to mislead the audience) to suggest K is the son. His dialogue with Deckard at the end suggests he knows this too, and even the stuff with the Joi hologram can suggest it...depending on how people take Joi’s existence too.
Like I said, there’s not one contradiction to it...the ones that are there seem deliberately scripted as vague.
She refers to "the child" and "that baby". Deckard himself constantly refers to a single child. There's one child in the photo. Naturally you could argue that they're all carefully trying to continue the lie, but if you argue that the memory is actually K's memory, then what kind of crazy-ass coincidence would it be for Ana to be his sister? (Maybe she's not? Maybe the emotional reunion we see right at the last moments of the movie would have been followed up by Deckard realizing she was not his child at all.
) Why does K have no other significant memories of that specific childhood?
And hey, if you wanna hear an ‘out there’ theory...Wallace is a partially incomplete Tyrell clone using Rep tech. Look at the damage under his eyes. Based on the unfilmed sarcophagus scene in the original. There’s almost bugger all to suggest this with much certainty though. It’s definitely hinted at I would say, and fits in with certain narrative traditions.
There’s even a super shakey possibility Luv is a third child of Deckard and Rachel.
Oh..and Gaff knew where Deckard was, and helped him and Rachael set up...possibly even claiming to have killed them both, falsely. (Deckard left in his car, but has Gaffs spinner in Vegas. Gaff plays on the double meaning of retired, and makes a sacrificial animal, a sheep, as representative of K..to touch the other theory.)
My wife suggested that Madam knew about K as well...and it’s certainly feasible she knew about his orphanage memory before he told her, there’s memory reading tech, and if we go with the Deckarep theory, there’s form for people knowing the memories of replicants under them. (The ‘I’ve read your file mate’ from Ridley) It’s possible she at least suspected something, which explains her dialogue, and may even explain why she came onto him. Especially with a hint at the fertility issues from the original book turning up in the film.
There’s even a super shakey possibility Luv is a third child of Deckard and Rachel.
Oh..and Gaff knew where Deckard was, and helped him and Rachael set up...possibly even claiming to have killed them both, falsely. (Deckard left in his car, but has Gaffs spinner in Vegas. Gaff plays on the double meaning of retired, and makes a sacrificial animal, a sheep, as representative of K..to touch the other theory.)
My wife suggested that Madam knew about K as well...and it’s certainly feasible she knew about his orphanage memory before he told her, there’s memory reading tech, and if we go with the Deckarep theory, there’s form for people knowing the memories of replicants under them. (The ‘I’ve read your file mate’ from Ridley) It’s possible she at least suspected something, which explains her dialogue, and may even explain why she came onto him. Especially with a hint at the fertility issues from the original book turning up in the film.
She refers to "the child" and "that baby". Deckard himself constantly refers to a single child. There's one child in the photo. Naturally you could argue that they're all carefully trying to continue the lie, but if you argue that the memory is actually K's memory, then what kind of crazy-ass coincidence would it be for Ana to be his sister? (Maybe she's not? Maybe the emotional reunion we see right at the last moments of the movie would have been followed up by Deckard realizing she was not his child at all.
The hidden Twin is a common thing in stories...look at Star Wars. Deckard May not have known, he left before the birth, Freysa May not have known. Sapper May have been the only one alive who knew...he’s probably the one who took K off to the orphanage. Even if they did know, K as sacrifice works, because then they have a real ‘oh the one you are looking for? He’s dead and gone, look’ moment to cover for Ana, same trick as the orphanage.
We don’t know what other memories K has, and they all have to make a narrative sense in his head whether they are real or not. He’s just been told all his memories are not real because he ‘is’ a replicant.
I agree regarding Ana, if the memory is his, it’s not hers, and there’s nothing overtly saying it’s her anymore. Except there isn’t anyway...she never claims the memory is hers, or even made by her, simply that someone lived it. She also ‘remembers’ her own childhood and parents going offworld, but that could be a protective lie she tells (shades of Rey over in Star Wars.) however, going with the ‘linked twins’ theory, bothe she and K know. It’s why she shares the birthday party with him...she knows and can’t say...and later, he knows and does say...by taking Deckard to her. (The casting is great, Ana and K both look enough like their parents.) it’s possible ‘all the best memories belong to her’ is him deciding his sacrifice is worth it, because he knows he’s damaged by his life, is dying anyway, and can at least bring ‘Daddy’ home, so she’s not lonely in her bubble anymore. ‘What are you to me?’ ‘Go meet your daughter’ is so vague, it can easily suggest that Deckard suspects K is his son at this point, and K knows that’s his sister in there.
Like I said, I know it’s not the overt reading, but there’s deliberately so much there to seed the possibility (way more than for Deckard as a replicant in the first film, oddly enough.) and support it, and so far, nothing to contradict it (apart from the assertion about the DNA match, but...these kids are half or all replicant, normal DNA rules may not apply)
Maybe everyone in the film is a Replicant.
Lol. That was one of my original predictions. Humanity is dead, and half of them don’t even know that. Would have been a twist.
I find it funny how far back I called the Armitage III similarities. It’s extremely close in places.
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