Blade Runner 2049 - 10.6.17 (1 Viewer)

[gadgtfreek]

I think it looks fantastic.

 

[DavidMiller]

Looks soooo good can't wait!

 

[questrider]

I hope there is a voiceover by Ford. I kid, I kid!

It looks good in the trailer. I hope it builds on the first film's legend and isn't just used as a backdrop for a modern day action thriller.

Spoiler: Not a spoiler but humorous speculation

Let's hope that Ryan Gosling's character isn't Deckard's son who commits patricide on a long catwalk without railings.

 

[Jonathan Perregaux]

Looks good. Real good. Please let it BE good. REAL good.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

I'd say yes. Because, for instance, we meet the guy that makes the eyes, but we're also told separately that they're built. But they don't look "built", they look "grown". How do you grow body parts individually and then turn them into a whole body?

"Different people" - Roy goes to meet the man who made him (shop in Chinatown or wherever) and the guy says "I only do eyes". This means, to me, that the replicants are made by different people.

You get a vague sense of what they are, but it's never clearly defined. Reminds me of the Cylons in the new Battlestar. Sometimes, they're indistinguishable for humans and scientists on that show say there's no way to tell them apart from humans. Other times, we see the cylons glowing in the dark or plugging wires into themselves which suggests that their biology is different than ours. I feel this kind of deliberate vagueness is annoying and takes away from the completed work, because it feels to me that the storytellers don't know these answers.

What about the replicants is unclear? What more would you want or need to know about them? It is clearly laid out in the film what they are and the purpose they serve. It is also explained they are not allowed on Earth. So, the things we need to know are all there except perhaps a detailed explanation of the manufacturing process...but why do we need that as it is not central to what is going on in the film. The primary thing the audience needs to understand is they are a man made creation used to serve mankind. They are expendable labor that humans created. This drives the story and sets up Deckard's arc. I would also point out that there is no detailed description of how they are made in Dick's story.

In Prometheus during the briefing given by Shaw and her boyfriend what they say makes no sense at all but we are expected to take that as the explanation for why they are on the mission they are on. Plus that explanation only sets up further issues with the story. I think that is a much larger issue than say not showing how the replicants are made.

 

[spshultz]

Damn! I finally had time to sit down and watch the new trailer and oh my did that give me chills. I am super stoked for this movie. Oh and that music was 100% spot on. Just perfect. PLEASE let this be really, really good.

 

[dpippel]

I'm with you. I loved Arrival and Sicario, so with Denis Villeneuve at the helm of this film I've got high hopes for it.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

What about the replicants is unclear? What more would you want or need to know about them? It is clearly laid out in the film what they are and the purpose they serve.

I think we're heading into "agree to disagree" but to me, it's not clearly explained what they are - yes, you know who makes them and what their capabilities are, and what the laws around them are, but to me, it's not clear what they're physically made of. Their appearance suggests that they're genetically engineered beings grown in labs, but Roy's meeting with the man in Chinatown suggests that they're assembled from component parts. I think it's important as to whether they're something that's grown or assembled. I don't think it's necessarily important to enjoying the film, but for me, whenever I watch the film, it feels like this is something the filmmaker themselves don't know the answer to. And, as a viewer, that bothers me. It makes the world seem less complete, so the illusion doesn't completely work for me. Since so much of the film is centered around a moral and philosophical question of what does it mean to be human, I think understanding what the beings asking that question actually are is important.

Not to mention it may be a practical plot point. If they're grown, then Tyrell is telling the truth when he says he can't give Roy more life. If they're built out of different customizable parts, then maybe Tyrell could have swapped some parts out but doesn't want to, and is lying to Roy when he says he can't fix them. Huge plot implications in that difference.

At the risk of flogging a dead horse beyond all recognition, this reminds me very much of the remake of Battlestar Galactica. In that show, humans are at war with robots called Cylons who look exactly like humans. At the start of the show, we're told one of the reasons the Cylons are successful is that they're indistinguishable from humans. Blood tests, x-rays, autopsies, can't tell them apart. That's a hugely important plot point. But then we see the cyclons looking and acting non-human. Their backs glow in the dark when they're aroused. They're capable of plugging wires from computers into their wrists and connecting to other machines. They can transmit their consciousness into other robot bodies when they die, from far distances. All of this should require their biology to be somewhat different than humans, and therefore, make it easy to tell if someone is a Cylon with a straightforward medical exam. The two things, that Cylons are identical to humans and that Cylons can do robot things humans can't, are not reconcilable. It's an inconsistency in the show. As much as I love the show overall, that's a bad bit of construction because it blows a major hole in the storytelling. Like Blade Runner, it feels like the storyteller doesn't have the answer worked out.

And that's what bugs me. It's not that I need every answer in Blade Runner or Battlestar spoon fed to me, it's that it doesn't feel like their authors have an answer, and that those elements are included in the story to look futuristic and cool, not necessarily because they make sense.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Not to mention it may be a practical plot point. If they're grown, then Tyrell is telling the truth when he says he can't give Roy more life. If they're built out of different customizable parts, then maybe Tyrell could have swapped some parts out but doesn't want to, and is lying to Roy when he says he can't fix them. Huge plot implications in that difference.

He could give Roy a new eye or a new hand, but that unique spark of "life" is the key to the whole story. It's not an interchangeable part, and we don't fully understand it. If we did, there would be nothing to think about and it would just be an action movie.

Maybe Tyrell understands it, but Deckard certainly doesn't, and his POV is our POV.

 

[gadgtfreek]

I need to watch the final cut, been a way long time since I have seen Blade Runner. I wonder if we will get a UHD release.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

I think we're heading into "agree to disagree" but to me, it's not clearly explained what they are - yes, you know who makes them and what their capabilities are, and what the laws around them are, but to me, it's not clear what they're physically made of. Their appearance suggests that they're genetically engineered beings grown in labs, but Roy's meeting with the man in Chinatown suggests that they're assembled from component parts.

Well, I think we actually agree that there is no detailed explanation of the manufacturing process in the film. I think what we are discussing though is if this is something that should be in the film. My point is knowing exactly how and what they are made of is not important. What we are shown is that there is an elaborate process of making creatures, including animals, that look and act like actual living creatures. I think that more information given about how they are made would take away from the story they are attempting to tell. Dick's story is not about how these creatures are made it is about how we interact with them and how that has an effect on our lives. I do not think they want us to have a full understanding of how the replicants are made, just as Deckard does not, because they want us to also begin the story thinking of them as things...not a creature with rights and emotions. So, the less we know about that the better.

It is important in the film that Deckard begins the story thinking and noting the replicants are just things we made and so they have no "rights" to him and he can just blast one without feeling any remorse. He feels he is just shutting off a machine. Then he meets Rachael and she has been given "memories" in a way to better control her development. It seems with Roy and his crew they were not given memories and though they start by being obedient and useful as they develop over time, actually accruing their own memories, they then like a teenager becoming aware of the world, turn rebellious.

At this point they experience something very human...desperation to survive. Just like a human desperate to survive they then will do things that will endanger others because it becomes justifiable in their struggle for life.

This really is the heart and important aspect of the story and the audience is invited to understand how this "disposable labor" feels.

I think it's important as to whether they're something that's grown or assembled. I don't think it's necessarily important to enjoying the film, but for me, whenever I watch the film, it feels like this is something the filmmaker themselves don't know the answer to.

I would imagine that the writers thought about this and that they could have given some kind of explanation of how they are made but they chose not to. We enter the story at a point in its world/universe where humans have been using replicants for some time to serve them. So, as Deckard is our entry point we appear to know what he knows. They do tell us a lot about the replicants but they keep it specific to serving the story they are telling...which again is not about how they are made but rather about how society feels about them and how they feel about being used as disposable labor and that their lifespan is so short. They seem to have discovered that their creators have given them the opportunity to feel what it is like to be alive and human but only for them to waste their short lifespan doing things "real humans" do not want to do or even would find horrifying. Hence the "experiment" of giving Rachael memories.

And, as a viewer, that bothers me. It makes the world seem less complete, so the illusion doesn't completely work for me. Since so much of the film is centered around a moral and philosophical question of what does it mean to be human, I think understanding what the beings asking that question actually are is important.

I think the most important thing to understand about the replicants is they appear to be thinking and feeling as a human does. They have formed attachments to each other, they have a desperate desire for more time with each other, and they appear to respect each other...and in the end Roy appears to respect human life as well. This is all strange if they are just some thing we made. I don't think the film is just asking what it means to be human I think it is asking us to consider how we feel about life in general...all creatures great and small and in particular the lives of others. It wants us to consider if the replicants are beings with rights and in particular a right to want to live and have something more than just being a servant to their creators. If they can feel and learn and desire like we do...do they "deserve" something more?

Not to mention it may be a practical plot point. If they're grown, then Tyrell is telling the truth when he says he can't give Roy more life. If they're built out of different customizable parts, then maybe Tyrell could have swapped some parts out but doesn't want to, and is lying to Roy when he says he can't fix them. Huge plot implications in that difference.

I think Tyrell is telling Roy the truth. I think he does have genuine affection for Roy and concern for his plight. The one thing I wonder about that scene though is if Tyrell leaves something out. I don't think he is being dishonest about how long Roy has and that that is a forgone conclusion but I do wonder if the lifespan of Roy and his crew is what it is because that is about how long they can live before they begin to rebel. Meaning that Tyrell and his people calculated or discovered that after they reached a certain point in accruing their own memories they would then come to the conclusion that they were not getting a very fair shake and so it would be about that time they would become a risk to rebel. So, they gave them a specific lifespan that would end right about the time they became self aware enough to know that they were just being used as disposable labor. So, they could give them 5 years but after that they would start to question how they were being used.

This seems like it may be the case because Tyrell experiments with Rachael by giving her memories of growing up right from the start...so that she is not a blank slate that accrues experiences and memories that may...in the role of expendable labor...just be horrible. This means that Rachael will when calculating how to act or react have a base of memories to weigh in making her choices. Also during the Voight-Kampff test the questions seemed designed to reveal that the subject does not have memories to draw from outside of what they may have experienced in their short lifespan. This is why the replicants seem to come across as somewhat childlike. They have a sense of right and wrong but do not seem to understand how they came to have that sense.

It would seem that giving Rachael memories may be with the intent that you could then allow her to have a longer lifespan with less of a chance she might rebel.

It's not that I need every answer in Blade Runner or Battlestar spoon fed to me, it's that it doesn't feel like their authors have an answer, and that those elements are included in the story to look futuristic and cool, not necessarily because they make sense.

Yes, I don't think it is about being spoon fed or that's what you are looking for. The big question I think you have to ask is how would inserting a detailed explanation about how the replicants are manufactured impact the story? Also how would you insert that? Have a character describe it or show some sort of manufacturing process in the film? I think if you do this, particularly if you chose to show it...well, it would then just build a stronger sense in some audience members that Deckard has no moral or ethical conundrum in offing a replicant. Which is not what the story is at all attempting to do. So, to me it would harm the story to add this.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Reggie, I really appreciated all of your thoughts on the film in your latest post. I don't necessarily disagree with anything you said, I actually do agree with a lot of it on the specific level, but I feel my issues are larger than those individual points.

The big question I think you have to ask is how would inserting a detailed explanation about how the replicants are manufactured impact the story? Also how would you insert that? Have a character describe it or show some sort of manufacturing process in the film? I think if you do this, particularly if you chose to show it...well, it would then just build a stronger sense in some audience members that Deckard has no moral or ethical conundrum in offing a replicant. Which is not what the story is at all attempting to do. So, to me it would harm the story to add this.

I think you may be misunderstanding what I'm trying to say. (Admittedly, I'm not having the easiest time expressing myself with this film.)

I'm not saying that the film needs to be about how replicants are made. What I'm saying is that in watching the film, it feels to me that the filmmakers do not fully understand what replicants are. We have an entire film that's supposed to be about these creatures, and whether or not they're worthy of being considered as people the way humans are, and at no point in watching the movie do I ever feel that the filmmakers know exactly what they are. Because it does not feel to me that the filmmakers fully understand the world that they're creating, it feels incomplete to me. The movie works for me as an abstract, but I'm never able to fully buy into it as a real place. It works as allegory, but doesn't completely work for me as a straightforward story. I often find thinking about Blade Runner to be more satisfying than actually watching it, because it feels incomplete to me. And again, it's not that I need to see a replicant being physically manufactured. It's that I need to believe that someone actually knows how that would work, and I don't get a sense that anyone does when I watch the movie.

There's a lot of stuff that plays like that in Blade Runner when I watch it. Things that come off as window dressing but aren't fully established or explained. For instance, the idea of "off world colonies" is briefly mentioned, and it's said that that's where replicants are allowed to work. Great. Where are these off-world colonies? The opening crawl mentions "other planets" but that's it. There aren't really any other planets in our solar system suitable for life, though Mars could perhaps be adapted, that's still just one planet. So where is humanity living? If we've got technology to go faster than light to other worlds, why have we left earth such a shithole? Is it considered better to live on earth or to move away? Does the movie work without answers to those questions? Yes. But as with replicants, it feels to me that the filmmakers don't know the answers to those questions. It's stuff that makes for good sci-fi windowdressing, but without additional story support, doesn't really hold up to additional scrutiny. So again, I'm back to the movie working on a allegorical level but not really on a literal one. If it works as allegory but not as a straight story, then I'm left with the feeling that it's not really a sci-fi movie at its core.

I think Blade Runner is a good movie. But for me, it misses the mark of "all time great" because it often feels vague and underdeveloped to me. The movie is excellent at capturing a mood, but it settles for that instead of trying to create something bigger.

You had mentioned "2001: A Space Odyssey" as a film that you felt was similar in this technique, but I actually feel that they're very different. For me, when I watch "2001", I feel the presence of all the things that I feel lacking in Blade Runner. Not everything in 2001 is fully explained or brought to the surface. But when I watch 2001, I feel that there's an internal reasoning to it that Blade Runner lacks. If the filmmakers in 2001 (Kubrick and Clarke) don't feel the need to spell everything out for us, that doesn't mean that they didn't have answers themselves. When i watch 2001, I can imagine a world beyond the sets that we see. When I watch Blade Runner, I can't. The world of Blade Runner ends, for me, just outside of the camera's frame. For all of the elaborate set designs, the world of Blade Runner doesn't feel established enough to exist in my mind outside of this story. I enjoy the film when I watch it, but it doesn't create a sense of a world where I can imagine it existing beyond what's shown to us. When I watch "2001", I can very easily imagine that world.

In terms of how the Blade Runner filmmakers could have addressed some of my issues, assuming they ever would have had a desire to, I don't need Tyrell to give Deckard a tour of the replicant plant. The film already opens up with a crawl that fills in details.

Early in the 21st Century, THE TYRELL CORPORATION advanced robot evolution into the NEXUS phase - a being virtually identical to a human - known as a Replicant. The NEXUS 6 Replicants were superior in strength and agility, and at least equal in intelligence, to the genetic engineers who created them. Replicants were used Off-World as slave labor, in the hazardous exploration and colonization of other planets. After a bloody mutiny by a NEXUS 6 combat team in an Off-World colony, Replicants were declared illegal on earth - under penalty of death. Special police squads - BLADE RUNNER UNITS - had orders to shoot to kill, upon detection, any trespassing Replicant. This was not called execution. It was called retirement.

The lack of clarity is present right from the start - the first sentence talks about robots. The second sentence talks about genetic engineers. To my understanding of things, something can't be both a mechanical robot and a living organism simultaneously. When it's convenient for the movie to treat them as mechanical objects that have been assembled, the movie does. When it's more convenient for the movie to treat them as creatures of flesh and blood, the movie does that instead. But then again, if the opening crawl had just established "Replicants are genetically engineered and enhanced humans" there wouldn't really be a question of whether or not they deserved to be treated as people - it would be obvious on the face of it that they did, because that would show that they were already starting as basically human. (We already have people who engage in stuff similar to genetic engineering if not quite the same as in sci-fi; people who pick the gender of their child, who pre-screen sperm and egg donations, who test embryos before implanting, etc. Would a test tube baby's humanity be in question? I think the common response to that would be a resounding no, that they're obviously human - we've had so-called test tube babies for decades now. If the replicants are basically test tube babies, everything about their existence and exploitation would seem to be so obviously wrong and their use as slave labor so unethical that it's almost not worth spending any time on it as a moral question.) If they're robots that become self aware and earn their humanity, that's maybe a little more dramatically interesting and less of an open-and-shut case, but the movie doesn't give us a lot to suggest that that's the case either.

When I watch Blade Runner, I see a film that's elaborately designed and beautiful to look at, but I don't get the idea that the screenwriters and filmmakers have spent as much time thinking about the ideas as they have about the miniatures and scenery. It's a very beautiful film that suggests a lot of ideas as surface level concepts, but doesn't really seem to dive into any of them. It does invite you to think deeply about them, but I think that's different from the film itself being deep.

As a final example of this, I present the question of whether or not Deckard is a replicant. The original source material (the Dick story) is very clear that he's not. Of course, the film isn't the story, so what's true in one doesn't have to automatically be true in the other, and that can't really be used as evidence one way or the other. The theatrical version of the film suggests he's not a replicant. The different director's cuts, to varying degrees, suggest that he may be one. If you ask Harrison Ford, he'll tell you that Deckard's not a replicant, and call that very idea stupid. If you ask Ridley Scott in the 1980s, he'll tell you Deckard is human; if you ask Ridley today, he'll tell you Deckard is a replicant. If you ask one of the screenwriters, you'll get one answer, and if you ask a different one, you'll get a different answer. It is okay with me that the film doesn't give a definitive answer; it is not okay with me that the filmmakers don't actually know or agree.

And that, in a nutshell, is why Blade Runner is a good movie to me, but not an all-time great. It's very close, and with a little more development, could have made it there, but there's too much in the movie that seems to be there because it looks cool or because it creates a feeling of atmosphere, and not because there's any thought beyond that. The filmmakers have created a world which feels maddeningly incomplete to me, and doesn't hold up to closer examination or scrutiny. It works as an allegory or a metaphor but doesn't entirely work for me as a straightforward story. And again, it's not because the film doesn't give us all of the answers; it's because the filmmakers tease us with ideas where they clearly have not thought out of all of the implications of those ideas. I never need to know all of the answers when I watch a movie, but I do need to believe that the characters and the filmmakers do. When I watch Blade Runner, I don't get that sense.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

For what it's worth, I think Harrison Ford shares a similar feeling about the film. When the director's cut version came out, he was quoted in an interview as saying that it still didn't move him, and elaborated by adding, "They haven't put anything in, so it's still an exercise in design."

 

[Edwin-S]

Not too impressed with that trailer. The look of it just appears to be like any of the recent sci-fi films that have come out, with a few elements from the original grafted on to it to evoke nostalgia. The original Blade Runner was visually groundbreaking, had that great Vangelis score supporting it and had the whole noir thing going for it. This thing just looks like a pale copy with nothing new to add. If felt and looked like Underworld with some original Blade Runner tinsel hung on it.

 

[dpippel]

Thanks for bringing your usual ray of sunshine to the thread Edwin.

 

[Edwin-S]

Thanks for bringing your usual ray of sunshine to the thread Edwin.

Sorry. Can't help seeing what I'm seeing in that trailer. The color palette makes it look like like an Underworld clone. The original film, for all of the darkness of its world, had a warmer look to it. This trailer just makes everything look dark and dank. The pacing of the trailer just makes it look like your typical sci-fi action film with none of the noir feeling of the original.

The initial trailer just makes it look like any other generic dystopian sci-fi film from the last several years. Attaching the name Blade Runner, engaging Harrison Ford and putting some flying cars in doesn't make it Blade Runner. Maybe later trailers will change my mind; however, right now, this film looks like it has no relation to the first film, other than the title and Harrison Ford.

 

[Ryanlion]

Looking forward to that.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

First, let me say thank you to you, Josh, for taking the time to have these discussions with me. Both about this film and all the other stuff we have been discussing related to Ridley Scott films. I do appreciate that you take the time to give thoughtful and intelligent responses and to keep the discussion going. Please don't concern yourself with "tone" as I am not offended or upset by these discussions...I am enjoying having them!

What I'm saying is that in watching the film, it feels to me that the filmmakers do not fully understand what replicants are.

OK, so I think basically what you are talking about here is how effective the film is at getting you to suspend disbelief and go for the ride. You can correct me if I am off in the wrong direction. This is an important item with any film but probably with science fiction or fantasy based films in particular.

I can't say that I shared that feeling watching Blade Runner. I felt like they provided all that was needed for me to get into the right head space to go with the story.

We have an entire film that's supposed to be about these creatures, and whether or not they're worthy of being considered as people the way humans are, and at no point in watching the movie do I ever feel that the filmmakers know exactly what they are.

I can't say how exactly the filmmakers were thinking of them as creations but I have not watched all of the giant amount of material out there that deals with making this film in some time. My guess is we could find out what exactly the screenwriters thought. Ridley...well...I don't particularly trust him talking about story or plot or characters. I can say I thought of the replicants as some sort of cyborg that was part flesh and part mechanical. They did display superior strength and agility in comparison to Deckard and the other humans in the film. I always took that to mean they were more than just human flesh grown in a lab. So, I did not really think of them as just some sort of genetically engineered super race...although you could say that's what they were going for with Roy and Pris as they look the part, ha!

Because it does not feel to me that the filmmakers fully understand the world that they're creating, it feels incomplete to me.

Interestingly, this is exactly the frustration I have with Prometheus. I have the sense that they have no idea what they are doing in the story, they contradict themselves, and can't keep track of where anything is going or what it supposed to be. This is a frustrating place to be with a film and so I can understand your point.

There's a lot of stuff that plays like that in Blade Runner when I watch it. Things that come off as window dressing but aren't fully established or explained. For instance, the idea of "off world colonies" is briefly mentioned, and it's said that that's where replicants are allowed to work. Great. Where are these off-world colonies?

OK, I know exactly where you are coming from with this. Funny thing, when I first saw this film in the theater and Roy gives his great speech at the end which so many people seem to love, he talks about a bunch of stuff he has seen. And the first thing he mentions is "attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion" and that sounds great, fantastic line, and it paints this great visual image...but what the hell is he talking about? What attack ships? Is there a war in space? Who is attacking who up there? Are we fighting each other in space with countries using their own replicants as soldiers or are we at war with some race of alien beings? I mean the line does not cover anything that takes place in the film nor is any war in space ever referred to anywhere else...but Roy has seen attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. This we know.

I can see how people could write this off as total babble but he ends his speech with the great "all these moments lost in time like tears in the rain" which we all can identify with as humans looking back on a life. And that great ending to the speech makes everybody sort of give a pass to the all the stuff he says he has seen which if you ask anybody that has watched the film to explain will likely only elicit a blank stare. Because we have no idea what he is talking about!

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.

Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.

I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.

All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.

Time to die.

 

[Edwin-S]

I don't see how referring to off-world colonies without specifics is damaging to Blade Runner as a film. I actually thought the ambiguity that ran through most of the film is what makes it such a masterpiece. Things are not spelled out in black and white. The audience member can draw their own conclusions. Maybe it is due to me reading tons of SF when I was younger, but it wasn't hard for me to imagine what kind of Universe Deckard was living in.

Earth was on its last legs. People were being urged to move off-world in droves. Was it really germane to the story to know the exact names of those colonies and where they were? No. It is enough to know they exist and that people were being urged to go to them. Roy's references to attack ships just told me that along with expansion, the human species just took its wars and pestilential thinking along with it. That was doubly reinforced when you see what is taking place on Earth, between Deckard and the Replicants.

The film just showed that we, as a species, are incapable of learning anything, even at the very point of Earth's collapse as a sustainable environment. We'll just keep repeating the same mistakes, commit the same crimes and travel the same destructive road. Blade Runner shows that, as a species, we are permanently stuck in a psychotic adolescence.

 

[SamT]