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Blade Runner 2049


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You mean it looked pretty... looks like a video game to me. :(

No, not at all. I think the actor is a 'miss' and that model shot with the out of focus car in the fg was a little bit embarrassing, but I thought it was damned impressive overall. I haven't looked at the making-of stuff on it yet, mainly cuz I'm jealous, though as usual I wish folks would put this energy into something wholly their own rather than riffing on the greats.

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I wish folks would put this energy into something wholly their own rather than riffing on the greats.

 

I agree, in an ideal world. The problem is that you can make sci-fi short films forever and no matter how good they are or how much effort you put in, nobody whatsoever will watch them.

 

Yes, it's taking advantage of someone else's audience, no it's not ideal, but I do understand why people do it. It's the only way to make something that will ever be seen by anyone.

 

P

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The intellectual structure behind the movie is a bit vague compared to the novel.

 

The novel was written by Dick based on his fears of humanity becoming more like robots so in a sense, the replicants represent the worst trends in humanity and what defines humanity at its most human ends up being empathy (hence the test for empathy.) At one moment in the novel, Pris pulls the legs off of a spider and Deckard then kills the spider out of empathy for its suffering, which Pris doesn't understand at all. And the replicants don't understand humans interest in having pets.

 

Scott had a completely 180 degree concept, which was that the replicants are sort of super human children but whether Deckard is or isn't a replicant doesn't really matter to the plot or the themes of the movie -- to me, it's more interesting if he isn't a replicant but he has fallen in love with one.

I've just finished reading the original novel, which is available quite cheap on eBay.

 

Wasn't it J.R. Isidore (the character J. F. Sebastian is very loosely based on) the one who was upset by Pris cutting the legs off the spider (not pulling them off)?

But later in the same chapter the spider is still alive and unharmed and when Isidore lets it go, Deckard comments to the effect of: "What did you do that for? That's worth at least 100 bucks"

I presume this is meant to suggest that the scene with Pris was just an illusion, illustrating how fragile the concept of reality had become.

 

The book is really not much like the movie at all. In the novel Deckard has a wife and he actually does own an electric sheep! (Live animals are a costly status symbol, and if one dies, people often resort to replacing it with a robot version to keep up appearances!)

 

The replicants are far less physically formidible than in the film, and are not particularly perturbed at the prospect of their demise.

Eldon Rosen (Renamed Tyrell in the film) is similarly a far less imposing figure in the novel, and Rachel fails the Voigt/Kampf test almost immediately.

 

 

You can recognize some of the novel's names for chartacters and other bits and pieces in the film, but overall the storyline is almost completely different.

The term "Blade Runner" does not appear in the novel at all.

A large part of the action in the film was devoted to Deckard's frantic efforts to hunt down the extremely dangerous replicants; that was not in the novel either

The film also never mentions the nuclear war which is the reason everybody is leaving for the offworld colonies.

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Of course all of this hypothesis highlights a concern that affects two Ridley films.

 

If Blade Runner's replicants are made by "genetic designers," then they have genes, thus they have DNA, and with DNA describing a human being there's no reasonable argument that replicants in fact aren't human. The same issue exists with regard to the engineers of Prometheus, who I believe are described as having DNA identical to that of humans. In which case they, er, are human. Large, pale humans, certainly, but humans nonetheless. It's less diversity than exists between different populations on Earth.

 

It's a more interesting question in terms of Blade Runner, since these are constructed beings, but ultimately it's a pretty daft storyline. What government could take synthesised-DNA humans and decide that summary execution of them was OK? Nobody would put up with it. Yes, it's the central conceit of that particular bit of sci fi, but it doesn't make much objective sense.

 

P

 

 

I was reading the book in Erith library before I got driven out of town.

The book is amazing. I wondered if he would go there given the nature of the movie and yes in the book he goes there all the way.

The movie is less interesting in a way but really beautiful.

The point is kind of what it means to be human.

Is it just DNA that makes someone human? There are the voigt kampf tests to tell the difference so clearly there are differences other than incept dates. The book is all about this but the movie just hovers around the subject in a more subtle way. Both have their own thing going for them to be honest.

 

In the book it's not clear if they are genetically based or not, or at least I don't remember it being but it doesn't matter if they are.

 

Also it doesn't mean they are genetically identical to humans. We don't know that the DNA of the replicants is identical to human DNA although if it isn't then you would think there would be something simpler than the voight kampt test. To be honest you would think they would deliberately make the DNA noticably different so that you could tell them apart. I guess the movie is before the days of cheap DNA testing.

 

but is it DNA that makes people human? There is a definite argument for this. There was some talk a while back of reclassifying chimps as human as they largely have the same DNA and have interbred with humans far more recently than was expected but I don't think a lot of people would be comfortable with putting chimps in the human classification.

 

Sadly never finished reading the book but it's awesome like most PKD stuff.

 

Freya

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Also it doesn't mean they are genetically identical to humans. We don't know that the DNA of the replicants is identical to human DNA although if it isn't then you would think there would be something simpler than the voight kampt test. To be honest you would think they would deliberately make the DNA noticably different so that you could tell them apart. I guess the movie is before the days of cheap DNA testing.

The book was written in 1968, but the big breakthroughs in DNA technology didn't happen until the early 1970s, so Dick wouldn't have known much about that. In the novel the only reliable physical test was to sample their cerebo-spinal fluid.

The explanation in the book for the Voight Kampff test was quite straightforward: The Androids' (not called replicants in the book) apparent emotional responses were basically generated by software algorithms, and asking tricky questions in the correct way caused glitches in the responses that a trained operator could pick up. The questions were simple imaginary scenarios; there was none of the tortoise-in-the-hot-sun stuff.

Some of the questions sound odd in the movie, because it has no mention of "World War Terminus" and the fact that live animals were now extremely rare.

It only cost me GBP 7.84 for a new copy mailed out to Australia from the UK, so why don't you get a copy of your own. Lots of places on eBay have it.

 

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Bone marrow, I thought, not that either makes much objective sense.

 

I would assume that any such company building any such thing would put identifiable genetic markers in the code to make these beings patentable, which would be detectable with conventional fluorescence sequencing - that would be the point of doing it, really. So really it would only take a blood test, although in 2016 it would be a fairly expensive blood test.

 

Or a momentary observation to see if they had a particuarly pronounced tapetum lucidum, which seems to be visible to more or less anyone.

 

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A promo short for a BLADE RUNNER fanfilm. Most of this looks pretty damned amazing to me.

 

 

Trailer for this looks better to me than the one for the new Blade Runner movie, some variable acting aside.

Graphics are slightly video gamey but I've seen far worse. Would be better if it was augumented with more minatures.

Mostly looks really good though and I felt more interested in seeing that movie than the official one.

 

Freya

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The book was written in 1968, but the big breakthroughs in DNA technology didn't happen until the early 1970s, so Dick wouldn't have known much about that. In the novel the only reliable physical test was to sample their cerebo-spinal fluid.

The explanation in the book for the Voight Kampff test was quite straightforward: The Androids' (not called replicants in the book) apparent emotional responses were basically generated by software algorithms, and asking tricky questions in the correct way caused glitches in the responses that a trained operator could pick up. The questions were simple imaginary scenarios; there was none of the tortoise-in-the-hot-sun stuff.

Some of the questions sound odd in the movie, because it has no mention of "World War Terminus" and the fact that live animals were now extremely rare.

It only cost me GBP 7.84 for a new copy mailed out to Australia from the UK, so why don't you get a copy of your own. Lots of places on eBay have it.

 

 

 

 

I don't have a postal address of any kind or so much somewhere to put things so getting hold of the book right now is a pain. Also 8GBP is a lot of money here. I'm sure I could find it cheaper. I did get to read most of it in the library too.

 

Isn't the tortoise in the sun an imaginary scenario?

I guess it's kind of more explicit to get a point across.

That's the main point in the film that connects with what the whole book is mostly about.

 

There are lots of situations in the book where people aren't sure if they are replicants or if other people are replicants including the replicant police station and everything.

 

The book is way wierder than the movie as the might expect from Horse Lover.

 

Freya

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You'd think the replicants/androids/whatever would have some sort of a trademark coded into their DNA or cells or something. The same way I.C. chip makers trademark their silicon wafers on a microscopic level or the same way the snake scale was marked with a license # number in the movie.

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The technical specifications always seem to be correct on IMDb. Never not seen anything that isn't true there. However I haven't heard anyone behind 2049 say what this has been shot with. But the Alexa 65 is such a popular camera now that I wouldn't be surprised.

I have worked on feature films that were shot on 35 millimeter yet IMDb lists it as HD. I have often seen examples of IMDb being incorrect.

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Trailer for this looks better to me than the one for the new Blade Runner movie, some variable acting aside.

This trailer definitely has done a better job of world building than 2049. But, the 2049 trailer doesn't really need that much exposition because of the first movie right?

 

 

 

Would be better if it was augumented with more minatures.

They used a fair amount of miniatures though, didn't they? At least judging from their BTS blog posts on the site.

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The new trailer, first in rotten Youtube quality:

 

 

Then, in QT 1080p:

 

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/uv99hmkivvcnhts/BLADE_RUNNER_2049_TRAILER_2-1080.mov

 

 

Superb as always. Having just rewatched the Final Cut on BD yesterday, I do miss the texture of anamorphic 35mm, but yeah, Deakins is a god. There's one shot in the trailer (even though it's temp color timing) that I think looks too bright, high key, don't know if it's on purpose, or just not final.

 

IIVcOlTl.jpg

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Roger confirmed on his forum that he timed the previous trailer & that one:

 

"I timed this last trailer and the previous trailer as well. Of course, in a trailer you are timing the shots in a different order than in the final film so there will be differences. However, so much of the imagery was done in camera that it will all be pretty close to what was shot."

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I'm still in shock how crisp it is. Damn thing looks like it was shot in 8k or something. I hope Warner does their usual routine and strikes a few 70mm prints, that would be so awesome... but I doubt it will happen.

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Where did all the Asian/Latino/Middle Eastern/middle-aged/disabled people in the first film go? It looks like they cast '2049' out of a JC Penny catalogue. Feels more like 'Tron 3' than 'Blade Runner' to me...

 

Photography looks great through.

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