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Blade Runner 2049


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I shrug my shoulders at it. I remember coming across the IMDB in the mid to late 90s. They barely had any films listed, and I begged off joining for that alone. Then in 2000 (or maybe a year or two before) I joined, but it's like the list was only slowly growing. You might find Star Wars, but you wouldn't find Gone with the Wind listed--it was that kind of site.

 

Then one other guy and I started using the message boards, which were dead. We were the only ones using them. In fact my profile got showcased by the IMDB site staff as an example of how other users can exchange messages on the various forums. And after that it was pretty cool talking movies. But the last few years before the forums shut down ... it was like the barbarians had stormed the gates. I'd occasionally file a report maybe once or twice a month for real abusive posters. But man, when the elections came around and the new Ghostbusters hit the screens ... it was like a stadium sized convention of the worst people posting the worst comments you'd ever read in your life.

 

For all my punching holes in this film, I do have to say that the film going experience was infinitely better than in previous years. There was security, the seats were nice and comfy ... no one was talking in the theatre, no one was using their cell. And the movie, for a movie, was okay. It was a little slower, which I appreciated. No over-confident teenage or twenty-something characters spouting on-the-nose dialogue, no put-down humor, no machinegun editing ... it was a film for an older crowd. I'm glad for all that. I'm just sorry it wasn't a smarter story.

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  • 1 month later...

Finally watched it two nights ago. It looked like any other movie out there right now, some good framing, but so what? It didn't feel like BLADE RUNNER and the more they tried to make it like BR, the less it did,

 

I'm not saying it was a bad movie. It entertained and if it can do that, it doesn't have to be a masterpiece. But it had nearly three hours to tie up its subplots and it didn't, and takes its "plot twist" directly from PROJECT A-KO 4:FINAL.

 

At no moment did I feel like I was watching something that takes place in the same universe. Funny, but SOLDIER starring Kurt Russell felt more like it belonged in the same universe than this thing. Not having a Vangelis score also really hurt the movie. The music sounded like those TV shows where the composers just use some random ominous chords without a unifying theme. Except for the snow scene at the end. But that piece sounded like a parody of the kind used in comedies that can't get the rights to the original.

 

Where it completely lost me was when K ran through a wall. From that point on, nothing could be taken seriously. It became a comic book.

 

And of course, it wasn't shot on film so it didn't look special. I hope the makers of that upcoming LOGAN'S RUN sequel learn from the mistakes of this production, but they likely won't.

Edited by Samuel Berger
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  • 2 years later...

I suddenly realized why 2049 felt so bland and forgettable to me. The 1982 Blade Runner is a wonderful, unique mix of cyberpunk and neo-noir, which makes it even more interesting than the book. Will rewatch it again and again.

In the Villeneuve's film, the noir element is completely gone. Both visually and story-wise.

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20 hours ago, Alissa Alexina said:

I suddenly realized why 2049 felt so bland and forgettable to me. The 1982 Blade Runner is a wonderful, unique mix of cyberpunk and neo-noir, which makes it even more interesting than the book. Will rewatch it again and again.

In the Villeneuve's film, the noir element is completely gone. Both visually and story-wise.

I had a long conversation with a friend yesterday about this movie. For me, the main reason ‘Blade Runner 2049’ doesn’t work nearly as well as the original film comes down to story construction.

‘Blade Runner’ (1982)  is a simple story - a bounty hunter is hired by the police to find and kill a group of escaped slaves who, he is told, are a grave danger to society. Since the slaves are not technically human, the kill orders are perceived to be valid and moral, even business-as-usual. 

The hunter falls in love with one of slaves. And as he hunts and kills the others according to his duty, he begins to see that they are human in all the ways that matter. At the climax, leader of the escaped group forces the hunter to confront the slave’s humanity fully, as well as the hunter’s own inhumanity. In an act of grace, the slave spares the hunter’s life and dies peacefully with dignity. The hunter flees with his lover, trying to outrun his old colleagues who are now hunting them both. 

It’s a simple, timeless story about empathy - how it is the one essential quality of that which we might call ‘humanity.’ Very similar to Bong Joon Ho’s ‘Parasite’, which I had also recently watched and which kick-started my conversation. 

In contrast, I’m not sure what ‘BR 2049’ is about. It has much of the ornamentation of the original film, but it doesn’t seem to understand its core theme. The first film has already established that Replicants possess humanity due to their ability to empathize. In the sequel, it seems the ‘humanity’ goal posts have shifted to whether Replicants are biologically compatible with humans - if the hybrid child is found, then that will cause a revolution. But if Replicants are already fully-fledged people, then why does the biology matter? Why must K sacrifice himself for the hybrid if he himself is already evidence of Replicant humanity? Also, Joi is not real because she was pre-programmed to call her owner ‘Joe’? I think Joi’s personhood is at the core of the story, but that theme was not fully explored. 

This is like ‘Midichlorians’ all over again. A transcendental concept (of personhood this time) is reduced to a factual binary one. I don’t think this is a story as good as the original. So it’s no surprise to me that most of the positive reviews of ‘BR 2049’ focus on the cinematography and sound design. I think a good movie needs more.

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Also, re: style

I think ‘Blade Runner’ (1982) gets criticized at times for being ‘style over substance.’ I must disagree - Ridley Scott’s style of layering movement in depth (smoke, fans, neon, roving searchlights, rain, water reflections, etc.) emphasizes the transcendental themes of the film.

I don’t think these may have always been conscious decisions, but the feeling works intuitively. Apparently Ridley added the water reflection gag in the Tyrell building set at the last minute - why? Water and light are moving, alive yet not alive. Necessary mediums for life (as we know it) but not evidence of life by itself. It looks great, and also works thematically. Style and substance. 

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Satsuki, this is beautifully said! I agree. And even when trying to concentrate on cinematography, we always return to storytelling. Sometimes, it seems the world has ran out of simple timeless stories - I cannot tell what most modern films are about.

Interestingly, the character of Joi was the one I cared about the most. She was the most human and the most real, thanks to the actress.

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I agree with Satsuki too. So often the latest films kind of miss the main point of the story -- you know, the 'human bit' that, really, films are actually supposed to be about. Films that go off on esoteric technical tangents involving bizarre and frankly pretty boring biological explorations of what-if often fail to really become classics. Films that focus on the frailty of the human condition, things like love and vulnerability and that sort of thing are the films that people remember. Also, with BR 2049, being a Noir genre type film, I think (and this is personal taste, sure) that shooting on film, giving a more grainy, slightly grungy look would have helped. I clearly remember what the anamorphic 35mm print looked like in cinemas when the original came out. It was just a tad fuzzy, grainy. That look would be hard to replicant sorry I mean replicate haha but it could be done today with, say, 2 perf 35mm and choosing lenses carefully. Add a bit more grain. There are ways. That's my opinion. Or watch it in cinemas with actual 35mm projectors, even better.

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Great breakdown, Satsuki.

It's interesting in how much the original diverges from the novel, where empathy was the defining characteristic of humanity and that the androids were lacking that -- it was Dick's cautionary tale against people becomes more machine-like. It wasn't about how androids were childlike superhumans, it wasn't a "pro-A.I." sort of tale.

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Yes, since K's humanity is never in doubt, the whole journey is a bit odd, why reproducing is a defining aspect of humanity, as if in the animal world, a sterile mule had less right to be treated humanely than a fertile donkey.  Sure, there's nothing wrong with idea of how rights for artificial intelligences might arise, whether through conflict or not, but hanging their hope on a baby is a bit odd, though I guess it has some religious symbolism.

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I'm not sure I'll ever quite understand the original Bladerunner. I must have watched it at least seven or eight times by now, but I've never once enjoyed it.

It's a film that (to me) suffers from the worst problem a film can have - it doesn't have any characters I could relate to or sympathise with. Deckard is too clinical, Rachael is too robotic, Roy Batty at the climax is about as close as the film ever comes, but he's such a relentlessly vicious figure throughout, that it feels like too little too late to redeem him.

However in spite of not liking a single character in the film, the sheer exquisiteness of the production - the cinematography, set design and FX. Keeps drawing me back to it. I think it's one of the most beautiful pieces of cinema ever created (on a purely visual level).

So it's a film I've never liked, but have always admired.

2049 is a very different film. I enjoyed it much more than I've ever enjoyed the original. I suspect because K is a vastly more sympathetic figure than Deckard ever was, and the relationship between him and Joi actually felt tangible (in a way the Deckard/Rachael dynamic never came close to) so that imbued the film with vastly greater stakes than the original - because there was actually something there to care about.

Visually though, it's 180 degrees from the original. Certainly beautiful in its own way. The colour, depth and texture were all handled with Deakin's usual aplomb. But it felt so outrageously 'clean' compared to the original, that I found it nigh on impossible to consider it part of the same world. Even in the dense orange smog, it felt somehow "clearer" than original ever got.

And that atmosphere and texture in the original is a HUGE part of what makes the original so exquisite. Every environment felt dangerous, felt intimidating. Like anything could happen at any moment to any character. And I can think of few films before or since, that have managed to craft a world as fully realised as Scott, Cronenweth and Paull managed to pull off.

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2 hours ago, David Mullen ASC said:

It's interesting in how much the original diverges from the novel, where empathy was the defining characteristic of humanity and that the androids were lacking that -- it was Dick's cautionary tale against people becomes more machine-like.

I know, right? In a way, the movie has the darker view of humanity - institutions and society as a whole are the unthinking machines lacking empathy. Becoming ‘woke’ in this world basically means you’re a hunted outcast. 

I’d be interested to see a version of the film set in the antebellum south or in the old west. It would be like ‘The Last of the Mohicans’ from Cora Munro’s point of view.

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27 minutes ago, Mark Kenfield said:

I'm not sure I'll ever quite understand the original Bladerunner. I must have watched it at least seven or eight times by now, but I've never once enjoyed it.

It's a film that (to me) suffers from the worst problem a film can have - it doesn't have any characters I could relate to or sympathise with. Deckard is too clinical, Rachael is too robotic, Roy Batty at the climax is about as close as the film ever comes, but he's such a relentlessly vicious figure throughout, that it feels like too little too late to redeem him.

That’s fair. I did not warm to the film the first several times I saw it either. There was a vibe that intrigued me, but I couldn’t connect to the characters emotionally. The film may indeed work better on a symbolic level than on an emotional one. 

One thing that I admire structurally about the film is how the morality of the protagonist (Deckard) and the antagonist (Batty) are flipped. Batty is objectively in the right - he wants to live, to be recognized as a person, to be understood. He has a lover, he has friends. He feels love,  anger, sadness, rage, disappointment, despair, exaltation, irony. We are told he’s a killer, a military model. And he does kill, out of emotion and self-preservation. 2nd degree murder, if you will. We don’t realize he’s capable of that moment of grace until it happens. That’s what makes him fully human in a way Deckard can’t be (yet). 

Deckard on the other hand is numb. He kills for money and feels nothing. He comes home to an empty apartment. He has no friends, no one to talk to. His social skills are crude. He drinks and he works, alone. His journey is about learning to become a person. And he learns how to do that from Batty and Rachel. You don’t see that kind of story structure often. 

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1 hour ago, Mark Kenfield said:

2049 is a very different film. I enjoyed it much more than I've ever enjoyed the original. I suspect because K is a vastly more sympathetic figure than Deckard ever was, and the relationship between him and Joi actually felt tangible (in a way the Deckard/Rachael dynamic never came close to) so that imbued the film with vastly greater stakes than the original - because there was actually something there to care about.

I think Joi is the most sympathetic character too. She’s clearly a person, so I don’t understand the scene where K sees the giant Joi advertisement and (presumably) concludes that her love for him was all programming. Is he that dumb? Why doesn’t he realize his mistake by the end of the film?

I think K is too much of a blank slate to be sympathetic. He’s like the biblical Job, getting jerking around left and right like a leaf in a storm. His purpose turns out to be a sacrificial lamb for Deckard and his daughter. I’m sure it was an intentional choice, but to me it leaves the film without a protagonist. Very unsatisfying if you ask me.

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1 hour ago, Mark Kenfield said:

Visually though, it's 180 degrees from the original. Certainly beautiful in its own way. The colour, depth and texture were all handled with Deakin's usual aplomb. But it felt so outrageously 'clean' compared to the original, that I found it nigh on impossible to consider it part of the same world. Even in the dense orange smog, it felt somehow "clearer" than original ever got.

Aesthetically, I did not like all of the muted grey and empty monochromatic locations. It’s more of a complaint about the production design and costumes than the lighting and lensing. But as we’re all aware, production design is half of cinematography - you can only shoot what you’re given. It was designed more like a Soviet bloc social drama or Ken Loach film. Minimalism and realism doesn’t seem to suit the world of ‘Blade Runner’ does it? 

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5 hours ago, Mark Kenfield said:

Visually though, it's 180 degrees from the original. Certainly beautiful in its own way. The colour, depth and texture were all handled with Deakin's usual aplomb. But it felt so outrageously 'clean' compared to the original, that I found it nigh on impossible to consider it part of the same world. Even in the dense orange smog, it felt somehow "clearer" than original ever got.

And that atmosphere and texture in the original is a HUGE part of what makes the original so exquisite. Every environment felt dangerous, felt intimidating. Like anything could happen at any moment to any character. And I can think of few films before or since, that have managed to craft a world as fully realised as Scott, Cronenweth and Paull managed to pull off.

I agree, it seems way too clean to be a part of the same world as the original BR. Prometheus and Covenant suffered from the same problem with regards to the Alien "world". With all three films I found myself wishing for a bit more grit and dirt in the design, and even film grain for texture. That's not to say that digital formats can't provide that. Paul Cameron's work on Total Recall, particularly the early scenes, looks wonderfully grimy and textured. 

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22 hours ago, Stuart Brereton said:

I agree, it seems way too clean to be a part of the same world as the original BR. Prometheus and Covenant suffered from the same problem with regards to the Alien "world". With all three films I found myself wishing for a bit more grit and dirt in the design, and even film grain for texture. That's not to say that digital formats can't provide that. Paul Cameron's work on Total Recall, particularly the early scenes, looks wonderfully grimy and textured. 

My feelings precisely.

The problem is one is accused of criticising Deakins, which is against many peoples' religion, but as people have said it's gorgeous work, it's just not Blade Runner.

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45 minutes ago, Phil Rhodes said:

My feelings precisely.

The problem is one is accused of criticising Deakins, which is against many peoples' religion, but as people have said it's gorgeous work, it's just not Blade Runner.

Deakins work is generally very clean. He uses only the sharpest lenses, doesn’t use filtration, dislikes grain, hates lens flares or other artifacts. Compare that with Paul Cameron who was lighting a very similar world in Total Recall. Cameron used old anamorphic glass, which had been modded to increase halation and lens flares. He actively embraced the flaws of the anamorphic design. In his previous work with Tony Scott, the handcranking, double exposure and cross processing all demonstrate a willingness to degrade the image in artistic ways. It might be sacrilege to say so, but I think he would have been a better choice to create a world for BR2049 that was consistent with the original.

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1 hour ago, Stuart Brereton said:

Deakins work is generally very clean. He uses only the sharpest lenses, doesn’t use filtration, dislikes grain, hates lens flares or other artifacts. Compare that with Paul Cameron who was lighting a very similar world in Total Recall. Cameron used old anamorphic glass, which had been modded to increase halation and lens flares. He actively embraced the flaws of the anamorphic design. In his previous work with Tony Scott, the handcranking, double exposure and cross processing all demonstrate a willingness to degrade the image in artistic ways. It might be sacrilege to say so, but I think he would have been a better choice to create a world for BR2049 that was consistent with the original.

Y'know, I hadn't made the connection between the Scott stuff and the recent Total Recall. Makes sense, though; I very much like (the photography of) both.

I felt like the 2017 Ghost in the Shell had something like the same problem, though it looked a bit better than Blade Runner; it was too careful, too shot in overcast, and struggled to compare to the anime (which, while obviously a different artform, has much the same design decisions to make.) To wit, which one of these has more punch, more attitude?

maxresdefault.jpg

Incidentally, this scene in the original anime is an absolute masterpiece:

 

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10 hours ago, Stuart Brereton said:

Deakins work is generally very clean. He uses only the sharpest lenses, doesn’t use filtration, dislikes grain, hates lens flares or other artifacts. 

There are exceptions -- "Jarhead" did a partial silver retention to the negative for more contrast and grain, "1984" did a full bleach bypass for the prints, "Assassination of Jesse James" used those distorted lenses, etc.

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19 hours ago, Stuart Brereton said:

Deakins work is generally very clean. He uses only the sharpest lenses, doesn’t use filtration, dislikes grain, hates lens flares or other artifacts. Compare that with Paul Cameron who was lighting a very similar world in Total Recall. Cameron used old anamorphic glass, which had been modded to increase halation and lens flares. He actively embraced the flaws of the anamorphic design. In his previous work with Tony Scott, the handcranking, double exposure and cross processing all demonstrate a willingness to degrade the image in artistic ways. It might be sacrilege to say so, but I think he would have been a better choice to create a world for BR2049 that was consistent with the original.

I’d hazard a guess that Villeneuve desired a clean look and got exactly what he wanted from Deakins. Doesn’t seem like he really goes for the impressionistic ‘RSA House Style.’ Even Ridley Scott doesn’t shoot that way anymore.

In any case, the film has deep structural problems that no DP could fix. Not really sure if there’s any living director who could have made a sequel that would have satisfied us...

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3 hours ago, Satsuki Murashige said:

In any case, the film has deep structural problems that no DP could fix. Not really sure if there’s any living director who could have made a sequel that would have satisfied us...

I don't know about that. I find it hard to characterise the first Blade Runner as a masterpiece of writing, although I suppose there's something in the fact that it's a detective movie about a detective who does very little detective work and yet somehow still works as a sort of tone poem about a world. The characters are largely archetypes, a couple of outstanding performances (Hauer and Olmos) notwithstanding. It's a cream cake of a movie for cinematography enthusiasts, but is it a fantastically well-crafted piece of storytelling? I don't know; it has something, but it's hard to say what, and I think that's just as true of the sequel.

And the sequel doesn't have the cinematography. I'll say it again: it's pretty, but it's not Blade Runner.

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4 hours ago, Satsuki Murashige said:

I’d hazard a guess that Villeneuve desired a clean look and got exactly what he wanted from Deakins. Doesn’t seem like he really goes for the impressionistic ‘RSA House Style.’ Even Ridley Scott doesn’t shoot that way anymore.

In any case, the film has deep structural problems that no DP could fix. Not really sure if there’s any living director who could have made a sequel that would have satisfied us...

I'm certainly not trying to blame Roger Deakins for 2049's problems. His work is beautiful, and I'm sure it's exactly what Villeneuve wanted, it's just, for me, it's not Blade Runner.

 

14 hours ago, David Mullen ASC said:

There are exceptions -- "Jarhead" did a partial silver retention to the negative for more contrast and grain, "1984" did a full bleach bypass for the prints, "Assassination of Jesse James" used those distorted lenses, etc.

Yes, I'm not suggesting that he is dogmatic about a 'clean' image, but I think his basic philosophy starts from that point.

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12 hours ago, Phil Rhodes said:

I don't know about that. I find it hard to characterise the first Blade Runner as a masterpiece of writing, although I suppose there's something in the fact that it's a detective movie about a detective who does very little detective work and yet somehow still works as a sort of tone poem about a world. The characters are largely archetypes, a couple of outstanding performances (Hauer and Olmos) notwithstanding. It's a cream cake of a movie for cinematography enthusiasts, but is it a fantastically well-crafted piece of storytelling? I don't know; it has something, but it's hard to say what, and I think that's just as true of the sequel.

And the sequel doesn't have the cinematography. I'll say it again: it's pretty, but it's not Blade Runner.

Yeah, I agree with you. I think the original film’s strengths are largely a coherent theme and cinematography, production design, costume design, sound design, and score that strongly supports it. The character work is thin for sure. 

This kinda goes back to the Fincher quote that David brought up awhile ago in the ‘Spotlight’ thread, about how simple stories can be told with complexity, but complex stories should be told simply. In the case of ‘Blade Runner’, it’s a simple story and there’s a ton of complexity in the look, sound, and design - but perhaps the character work is too simple. 

 

Re: sequel not being ‘Blade Runner-ish’ enough

I personally agree with you, but I think we are also bringing our own baggage about what ‘Blade Runner’ is stylistically. Which is fine, given the film’s elevated status as one of keystone works of modern cinematography. But clearly, Denis and Roger are starting from a different premise, so I think it’s a little pointless to dismiss the work that way. That’s why I’m more interested in examining what the film they made is trying to say. 

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To me, fwiw, the original Blade Runner is really a bit of a light-weight love story. I know a lot of people see it very differently -- they go on about the lead Replicant who dies at the top of the building in the rain, and saves the detective/govt hit man at the last moment after having just terrified him out of his wits. But I always found the lead Replicant a bit of a boring case. He was a cranky guy who spat the dummy and murdered some people because he had a legitimately bad deal in life. And at the last moment redeemed himself ... but only just a bit. He didn't do much for me. Too angry, too animalistic, he went on about the grand sights he'd seen but it didn't seem to make him a better person. He ruined his moral situation by lashing out with violence. Deckard of course was hardly an angel .. a paid killer of 'trouble' people.

But to me the real story was Deckard and Rachael. They were two outsiders who found each other. And the CEO of the Corporation was a scary freak. He was the true monster of the movie. That's what it was really about, to me. Those two found each other, and got out.

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