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Blade Runner 2049 |OT| Do Androids Dream of Electric Boogaloo? [Unmarked Spoilers]

What felt meh about the third act to you? I thought it added a very worthwhile twist to K's arc. In that he didn't need to be special to be considered human.

And you got nothing whatsoever out of, for example, Joi's arc?

I think K's closure was fine. Seeing the Joi ad after being spoken to by the rebellious replicants and accepting that he wasn't special was fine. The last shot of him lying down on the steps was good. What I meant was how the story shifted over to Deckard despite his having 20-30 minutes of screentime, and ending with him holding out his hand on the window. It just felt unearned and fell emotionally flat for me.
 
I can't put my finger on where, but I'm sure there was a comment in 2049 about needing the cash to live off-world.

I remember in the original book it was basically only the dregs of society who couldn't afford to leave earth who stayed there. I don't think the original blade runner made as big of a deal about it though.
 

HariKari

Member
Yes be prepared for some intense seat transistor rumbling during the Spinner scenes

Atmos makes the ending sequence one of the greatest ever IMO. Worth it for that alone.

Is it even better than whatever sound system they have in IMAX? I saw it twice in that.

Yes. Legit IMAX theaters are a bit of a mess, you don't know what you are getting, with many of them being old. AMC's Liemax isn't super great. The Dolby Cinemas are all new and standardized. Unless a movie is shot specifically for IMAX, it's Dolby Cinema for me from now on.
 

hydruxo

Member
I think K's closure was fine. Seeing the Joi ad after being spoken to by the rebellious replicants and accepting that he wasn't special was fine. The last shot of him lying down on the steps was good. What I meant was how the story shifted over to Deckard despite his having 20-30 minutes of screentime, and ending with him holding out his hand on the window. It just felt unearned and fell emotionally flat for me.

Yeah I felt that way too. Didn't hurt the movie for me necessarily but when that ending happened I was just kind of indifferent about it. I think they waited too far into the film to reintroduce Deckard and it kind of hurt the ending's impact in that respect.
 
I think K's closure was fine. Seeing the Joi ad after being spoken to by the rebellious replicants and accepting that he wasn't special was fine. The last shot of him lying down on the steps was good. What I meant was how the story shifted over to Deckard despite his having 20-30 minutes of screentime, and ending with him holding out his hand on the window. It just felt unearned and fell emotionally flat for me.

Hmm... That wasn't my experience. I'm personally of the opinion that it was earned if only due to the fact that it's essentially a continuation from the narrative of the first movie. At least that last part was. And while Deckard only popped up for the last, I don't know, 50 minutes or so, the daughter is actually the narrative through line of the movie.

But if it didn't hit you, then it didn't hit you I suppose. I could really empathize, and was touched emotionally by the ending.
 
Only the rich elite I thought?

There are plebs off-world, too. Space travel, though, is still expensive. Imagine Earth as a planetwide third world. Aside from locals and soldiers and traders, you'll get well-off tourists and interplanetary executives.

Ordinary people may have android slaves and typically they have a higher quality of life than they would have if they had remained on earth. But you won't see them visiting earth. There's nothing much the for them anyway.
 

Theodoricos

Member
I actually thought that all those advertisements about a better life off-world are just propaganda and life is even worse in the colonies.
 

NateDog

Member
I think K's closure was fine. Seeing the Joi ad after being spoken to by the rebellious replicants and accepting that he wasn't special was fine. The last shot of him lying down on the steps was good. What I meant was how the story shifted over to Deckard despite his having 20-30 minutes of screentime, and ending with him holding out his hand on the window. It just felt unearned and fell emotionally flat for me.
I liked this aspect and think it fitted well but mainly because it was continuing on Deckard's story from Blade Runner, but in the context of this movie I can understand why you and others feel this, it does come out a little quick and the rather abrupt end at that point - while working for me - is probably the part that was the issue.
 
Going to see this, again, this saturday. Third time, and I am super pumped to see this movie again.

This movie can't come out on home video soon enough

4K blu-ray Pre-order? [✓]
3D Pre-order? [✓]
OG blu-ray Pre-order? [✓]

MY WALLET IS
'NT
READY
 

Robot Pants

Member
Going to see this, again, this saturday. Third time, and I am super pumped to see this movie again.

This movie can't come out on home video soon enough

4K blu-ray Pre-order? [✓]
3D Pre-order? [✓]
OG blu-ray Pre-order? [✓]

MY WALLET IS
'NT
READY

Where is the 3D listed?
 

smisk

Member
Blade Runner is an interesting series in that there are potentially dozens of other worlds besides earth, but we never see them. Most sci-fi would put a big focus on extra-solar travel, but these films show us what's left.
Based on how sparsely populated everywhere seems to be in 2049, do we assume that almost everyone able has abandoned a ruined Earth for greener pastures?

Edit: It may not be fair to say it's sparsely populated. We don't get the crowded streets of the original film, but there are plenty of people in K's apartment building for instance.
 

BorkBork

The Legend of BorkBork: BorkBorkity Borking
I actually thought that all those advertisements about a better life off-world are just propaganda and life is even worse in the colonies.

That's an interesting take. I'm reminded of the world of another PKD's book, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. In it, Earth is literally baking to death, but people still vastly prefer it to ekeing out a living on Mars where they have to live in hovels.
 
I think K's closure was fine. Seeing the Joi ad after being spoken to by the rebellious replicants and accepting that he wasn't special was fine. The last shot of him lying down on the steps was good. What I meant was how the story shifted over to Deckard despite his having 20-30 minutes of screentime, and ending with him holding out his hand on the window. It just felt unearned and fell emotionally flat for me.

If I had never seen the original then I'd agree, as this was obviously K's story and Deckard feels like a last minute addition, not the main character. But as a direct continuation of Deckard's story from the original I loved it.

Going to see this, again, this saturday. Third time, and I am super pumped to see this movie again.

This movie can't come out on home video soon enough

4K blu-ray Pre-order? [✓]
3D Pre-order? [✓]
OG blu-ray Pre-order? [✓]

MY WALLET IS
'NT
READY
Oh shit, there's a 3D blu-ray too?

Here I go, double dippin again
 
Those audio callbacks to the original movie, holy shit they were inelegant. That was bad anime flashbacks-esque.

The only thing that bothered me was the sound quality. They sounded like they were ripped straight from the blu-ray, while I was expecting something sourced from a master that would be more seamless with the new film.
 
Blade Runner is an interesting series in that there are potentially dozens of other worlds besides earth, but we never see them. Most sci-fi would put a big focus on extra-solar travel, but these films show us what's left.
Based on how sparsely populated everywhere seems to be in 2049, do we assume that almost everyone able has abandoned a ruined Earth for greener pastures?

Edit: It may not be fair to say it's sparsely populated. We don't get the crowded streets of the original film, but there are plenty of people in K's apartment building for instance.

I get the feeling that most people are offworld but because most of the earth is uninhabitable, the areas that are livable are densely packed. I don't think that the blade runner movies have even shown any livable areas outside of socal
 
Blade Runner is an interesting series in that there are potentially dozens of other worlds besides earth, but we never see them. Most sci-fi would put a big focus on extra-solar travel, but these films show us what's left. .

"Nine worlds
Nine.
Even a child can count to nine on his fingers"

Or something close to that.
 
I get the feeling that most people are offworld but because most of the earth is uninhabitable, the areas that are livable are densely packed. I don't think that the blade runner movies have even shown any livable areas outside of socal

There are subtle hints that the planet is still a going concern, though only just. For instance the Soviet Union still exists in 2049 and its advertising holograms are seen in Los Angeles.

This is an echo from the 1968 novel where after a world war that wrecked the environment, the United States and the Soviet Union are now on friendly terms. Rick kills an android who poses as a visiting Soviet policeman, and another who pretends to be a German opera singer. At one point Rick in the novel refers to the record number of retirements in one day, seven, in Chicago.

In a film you don't have much time so this kind of detail is omitted.
 

Mechazawa

Member
Just got back from viewing this.

Still collecting my thoughts, but I really appreciated that they maintained the ambiguity of Deckard's status as a replicant. Unless I missed something, the only big tell was the Gaff cameo of him mentioning Deckard's eyes.
 
I really enjoyed this movie. Better than the original imo, which I watched just before going to the theater.

The plot was more intriguing and appealing to me, the relationships between K, Joi and the humans were also a great addition. The original one with Deckard, felt like he didn't really have any connection with the world or other characters except Rachael.

And in 2049, Wallace and his female replicant secretary/soldier were more interesting villains. And I liked how we have a better idea of Earth's situation.

Definitely a great sci-fi movie and one of the best cyberpunk.
 

Sub_Level

wants to fuck an Asian grill.
And in 2049, Wallace and his female replicant secretary/soldier were more interesting villains. .

Her character's name is Luv (the scene where she introduces herself she says her name fast so it is easy to miss). And yea I loved her. She has some sort of daddy complex going on while also having some sort of dominatrix thing going on. It's both hilarious and badass.
 
There are subtle hints that the planet is still a going concern, though only just. For instance the Soviet Union still exists in 2049 and its advertising holograms are seen in Los Angeles.

This is an echo from the 1968 novel where after a world war that wrecked the environment, the United States and the Soviet Union are now on friendly terms. Rick kills an android who poses as a visiting Soviet policeman, and another who pretends to be a German opera singer. At one point Rick in the novel refers to the record number of retirements in one day, seven, in Chicago.

In a film you don't have much time so this kind of detail is omitted.

I'm sure that other places exist but I sort of envision it like judge dredd where thete are a few massive cities and everything in between is in ruins. Hence there are no animals and there is some kind of food crisis.

Do they ever mention the United States in blade runner?
 
I'm sure that other places exist but I sort of envision it like judge dredd where thete are a few massive cities and everything in between is in ruins. Hence there are no animals and there is some kind of food crisis.

Do they ever mention the United States in blade runner?

Yes, the cities are where the people live. The people are few and they huddle together for company. I don't know anything about Judge Dredd. The amphibians, reptiles, and mammals are all on the way out if not actually extinct, and the few remaining animals are kept as part of new religion based on empathy.

The title of Philip K Dick's original novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, is in part a reference to the fake sheep Rick uses to conceal the fact that his sheep has died and he can't afford to buy another.

The entire film Blade Runner reduces earth to a single city. It's as if all of humanity were huddled together in one place, at least from a cinematic viewpoint. Geopolitics might be somewhat different.
 
I get the feeling that most people are offworld but because most of the earth is uninhabitable, the areas that are livable are densely packed. I don't think that the blade runner movies have even shown any livable areas outside of socal

In the first movie, people aren't tightly packed. Sebastian lives in a mostly-empty building.

Something happened in the intervening 30 years that jacked up the population density in LA.
 
In the first movie, people aren't tightly packed. Sebastian lives in a mostly-empty building.

Something happened in the intervening 30 years that jacked up the population density in LA.

Using the whole of San Diego County as a giant rubbish dump might have a small effect. After the dirty bomb the people of Las Vegas might have migrated westwards, too.
 
In the first movie, people aren't tightly packed. Sebastian lives in a mostly-empty building.

Something happened in the intervening 30 years that jacked up the population density in LA.

In the original PKD book, they say that Sebastian (who I think has a different name but is the same character) lives in an abandoned area that isn't part of LA Proper. The movie never comes out and says that but I think it implies it.
 
In the original PKD book, they say that Sebastian (who I think has a different name but is the same character) lives in an abandoned area that isn't part of LA Proper. The movie never comes out and says that but I think it implies it.

In the movie, he specifically says that people have all moved off-world leaving lots of space.

Dekkard also has a pretty big place.

I don't think LA is crowed in the original except for the streets where businesses are. Nothing like the tiny apartment K has and the crowds living on the stairs on the way up.
 

diaspora

Member
In the first movie, people aren't tightly packed. Sebastian lives in a mostly-empty building.

Something happened in the intervening 30 years that jacked up the population density in LA.
Catastrophic food and pollution crisis that was staved off with Wallace's synthetic farming.
 

Kadayi

Banned
Just came back from a second viewing - Holy crap, did that go by fast. Felt even less like a 2h30m movie to me the second time around. A lot of the scene also resonated more emotionally for me this time, like the ending, and Deckard talking to K about Rachael. Great movie, gonna keep my third watch for when the bluray comes out. Don't want to risk it getting stale.

Much the same. I found the second viewing pretty rewarding on picking up a lot of the nuances in the conversation that were occasionally lost in the initial spectacle. Pondering a third cinema viewing, because it was just that good. Another guy at work saw it last weekend and enthused about it to a few others, and having validated my enthusiasm a fair few more are planning to see it now. Also, the same dude is planning on going again himself because he enjoyed it that much. For all the shit that has been thrown at this film from some quarters, I think it's pretty interesting that there's a surprising amount of repeat viewership from those who are into it.

Really curious to see how it does in Japan.
 
In the original PKD book, they say that Sebastian (who I think has a different name but is the same character) lives in an abandoned area that isn't part of LA Proper. The movie never comes out and says that but I think it implies it.

The novel is set in San Francisco, and John Isidore lives in a deserted neighbourhood on the peninsula south of the city.

In the film, his analogue JF Sebastian has the whole of the Bradbury Building in Los Angeles to himself.
 

Adry9

Member
Just got back from a second viewing. Love this movie, it truly is something.

Somehow Joi felt less "human" to me this time. Probably because I knew she was jumping the gun with the whole "K you are the chosen one" thing and gets over excited. But maybe that's just a thing people tend to do when they are in love with someone and think of them as a god. Also, I got the feeling her love was real but implanted at the same time. So, real but wrong. I don't know if that makes any sense. I need to get my thoughts together.
 
Saw it for the third time, today. I'll be buying the blu-ray next.

This movie might not tell a love story, but it's probably the greatest movie about love.
 
6:30 tomorrow lol


fLV93dGl.jpg
 
Alright I take back what I said about the soundtrack, it's actually pretty great. It really became more noticeable during my second viewing. It's still no match for what Vangelis did, but it worked very well for 2049.

Edit: Mesa is so good.
 

Zaventem

Member
That part with the large hologram JOI on the bridge hurt my soul even though i knew it was coming. Movie was great, no idea why they tried to sell it like a high octane action flick.
 
I'm kind of astonished at how a few people are saying this film is better than the original? Yes, visually it is, but that isn't quite fair as it has more modern tech and a bigger budget. It also has some better overall acting, and I feel that's partly because Vill, happens to be better with his actors, specifically in the case of Ford and Gosling.

The film has some weak points to me, especially the stuff with Ford. Though that can't be avoided much, as the actor really is old and fat and 'out of It's.

Movie is great though, just not a masterpiece. The major difference I see between this and the original, beyond both being 'quite good' is this one seemed to have a rushed engine and seemed unfinished. That's because this film was obviously made with sequels in mind, which I fear it will not receive due to it's box office performance.
 

Link

The Autumn Wind
The only thing that bothered me was the sound quality. They sounded like they were ripped straight from the blu-ray, while I was expecting something sourced from a master that would be more seamless with the new film.
I think the relatively poor sound quality was intentional. Remember, these are recordings from before the blackout that had to be restored. Much like the video orbs, they're far from perfect.
 

louiedog

Member
Woo! Theater finally put up the weekend and next week times. I was worried it'd be gone but I still have a chance to catch it in the Dolby theater.
 
I'm kind of astonished at how a few people are saying this film is better than the original? Yes, visually it is, but that isn't quite fair as it has more modern tech and a bigger budget. It also has some better overall acting, and I feel that's partly because Vill, happens to be better with his actors, specifically in the case of Ford and Gosling.

The film has some weak points to me, especially the stuff with Ford. Though that can't be avoided much, as the actor really is old and fat and 'out of It's.

Movie is great though, just not a masterpiece. The major difference I see between this and the original, beyond both being 'quite good' is this one seemed to have a rushed engine and seemed unfinished. That's because this film was obviously made with sequels in mind, which I fear it will not receive due to it's box office performance.

I think this has far more satisfying pacing and a better narrative arc than the original. The original is certainly a masterpiece in a lot of ways, and hits higher heights than this film, but it also feels strangely narrow in scope and like it doesn't explore what IS there particularly comprehensively.

I agree on the ending being a bit rushed in 2049.
 

HariKari

Member
Really enjoyed the movie but could someone explain to me what is that whole "Baseline" thing exactly?

It's a word association game. The original VK test was meant to test empathy. The baseline test is meant to test for emotional responses, pauses, hesitations etc... It's like an apathy test.

Interrogator: "Recite your baseline."
K: "And blood-black nothingness began to spin... A system of cells interlinked within cells interlinked within cells interlinked within one stem... And dreadfully distinct against the dark, a tall white fountain played."
Interrogator: "Cells."
Interrogator: "Have you ever been in an institution? Cells."
Interrogator: "Do they keep you in a cell? Cells."
Interrogator: "When you're not performing your duties do they keep you in a little box? Cells."
Interrogator: "Interlinked."
Interrogator: "What's it like to hold the hand of someone you love? Interlinked."
Interrogator: "Did they teach you how to feel finger to finger? Interlinked."
Interrogator: "Do you long for having your heart interlinked? Interlinked."
Interrogator: "Do you dream about being interlinked... ?"
Interrogator: "What's it like to hold your child in your arms? Interlinked."
Interrogator: "Do you feel that there's a part of you that's missing? Interlinked."
 
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