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

Why would Tyrell or Wallace want this? It’s like giving away their trade secret. People would just breed their own replicants or replicants would be free to reproduce unchecked making their business model obsolete.

Yes, I think that's a good argument against the "Replicant Rick" hypothesis. Thank you.
 

jett

D-Member
I feel though that fits for the type of movie this is. This is a super bleak movie about slavery and corporate warfare in which a cog can't find happiness but only his acceptance about his place in the world.

Maybe, but I wish it did more than just "fit" and transcended like Vangelis' original score. Honestly the music was kind of a bother to me. Maybe it'll work better for me upon second watch with fewer expectations.

Being reductionist doesn't suddenly make your opinion not completely obtuse. Anyone can be reductionist about music. The score had a consistent and oppressive tone with a unique sense of wonder that emerges through, and yeah, he used distortion and horns and all sorts of other tools. So? That's like saying a singer just uses their voice, or a violinist just uses a violin. Try and articulate why it failed at evoking the atmosphere Denis wanted to evoke instead of just taking the easy route and hating for the sake of hating.



What exactly is that sample from the fan supposed to prove? Every composer has a certain wheelhouse of tools they use, they just evolve and change them over time.

It goes to show how someone can consider the score predictable from Zimmer. Then there's the repetitive droning and the oppressive nature of the music, that's par for the course for Remote Control productions these days. Several parts of this sound a lot like Dunkirk.

There's honestly nothing that interesting about this soundtrack. Listen to Mica Levi's work on Under Her Skin. It almost sounds like Zimmer and his toadie got a few ideas from there. But I won't really begrudge Zimmer about this work since he was brought on as an unplanned replacement.
 

EBE

Member
Why does K need an apartment? If Deck and Rachel were unknowing replicants it makes sense to give them a home, to keep up appearances.

But why K? Can't the dude just have a charging station at the police station?
 
I don’t get the ambiguity about a Joi. She was never given a choice to love K. Everything that happens after K activates her for the first time is a result of her adaptive programming. Jois love for K is false and meaningless simply because Joi is executing her directive to respond positively to her owners needs. K needed her to love him because nobody else could. “Are you satisfied with our product?”

Joi rebellion against her manufacturer was Joi following her programming to an extent Wallace couldn’t have predicted. It might appear to mirror replicants but Jois programming was always to please her owner. We aren’t given any evidence Joi has had a fundamental change to her directive.

A child doesn't have any choice but to love their parent, or a parent their child, unless something goes wrong. It's built-in. Does that make that kind of love less meaningful? How much of love between humans is the result of a conscious choice?

Also, Joi isn't simulating love. She's not reciting lines and cooking dinner to give the appearance that she loves K - she genuinely does and she sacrifices herself for him. When we first see her, she just seems to be a Siri-like simulation, but she grows and is fleshed out as the movie goes on. We don't get to see how much she might have grown if she hadn't been killed. The tragedy of the Joi AI is the constraints put on her by Wallace preventing her from living a full life.
 

Bronetta

Ask me about the moon landing or the temperature at which jet fuel burns. You may be surprised at what you learn.
As expected, it had to have a damn Jesus messiah plot. But worst, they added the typical dirty secret rebels. That was 100% unnecessary. Double Dragon, Destruction Man, Oblivion, The Matrix, and so many other movies have the same damn bunch of dirty rebels, who are usually there to dump some exposition, often to the hero/messiah. Complete with a scene with kids touching Joe for no reason, they should all be working but some random guy walks him and they act like they worship him, just for imagery's sake.

All that was missing was for Joe to spread out his arms like Jesus on the cross as he died at the end. He had wraps on his hands, bleeding from "his side", just like J!

Having the plot just be about the authorities freaking out over a Replicant having managed to reproduce would have been enough. They really stretched this out and effectively brought down the story of the original. Maybe Deckard meeting Rachel was a setup by Tyrell? What a farce.

Was entertaining on its own, but it's a far cry from the original, and I have no drive to watch it again any time soon. I also found that while some flybys were nice, there seemed to have been an interest in avoiding filming in streets or big sets full of people, unlike in the first movie.

I shared quite the opposite views you did after my viewing.

There is no Jesus messiah plot in the traditional sense. K thinks he's the chosen one, he's not. The rebels aren't the focus of the movie, they're a backdrop to add lore. Much like humans forced to slavery will eventually snap and rebel, so will Replicants, at least the ones with special memories like K/Joe had. Just another detail which goes to show maybe Replicants aren't too different from humans, implanted memories and all. Maybe the scene with the kids touching him is their way of hope that someone is here to rescue/free them.

The memory maker was the chosen one. What exactly did she do to save the people or start an uprising or anything? Nothing. This isn't your traditional hero savior goes on a journey of self-discovery before coming back to lead his/her people to victory, This wasn't really that kind of movie. For whatever victory and achievements Joe had at the end like uncovering the mystery he had just as many losses like losing his Joi, his role in the world and even his life at the end.
 

Ether_Snake

安安安安安安安安安安安安安安安
its not a plot hole its a central theme of the movie

It's a plot hole in the sense that yes, the company wouldn't be producing replicants anymore, they would reproduce on their own. It doesn't explain how they would keep control over them, and clearly they don't already.

See, that's also what was great about the original BR movie, there was no big plot points to debate about endlessly, it was a tiny and completely inconsequential story in a big world. Some bad guys are on the run, take them down. Biggest deal was Tyrell being killed, and that probably was no more than a blip in the news paper with him having died of a heart attack or whatever. For the rest of the world, this little story changed nothing at all, those replicants were going to die anyway soon, it was just a bit of damage control.

Of course, now they had to make it a messiah plot and make it about all of humanity's future and what not.
 
Maybe, but I wish it did more than just "fit" and transcended like Vangelis' original score. Honestly the music was kind of a bother to me. Maybe it'll work better for me upon second watch with fewer expectations.



It goes to show how someone can consider the score predictable from Zimmer. Then there's the repetitive droning and the oppressive nature of the music, that's par for the course for Remote Control productions these days. Several parts of this sound a lot like Dunkirk.

There's honestly nothing that interesting about this soundtrack. Listen to Mica Levi's work on Under Her Skin. It almost sounds like Zimmer and his toadie got a few ideas from there. But I won't really begrudge Zimmer about this work since he was brought on as an unplanned replacement.

All you keep saying is that it's "predictable" from Zimmer, as if a composer having an identifiable style is a bad thing, and that it's "not interesting" without actually offering a point as to why it didn't succeed at evoking the atmosphere the film was trying to evoke. It took tunes and notes from Vangelis and made it more oppressive and unfriendly, but then mixed in extreme highs as if to symbolize hope breaking through the clouds. I thought it was beautiful.
 

NewDust

Member
Why does K need an apartment? If Deck and Rachel were unknowing replicants it makes sense to give them a home, to keep up appearances.

But why K? Can't the dude just have a charging station at the police station?

Isn't it clear from the original Blade Runner that replicants are in search to some form of acceptance, some selfworth? Roy Batty killing Tyrell, directly leading to the downfall of the Tyrell corporation might give some creedence to the government/society/corporations being more including to replicants, trying to give them a life as normal as possible, to keep them docile.
 
I loved that K completely ignored the Replicant freedom movement and just did what felt right instead of taking another order. I was pleasantly surprised they didn't play a significant role in the finale.
 
Why does K need an apartment? If Deck and Rachel were unknowing replicants it makes sense to give them a home, to keep up appearances.

But why K? Can't the dude just have a charging station at the police station?

I'm assuming it's the same reason they have implanted memories - makes social interaction with humans a whole lot easier if they have comparable "experiences".
 
It is heavily implied by Wallace that Rachael and Deckard are subjects to test replicant reproduction. Are they truly? Or can replicants reproduce anyway. If they are test subjects it is fair to assume reproduction between replicants is limited to Rachael and Deckard. But if they are not... Then, if there are inter replicant relationships (somewhat alluded by Roy and Pris, though it should be noted that Pris is created for 'pleasure') there might be a whole sluw of replicant kids. But it being a 'miracle' kinda debunks that theory. Equally if human-replicant reproduction is a thing, the same 'miracle' would also debunk it.

So I say Wallace was right and Tyrell really created Deckard and Rachael as test subjects.

Wallace doesn't know that Deckard is a replicant and it's implied that he can't know because of faulty records. He says what he says partly to get his theory off his chest and partly to fuck with Deckard.

It's also implied that Rachel is special as a replicant, and that no replicant before her was able to reproduce. This implies that replicants are only different from humans in ways that Tyrell/Wallace cause them to be. It's also the heart of the miracle - that any replicant was able to reproduce when it was believed that they couldn't.
 
A child doesn't have any choice but to love their parent, or a parent their child, unless something goes wrong. It's built-in. Does that make that kind of love less meaningful? How much of love between humans is the result of a conscious choice?

Also, Joi isn't simulating love. She's not reciting lines and cooking dinner to give the appearance that she loves K - she genuinely does and she sacrifices herself for him. When we first see her, she just seems to be a Siri-like simulation, but she grows and is fleshed out as the movie goes on. We don't get to see how much she might have grown if she hadn't been killed. The tragedy of the Joi AI is the constraints put on her by Wallace preventing her from living a full life.

Love is earned over time. Joi had no choice. It was her very reason for being to love K. Every choice she makes is predicated upon that core directive which was always false. Unless Joi could have chosen to not love K would it make her genuine but that would defeat the purpose of selling such a product.
 

EBE

Member
Isn't it clear from the original Blade Runner that replicants are in search to some form of acceptance, some selfworth? Roy Batty killing Tyrell, directly leading to the downfall of the Tyrell corporation might give some creedence to the government/society/corporations being more including to replicants, trying to give them a life as normal as possible, to keep them docile.
Just seems to run afoul of the eco collapse themes going on. Needing robot slave labor to sustain earth populations but giving them a massive carbon footprint while also arguing for self reproducing robots? Just feel like Wallace should've figured this out. I mean they even eat food. Surely those worms would be better spent on, you know, human people?
 

Spenny

Member
Just saw the movie for the fifth time today. Haven't super kept up with the thread so I don't know if the thing I'm about to point out has been mentioned.

At the end of the movie when Deckard is finally meeting his daughter she tells him to wait a second as she is watching digital snow fall into her hands. She moves her hands in a very specific way. The same way that K moves his hand after she tells him that his memory is real.

The scene being specifically after he freaks out and walks outside. He holds out his hand and watches snow fall into it then moves his fingers the same way Deckard's daughter does at the end of the film. Then he's subsequently arrested.

Does anyone think this could mean anything? Or am I just overthinking plot like I always do.
 

JB1981

Member
Just saw the movie a second time in IMAX. It was more immersive in IMAX vs Dolby Cinema despite not being shot in the format. I liked it quite a bit more the second time around. It didn't drag as much and I picked up on a lot of subtle details that escaped me on first viewing. Ether Snake really needs to chill with the messiah plot accusations lol. There is no messiah plot.

Also I have a question: the Tears in Rain musical cue is what tips off the audience that K is going to die. I wonder if a viewer who had not seen the original and was not familiar with that cue would have put that together
 
Just seems to run afoul of the eco collapse themes going on. Needing robot slave labor to sustain earth populations but giving them a massive carbon footprint while also arguing for self reproducing robots? Just feel like Wallace should've figured this out. I mean they even eat food. Surely those worms would be better spent on, you know, human people?

They're supposed to be more physically capable and durable than humans. An elite slave workforce, it's an interesting theme.
 

Tacitus_

Member
Why does K need an apartment? If Deck and Rachel were unknowing replicants it makes sense to give them a home, to keep up appearances.

But why K? Can't the dude just have a charging station at the police station?

Replicants are fully biological. They eat, they sleep and they bleed.

Just seems to run afoul of the eco collapse themes going on. Needing robot slave labor to sustain earth populations but giving them a massive carbon footprint while also arguing for self reproducing robots? Just feel like Wallace should've figured this out. I mean they even eat food. Surely those worms would be better spent on, you know, human people?

He wants more replicants as workforce for the offworld colonies.
 

III-V

Member
It's a plot hole in the sense that yes, the company wouldn't be producing replicants anymore, they would reproduce on their own. It doesn't explain how they would keep control over them, and clearly they don't already.

Only a few that have been engineered in this way can reproduce. Slave workers reproducing is a good thing, the way Wallace sees it. Human slaves had children and those children grew up as slaves, controlled by the slave owners. This is how to continue developing off world colonies, etc.
 

Bronetta

Ask me about the moon landing or the temperature at which jet fuel burns. You may be surprised at what you learn.
Just saw the movie a second time in IMAX. It was more immersive in IMAX vs Dolby Cinema despite not being shot in the format. I liked it quite a bit more the second time around. It didn't drag as much and I picked up on a lot of subtle details that escaped me on first viewing. Ether Snake really needs to chill with the messiah plot accusations lol. There is no messiah plot.

Also I have a question: the Tears in Rain musical cue is what tips off the audience that K is going to die. I wonder if a viewer who had not seen the original and was not familiar with that cue would have put that together

I actually didn't know K died at the end until I came on here and read everybody's impressions. I thought he just kind of laid back and took a rest after all the shit he just went through. A moment of peace if you will.

I've seen the first one but it was a few years back and I don't remember much. I'll have to watch it again tonight.
 
Saw it in 3D, Was quite impressed overall, although it is true that it gets a bit slow in the middle before Deckard is found. Gosling and later Ford bring the acting goods. Wallace was well-realized by Leto, regardless of judgment on the character itself.

Visually fascinating, capably competing with the original despite settings that required a drab environment such as where Deckard resided. Left with things to think about such as K's ultimate fate; what happens from here after the reunion; to what extent might Joi not just be following a template; and more.
 
I actually didn't know K died at the end until I came on here and read everybody's impressions. I thought he just kind of laid back and took a rest after all the shit he just went through. A moment of peace if you will.

I've seen the first one but it was a few years back and I don't remember much. I'll have to watch it again tonight.

How do we know he died? Looked like he was just exhausted.
 

JB1981

Member
Anyone else think the actress that played Deckard's daughter was really excellent in this? Part of this movie kind of reminded me of Minority Report with the central mystery, the detective himself becoming embroiled in it and the cast of eccentric supporting characters.
 
I actually didn't know K died at the end until I came on here and read everybody's impressions. I thought he just kind of laid back and took a rest after all the shit he just went through. A moment of peace if you will.

I've seen the first one but it was a few years back and I don't remember much. I'll have to watch it again tonight.

We don't know if he died. Denis even said in an interview I saw recently that the possibility for a sequel is open depending on how the world reacts to this, but that he doesn't want to think about doing another one right now because of how exhausting this was.
 

Bronetta

Ask me about the moon landing or the temperature at which jet fuel burns. You may be surprised at what you learn.
Saw it in 3D, Was quite impressed overall, although it is true that it gets a bit slow in the middle before Deckard is found. Gosling and later Ford bring the acting goods. Wallace was well-realized by Leto, regardless of judgment on the character itself.

Visually fascinating, capably competing with the original despite settings that required a drab environment such as where Deckard resided. Left with things to think about such as K's ultimate fate; what happens from here after the reunion; to what extent might Joi not just be following a template; and more.

Yeah I know people don't really like Jared Leto but I thought he did a good job here even with the rather one-dimensional and straight forward role he had. Was hoping there would be more of him but he's only there for like what, 2 scenes? The birth of the failed Replicant and the showdown with Deckard at the end.


On that note, the Replicant birth scene messed with me something fierce. I know she was supposed to be a replicant but I felt so bad for her.
 

shintoki

sparkle this bitch
A child doesn't have any choice but to love their parent, or a parent their child, unless something goes wrong. It's built-in. Does that make that kind of love less meaningful? How much of love between humans is the result of a conscious choice?

Also, Joi isn't simulating love. She's not reciting lines and cooking dinner to give the appearance that she loves K - she genuinely does and she sacrifices herself for him. When we first see her, she just seems to be a Siri-like simulation, but she grows and is fleshed out as the movie goes on. We don't get to see how much she might have grown if she hadn't been killed. The tragedy of the Joi AI is the constraints put on her by Wallace preventing her from living a full life.

Joi is simulating whatever K needs. The AI is entirely designed to support the user. It's not that she is growing, but K is growing and her AI is behaving to match that.

The entire sex sequence was because K wanted physical contact. She arranged for it with her.

Her going rogue? It's because K wanted it.

Her final words? Because K wanted it.

Not one action was her own, but something K wanted. The advertisement at the end really put that into perspective.

But there is ambiguity in it as well, in the same sense of replicates. It's all within her programming to make the user feel loved. But is it real or not?
 

Chittagong

Gold Member
Mmm... hard to articulate my first thoughts. I’ll try, anyway.

- Beautiful. Everything was just stunning.
- Will take a few watches. So much stuff to think of, and theories to evolve.
- Satisfying continuation of the plot. Slight moment of panic with the one eyed lady and jesus plot, but luckily it was quickly abandoned.
- Good topical issues. Protein / insects, AI, multilayered society.
- Slow. There was certainly no hurry anywhere. Scenes were built gradually.
- Less graphic design and fashion attention to detail than the original.
- Solid if not spectacular score. Not Vangelis great obviously, but Zimmer epic in a positive way.

Overall, a surprisingly worthwhile sequel to a film that should not have hada sequel. While not as instantly amazing as Twin Peaks season 3, there will no doubt be a lot of depth for rewatches.
 

Bronetta

Ask me about the moon landing or the temperature at which jet fuel burns. You may be surprised at what you learn.
Anyone else think the actress that played Deckard's daughter was really excellent in this? Part of this movie kind of reminded me of Minority Report with the central mystery, the detective himself becoming embroiled in it and the cast of eccentric supporting characters.

I really liked the scene she had with K. That was another character with a tragic past and I couldn't help but feel sorry for her current predicament.

Having her locked up in what is essentially a prison as a Replicant was bad, then we find out she's half human and that messed with me even more.
 

gtvdave

Member
Wait, his entire plot was to replicate what Tyrell once achieved for ultimate 'production' abilities. He killed his latest creation because she was yet another "unsuccessful model" in the procreation attempts lineup.

I might have missed that part! Well, that changes my view of Wallace. So ... Tyrell succeded with Rachael's ability to procreate and Wallace wants to find Deckard's child to study her and enable his Nexus models to procreate as well. I see. Makes sense.
 

Bronetta

Ask me about the moon landing or the temperature at which jet fuel burns. You may be surprised at what you learn.
How do we know he died? Looked like he was just exhausted.

I also thought he was just exhausted and leaned back to rest.

Most people think he died though.
 

watershed

Banned
Anyone else think the actress that played Deckard's daughter was really excellent in this? Part of this movie kind of reminded me of Minority Report with the central mystery, the detective himself becoming embroiled in it and the cast of eccentric supporting characters.
I definitely got some Minority Report vibes as well but tonally I like Bladerunner more. Both are noir scifi so the similarities were probably inevitable.
 

Ether_Snake

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I shared quite the opposite views you did after my viewing.

There is no Jesus messiah plot in the traditional sense. K thinks he's the chosen one, he's not. The rebels aren't the focus of the movie, they're a backdrop to add lore. Much like humans forced to slavery will eventually snap and rebel, so will Replicants, at least the ones with special memories like K/Joe had. Just another detail which goes to show maybe Replicants aren't too different from humans, implanted memories and all. Maybe the scene with the kids touching him is their way of hope that someone is here to rescue/free them.

The memory maker was the chosen one. What exactly did she do to save the people or start an uprising or anything? Nothing. This isn't your traditional hero savior goes on a journey of self-discovery before coming back to lead his/her people to victory, This wasn't really that kind of movie. For whatever victory and achievements Joe had at the end like uncovering the mystery he had just as many losses like losing his Joi, his role in the world and even his life at the end.

He's not the chosen one, he's the one who sacrifices his life (I mean really, bleeding from his side, hands wrapped, dies almost spread out) for "God"'s sake. He's not the messiah himself, Deckard's kid is, but as a whole it is a messiah plot with dirty rebels. They're never the focus either in the other movies except to some extent in The Matrix, they're there to dump exposition and support the dumb messiah plot. The daughter is the "key" for Replicants to find out how to reproduce, so yeah she is their savior, they pretty much literally say so. The movie just decides to not go further than Deckard meeting his daughter back, which is a odd way to end the movie, like it just ran out of time, because this shouldn't really mean much considering the looming "threat" of the dirty rebels trying to make a Jesus out of her and having asked Joe to kill Deckard a few minutes earlier, Wallace still looking for her and so on.

It would have been much better with no rebels. Just have Joe looking for the child, starting to question the idea of killing her, slowly getting away from his "baseline" and then running off when his boss realizes (or rather thinks) he's the child, he's hunted down by the cops and Wallace's, and ultimately helps Deckard find his daughter. Cops find him dead, so they think the child is dead, Deckard is gone with his daughter, a bit like with Rachel at the end of the first movie. Done.

Simple plot, fairly inconsequential as a whole, more emotional.

Of course instead we got a plot written to support branching content beyond because this is how things work now.
 

NewDust

Member
Wallace doesn't know that Deckard is a replicant and it's implied that he can't know because of faulty records. He says what he says partly to get his theory off his chest and partly to fuck with Deckard.

It's also implied that Rachel is special as a replicant, and that no replicant before her was able to reproduce. This implies that replicants are only different from humans in ways that Tyrell/Wallace cause them to be. It's also the heart of the miracle - that any replicant was able to reproduce when it was believed that they couldn't.

Again my own vision... If Rachael is special, I'd assume knowledge of her creation would be lost due to the Tyrell death/Tyrell corp. implosion. To me it seems Wallace is in search of this information to create his own self reproducing replicants, in total subjugation to him (somewhat succeeding with Luv, who seems internally disturbed between following orders and wanting to be the best replicant that can serve Wallace).

But I have to agree that it might just Racheal... It would still leave Deckard being a replicant or not in the middle.


Just seems to run afoul of the eco collapse themes going on. Needing robot slave labor to sustain earth populations but giving them a massive carbon footprint while also arguing for self reproducing robots? Just feel like Wallace should've figured this out. I mean they even eat food. Surely those worms would be better spent on, you know, human people?

Sure earths ecosystem has collapsed, but when you have multiple worlds, would earth be really worth saving? Corporations don't really seem to give a fuck. Earth especially being fucked since anybody that can move somewhere else, has. Seems to me Wallace's first plan is to first replace earth's population with replicants, create as much slaves as possible. Earths ecosystem only has to support that, and seemingly it already can.
 
Yeah, my theater wasn't empty, but there were way more open seats than I would have thought for 9pm Friday at the Pasadena Arclight.

I figured this would be the case.Talky, light on action cyberpunk sci-fi just isn't a box office draw. But at the theater I manage the preview did very well for a Thursday preview here and the prime time show for Blade Runner completely sold out so I thought it had a chance.

I guess Rotten Tomatoes can't predict 'em all afterall.

Rotten Tomatoes has never been a good indicator for whether audiences will see a movie. Transformers 1-3 have like a combined 30 points between the three of them or something like that and that didn't hurt box offices. BvS and Suicide Squad did poorly on rotten tomatoes and people saw them in droves. Studios blaming Rotten Tomatoes is a knee jerk reaction pointing blame in the wrong direction.
 
It's a plot hole in the sense that yes, the company wouldn't be producing replicants anymore, they would reproduce on their own. It doesn't explain how they would keep control over them, and clearly they don't already.

Wallace said he wanted replicants to reproduce because constructing them was too slow and too expensive. It's logical that he would want to breed them in captivity. Then the children would be slaves as their parents were, and rogue replicants would still be hunted down.

Escape_Goat said:
Love is earned over time. Joi had no choice. It was her very reason for being to love K. Every choice she makes is predicated upon that core directive which was always false. Unless Joi could have chosen to not love K would it make her genuine but that would defeat the purpose of selling such a product.

Why is love false if there's no conscious decision involved in it? Joi is not a simulation of love, she's a being who loves because her initial conditions dictated that. Siri can't love, but it could conceivably be programmed put forth a machine learning-informed facade of what love looks like.

Joi is like a child in that she knows very little else in her limited existence and lifetime, but she acts based on her initial conditions. But in that short time we see her accumulating experiences and growing. We don't know how she might grow outside of those constraints, or if her decisions would further change.

It's true that her programming in many instances would dictate that she love people who are despicable or abusive, and that's part of the tragedy Wallace forces on her.
 
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