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[Flipyap]

So one question. Joi is programmed to say whatever K wants to hear. But after the sex scene, the morning after when he's taking a shower Joi pops up to tell the other girl to leave whilst looking jealous. What was the point of that interaction if K couldn't hear it? And, if K liked that girl wouldn't Joi be programmed to also be nice to her and not jealous?

He's attracted to her, that doesn't mean he wants to be friends with her.

Bronson also brought up the interesting point that she took a big risk bringing someone home to "be" her. At first K refused and she kept pushing. That's not really something that makes much sense for a computer program designed to simply please. He very easily could have been like "what are you doing, you want me to be with someone else now?!"

The program already recognized his interest and K certainly ended up being pleased. He likes to play coy because he wants to be the good guy in that "relationship" and this allowed him to say that hiring a prostitute was her idea. It sounds like the kind of dude fantasy the product was designed to handle.
It's not a coincidence that he never refuses any of her acts of "disobedience."

 

[Dice//]

Just came back from seeing it, excellent and a very deserved sequel. One of few movie sequels that really complements the original movie well.

Some things I was curious about:

1) I probably missed it, but was there ever two kids/twins (one clone), or was it always the girl only, with memories implanted into K for some specific reason? My take was that Deckard messed up the records to make it like the boy only lives, but I can't connect it to why K has those memories. Was he always created to be a decoy?
2) I am also curious what people's take on JOI is, and if she really loved K. The nudie hologram scene (great one, btw) hammered home that it was all fake, but the way JOI acted around him made me second-guess it. Especially the prostitute sex scene; when JOI morphs onto the prostitute, the shifting hologram indicated JOI is way more into making out/loving K than the prostitute.
3) What parts of the daughter's memories were true? How did she end up living in the bubble, is she actually diseased, how come Wallace never suspected her etc.?

Someone can probably answer these better, but my impressions:

1) I think the twins story was meant to serve as a distraction where the male twin was sent to the orphanage and the story was the female died. This turned to be a clever diversion as it's the female who lived, the boy didn't exist, but made to think it was real as both a real and eventually an implanted memory. So there's just one sibling. They wanted to cover their tracks as well as they could to prevent her birth from marking her as a curiosity to be observed and dissected (which clearly Wallace has no remorse in doing to his 'creations')

My thought is that she always had the horse (with her birthday written on it?) as a memento from her birth parents that she never met (Deck split before the kid was born and Rachel died during). She implanted the memories with replicants to...perhaps create a wider net of who would be investigating her mystery by literally sharing the memory with replicants who simply had memories 'installed' into them. And lo and behold, LAPD investigator K came along and did just that.

2) The last few posts above talk about that too, but the consensus is Joi's clear jealousy over Mariette is a sign that she clearly cares for K and exhibiting her own sense of self and thought; programming or not doesn't matter; heck maybe she's even gone beyond her programming into a thinking-and-feeling-for-herself AI. The shame is that her face is popular enough to be used for ads everywhere, but the entire movie deals in the fact that 'artificial beings' have been made real enough that their emotions must surely be real as well. What is it to be human other than the fact we can remember these things that make us us?

3) Wallace never suspecting her was odd and I'd have loved to learn the 'biology' of replicants. Alas, since it seem Rachel had bones and replicants can apparently reproduce then how different can they possibly be from real people?
I personally wanted to think her autoimmune disease is a result of her...interesting biology (I don't have evidence, but it'd be kinda cool, right?).

 

[III-V]

I thought Deckard's claim that "Rachel's eyes were green" was supposed to tie back into Selline's comment that memories weren't accurate and that it was the emotional aspect, not factual accuracy, that made a good memory. Deckard doesn't actually remember the color of her eyes, not factually, but he has spent 30 years reminiscing and developing this one perfect image of Rachel in his head, one that Wallace can't ever replicate.

thats interesting, I will have to keep that in mind on the next watch and see if it carries water for me.

 

[Johnlenham]

Just came back from seeing it, excellent and a very deserved sequel. One of few movie sequels that really complements the original movie well.

Some things I was curious about:

1) I probably missed it, but was there ever two kids/twins (one clone), or was it always the girl only, with memories implanted into K for some specific reason? My take was that Deckard messed up the records to make it like the boy only lives, but I can't connect it to why K has those memories. Was he always created to be a decoy?

The memories wernt in him specifically, everyone who appeared with the one eyed woman had them, she even says as much.

 

[kanuuna]

Aside from the music which was 'just' good (not Johannson's best score in my opinion, and not really comparable to Vangelis), this was pretty outstanding. You can definitely see that it's a Villeneuve film - reminded me a lot of

Spoiler

Incendies and Prisoners

. So many cool scenes and, well, things. I love sci-fi thing (favorite thing here:

Spoiler

Baseline test

) Nothing felt padded, and I definitely enjoyed them lingering on the sets for a few more seconds longer (they do add up to the longer run time) than was needed. I do wonder what a Steve McQueen Blade Runner would look like though.

One aspect I'd say was weaker in this movie compared to the first wasWallace in comparison to Tyrrell. I know, they're not exactly both the same character or filling the same role even, but Wallace really seemed like a more interesting character when he wasn't actually on screen. Jared Leto definitely played the part well, but the character didn't really seem to offer much else than the riddles he spoke in. I guess I could also say the same about the Replicant rebel leader lady, now that I think about it.
Great movie, though Not sure I'll watch it again in 3D as I originally intended. I feel like I made the right choice seeing this one in 2D for the first time. I imagine there'd be some fatigue at the end of it with the glasses and all.

Also baseline test scenes: cool shit.

edit: Having just learned Johann Johannson didn't actually score the film I feel like an idiot. Perhaps that goes to explain why it didn't sound a whole lot like his previous work.

 

[Johnlenham]

Someone can probably answer these better, but my impressions:

As far as I could tell, that was something Deckard gave her at birth as it pans across his "room" and shows other carved animals like an elephant.

Aside from the music which was 'just' good (not Johannson's best score in my opinion, and not really comparable to Vangelis),

Johannson was booted off and replaced with hans zimmer btw

 

[nhlducks35]

When it gets to 45 seconds on "Mesa"

 

[WadiumArcadium]

When it gets to 45 seconds on "Mesa"

Mesa, Sea Wall and Tears in the Rain are the soundtrack's highlights. I've been listening to them on repeat since I watched the film.

 

[AuthenticM]

Where can you buy the OSTs of the original movie and this new one digitally?

 

[watershed]

Aesthetically the score was the most disappointing part of the film. It was a very predictable Zimmer score with the only notable or even emotional moments being the callbacks to the original Bladerunner score.

Maybe the music wasn't asked to do much beyond provide some drone sounds and bass but it does seem like a missed opportunity to explore some cool soundscapes given the strength of the visuals and some of the themes in the film.

 

[radios shipping overview]

The shame is that her face is popular enough to be used for ads everywhere, but the entire movie deals in the fact that 'artificial beings' have been made real enough that their emotions must surely be real as well. What is it to be human other than the fact we can remember these things that make us us?

Yeah, this reminds me of something that corroborates the point. We see an inert replicant (or a model) in Wallace's headquarters that has the same design as Sapper/Bautista. That doesn't invalidate the existence of Sapper or mean that he doesn't have agency in the world. He's not unique physically, but the accumulation of his experiences makes him unique.

 

[BeeDog]

Thanks guys for your replies, makes it clearer.

 

[Curious Puppy]

Aesthetically the score was the most disappointing part of the film. It was a very predictable Zimmer score with the only notable or even emotional moments being the callbacks to the original Bladerunner score.

Maybe the music wasn't asked to do much beyond provide some drone sounds and bass but it does seem like a missed opportunity to explore some cool soundscapes given the strength of the visuals and some of the themes in the film.

This makes no sense. Did you even listen to Mesa and Seawall?

 

[Adry9]

No, she was in the background looking at stuff in that scene.

I'm 100% sure K "turned her off" as soon as Deckard called him before the fight.

This is a hint that Joi has genuine feelings and has her own agency regardless of whether K is in the room.

The film isn't conclusive on whether Joi is sentient or not, so it's interesting to see folks in here decide definitively that the giant hologram scene means that she has no thoughts of her own.

I think the tragedy is that any instance of Joi is capable of becoming self-aware and gaining her own agency, but each Joi starts with the same basic set of initial parameters and behaviors, and many may never end up growing into self-awareness. And it's that Wallace is copying off all these instances of an AI with so much potential as a living being whose only commercial purpose is wish fulfillment.

Basically, the way I see it is that any instance of Joi can become like the AI in Her, and K's Joi is on this path before she's killed.

Also, with the name: Joi, Luv - modified spellings of emotional states.

That's what I had in mind, maybe I'm reaching thought.


But either way, I think it's awesome we can have these kind of discussions. What an amazing movie.

 

[darkwing-buck]

I want Luv to punch me in the face. *swoon*

 

[valkyre]

It seemed like ages.

 

[Sub_Level]

Saw this in imax yesterday alone. Never been so immersed in a movie's world before.

Cried at the end when K died. I wasn't even hyped for this. Was not prepared for any sort of feels. The movie did such a good job of replicating the existentialism and sense of "feeling lonely in a city of billions" that was so pervasive in the original. Joi took the question of what sentience means even further by having no physical manifestation at all. Yes she is predisposed to fulfill K'd fantasies but I like to think there was a genuine love there.

The soundtrack's heavy synth fit the oppressive atmosphere perfectly. The violence, the rain, prostitution, the lights...this was true cyberpunk. Wallace was creepy as fuck, a nice juxtaposition to Tyrell who was perhaps portrayed as too vulnerable. His 'angel' was a damn terminator! The part where she is getting her nails done while dropping modern warfare 2 predator missiles on scavengers..."do your fucking job". Savage lol. And the fight with Deckard in the Elvis show with the show audio intermittently cutting in was masterfully done. A less inspired approach would have had the audio play normally in some lame attempt at humor (and they still injected a joke at the end of this for levity anyways). And can I say thank you to whoever made the gunshouts loud and impactful as fuck. Because that's how loud gunshots from a high caliber handgun are supposed to be. Hot damn.

As for the box office bomb, thats a shame. But Dredd suffered the same fate and that was another cyberpunk masterpiece. Blade Runner 2049 is in good company and the people who worked on it should be proud.

 

[Dice//]

Yeah, this reminds me of something that corroborates the point. We see an inert replicant (or a model) in Wallace's headquarters that has the same design as Sapper/Bautista. That doesn't invalidate the existence of Sapper or mean that he doesn't have agency in the world. He's not unique physically, but the accumulation of his experiences makes him unique.

Yes!!

The film is very clever, it tries to show you how replaceable replicants are, but everything said and shown in the film, the reactions, the memories, the tears emphasizes it clearly means something.

People here asking if Decklan human, or saying that Joi is JUST a hologram in a sea of others like her, or that K was just another "chosen one" amongst a giant group of replicants are missing the point and, with respect to that world they're in, part of the problem of seeing them as fake-humans.

The movie ALWAYS tells you how real replicants are, no matter how they were created, but prides in how off-putting and depressing it is when the rest of the world tells you that you're worthless or attempts to invalidate their thoughts and inferior to the real thing simply because they were created.... The truth was the differences between humans and replicants were a closing gap --- in fact, replicants with their heightened physiology, would probably be better "successors" for humanity.

 

[TAJ]

Johannson was booted off and replaced with hans zimmer btw

I need to hear the score that they threw out. There's no way that it could be worse, I say having somehow never heard a score by the man.

 

[StopMakingSense]

I really don't understand what happened in the end action scene.

"They weren't high enough?" What?

Turn around, oh we were crashing anyways.

What did they even land on that was slowly sinking? (on one side?)

K's car seemed to be parked really close, but then far enough to not be in the water at all.

What?



Loved the movie, don't get me wrong, but that was super confusing.

 

[The English Conquistador]

The first shot of her walking (essentially the HD version of her first shot in the first film) was surreal.

Surreal is exactly right man. I saw this in IMAX and I literally turned to my friend and whispered "Holy shit..." when she showed up.

I couldn't process it at first. Like, generally my mind would go straight to Oh that's great looking CG! But the walk from the shadows towards Deckard...not a discrepancy in her 1982 appearance at all. I couldn't fathom how they did it. Regardless of her mouth being a little off, it was one of the most impressive moments in this film.

 

[Jarmel]

Just came out. Yea this might be better than the original.

I listened to the OST a couple of days ago and wasn't that hot on it. In the movie it's absolutely fucking perfect for what type of film this is. This is a super bleak and imposing film on all fronts and the sound direction matches it. The original score is more ethereal while this is punishing. It nail the mood Villenueve is going for.

 

[BeeDog]

A few spontaneous notes on highlights:

- Luv was a fantastic villain. Obviously not very well-developed, but fantastically acted and she had some cool quirks.
- The baseline test scenes were awesome.
- The giant hologram scene was awesome too.
- The drone bombing scene was dope; was surprised to see body parts and people clearly being ripped apart there.
- The Elvis scene was fucking amazing, I thought. And the same with the initial dump crash, when JOI was glitching out.

 

[tonysidaway]

So one question. Joi is programmed to say whatever K wants to hear. But after the sex scene, the morning after when he's taking a shower Joi pops up to tell the other girl to leave whilst looking jealous. What was the point of that interaction if K couldn't hear it? And, if K liked that girl wouldn't Joi be programmed to also be nice to her and not jealous?

I would have to watch the scene again, but to me at the time it simply looked as if she was paying the girl off and asking her to leave. The real girl reacted in a hostile way, but perhaps Joi's coldness upset her because it contrasted with her demeanour in Joe's presence.

 

[Dice//]

I really don't understand what happened in the end action scene.

"They weren't high enough?" What?

Turn around, oh we were crashing anyways.

What did they even land on that was slowly sinking? (on one side?)

K's car seemed to be parked really close, but then far enough to not be in the water at all.

What?

I was completely confused where the 'final battle' took place, I just assume it was somewhere with a tide and was slowly carrying the hover-car out to sea.

IIRC the OST track playing there is called "sea wall"... I'm just gonna assume it was somewhere around Cali's new fucked up coastline.

...or around Trump's darkest timeline where the stupid wall was built.
ba dum tss

 

[Jarmel]

I'm glad now the score isn't more like Vangelis's work in the original. The tone in this movie is almost 180 compared to the original and if it sounded too similar to its predecessor then it would end up betraying that atmosphere and tone.

 

[teiresias]

I thought the "sex" scene was one of the more amazing things I've seen in a while.

Any other film would have had the other girl morph into Joi and just go from there. The fact that he played with the whole "syncing" thing through the entire scene was amazingly well done.

 

[robotrock]

I'm glad now the score isn't more like Vangelis's work in the original. The tone in this movie is almost 180 compared to the original and if it sounded too similar to its predecessor then it would end up betraying that atmosphere and tone.

Yeah, totally. Wonder if they ever even contacted him.

 

[III-V]

I'm 100% sure K "turned her off" as soon as Deckard called him before the fight.

I will watch for that next go-around. It does have some different implications if she can power on herself.

 

[Sub_Level]

CELLS INTERLINKED
WITHIN CELLS
INTERLINKED
CELLS

 

[Jarmel]

Yeah, totally. Wonder if they ever even contacted him.

That second interrogation/call-response scene would not have worked near as well from a direction standpoint without the sound mixing and OST blasting you right in your eardrums.

 

[kanuuna]

Johannson was booted off and replaced with hans zimmer btw

Shame, and a big shame at that. At least there's Disasterpeace's score for David Robert Mitchell's upcoming detective film to look forward to, so we'll probably get one really good soundtrack to a similar kind of film this year.

 

[Ordinaryundone]

I really don't understand what happened in the end action scene.

"They weren't high enough?" What?

Turn around, oh we were crashing anyways.

What did they even land on that was slowly sinking? (on one side?)

K's car seemed to be parked really close, but then far enough to not be in the water at all.

What?



Loved the movie, don't get me wrong, but that was super confusing.

There is a huge sea wall that borders LA in the movie, presumably to keep out the rising ocean levels. You can see it more clearly in the scene where K and Joi leave town. You can also see what I presume was a space ship parked near it. Luv was taking Deckard out of the city, past the sea wall to a ship to take him off world, but when they get attacked they are forced to turn around but can't get enough altitude to actually clear the wall, crashing into the "beach" on its side which is where K parks.

 

[Skel1ingt0n]

Is there anything to “get” with the Baseline Test?

Like, I understand the *point.* But for the viewer, are the words and patterns just nonsense?

 

[tonysidaway]

Is there anything to “get” with the Baseline Test?

Like, I understand the *point.* But for the viewer, are the words and patterns just nonsense?

It's a fragment of a poem from Vladimir Nabokov's 1962 novel Pale Fire.

That's also the novel in Joe's flat.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www....16/blade-runner-2049-the-mysteries-deepen/amp

 

[StopMakingSense]

edit: misunerstood the question

 

[darkwing-buck]

edit: misunerstood the question

Retire means kill right? lol

 

[Adry9]

CELLS INTERLINKED
WITHIN CELLS
INTERLINKED
CELLS

Lol

Does someone have a transcript of the whole thing?

 

[gtvdave]

The entire intro scene for the head of the company (Wallace?), where he eventually kills his newest model by slicing her across the belly/womb...I have no idea what the point of that scene was. It was weird for the sake of being weird and I thought it kicked the film down a peg.

My interpretation of that scene is this. I think it is a great character-defining moment:

Wallace wants Replicants to obey their masters. He is a controlling Creator, a "God" if you will or at least he thinks he is. He does not want to give them free will to avoid another rebellion. It is not good for business and his plans for Replicant kind.

Wallace wants to keep profiting from slavery until Replicants become dominant force of space colonization (watch Nexus Dawn short). Him slicing the belly of his newest model indicates that Replicant procreation is something he wants to supress (EDIT: unless controlled) in order to keep Replicants from "what makes humans vulnerable" and ultimately too weak to colonize other systems.

Ability to procreate makes Replicants more human than ever before. Beings with desires, the need to be loved and wanted. The process of upbringing is deeply human and attachment is crucial for it to succeed. It is an unnecessary process his (EDIT: current) technology skips altogether (EDIT: but he wants to achieve it to make Replicants lives more worthy to humans). Replicants being (EDIT: prone to rebellion) is a design weakness to him and threat to his "supreme" endeavours.

Wallace's actions are probably linked with his past suffering as a child. Human attachment is something he does not value. He wants to avoid pain and therefore devalued emotional aspect of his newest Nexus models. Replicants are (EDIT: supreme beings to him, less prone to emotional response).

 

[Ordinaryundone]

Is there anything to “get” with the Baseline Test?

Like, I understand the *point.* But for the viewer, are the words and patterns just nonsense?

No, it's worded like the VK test to deliberately try to get a rise out of the recipient. Stuff like "Do they keep you in a box? Have you ever felt love? Can you feel at all?" Basically anything that isn't INTERLOCKING CELLS is insult, take those words out next time you listen to it.

 

[Escape Goat]

Rachel's incept date is May 26, 2017 and she dies about 4 years later.

... during childbirth.

Wait, what? Isn’t she a replicant though? If so, how does that work?

 

[valkyre]

How did Joe, find the transport unit of Deckart at the climax of the movie? I probably missed something, but for a movie/franchise that is about finding leads, it seemed really convenient that he happened to know exactly where the transport was.

Anyone? Its bugging me. lol.

 

[Jarmel]

How did Joe, find the transport unit of Deckart at the climax of the movie? I probably missed something, but for a movie/franchise that is about finding leads, it seemed really convenient that he happened to know exactly where the transport was.

Anyone? Its bugging me. lol.

Underground resistance was probably watching Wallace's lair and told K.

 

[watershed]

This makes no sense. Did you even listen to Mesa and Seawall?

Makes no sense as in opinions are hard for you? The music is not very varied throughout and drones and distorted horns and sirens characterize most of the music.

 

[Ordinaryundone]

How did Joe, find the transport unit of Deckart at the climax of the movie? I probably missed something, but for a movie/franchise that is about finding leads, it seemed really convenient that he happened to know exactly where the transport was.

Anyone? Its bugging me. lol.

Seemed like he just tracked them using that drone he had attached to his car.

 

[Toa TAK]

So which one's more interesting:

a) Deckard is a replicant himself and was able to repoduce with Rachel

or

b) Deckard is just a man who knocked up a replicant?

 

[Jarmel]

So which one's more interesting:

a) Deckard is a replicant himself and was able to repoduce with Rachel

or

b) Deckard is just a man who knocked up a replicant?

Probably b as that would mean human genomes and Replicant genomes are close enough that they can create a living being.

 

[hamchan]

Batista starting to become a respectable actor,who would have thought.

Oh yea movie was pretty fucking great as well, prefer it over the original for sure. Cinematography with the sound track was worth the price of admission alone.

I'm so happy for Batista. He was fantastic in the short and his small role in this movie. A real magnetic presence on the screen and he showed some proper acting chops too.

 

[Astral]

Joi has a line about the fact that she has been shaped by her memories together with K; every Joi will end up different in the long run. Evolving jealousy is hardly an unexpected outcome.

K presumably had no interest in the call girl beyond surface physical attraction; he makes that very clear when she comes on to him outside the brothel, and even she says "you're not interested in real girls". Joi summons her for use as a sex surrogate/sex object, not as someone with any emotional attachment.

This is a hint that Joi has genuine feelings and has her own agency regardless of whether K is in the room.

The film isn't conclusive on whether Joi is sentient or not, so it's interesting to see folks in here decide definitively that the giant hologram scene means that she has no thoughts of her own.

I think the tragedy is that any instance of Joi is capable of becoming self-aware and gaining her own agency, but each Joi starts with the same basic set of initial parameters and behaviors, and many may never end up growing into self-awareness. And it's that Wallace is copying off all these instances of an AI with so much potential as a living being whose only commercial purpose is wish fulfillment.

Basically, the way I see it is that any instance of Joi can become like the AI in Her, and K's Joi is on this path before she's killed.

Also, with the name: Joi, Luv - modified spellings of emotional states.



I think Deckard said that to fuck with Wallace because he knew that Rachel was fake and he wanted Wallace to feel inadequate as revenge for having tried to get to Deckard in that way. Rachel's eyes are brown. Sean Young's eyes are brown.

Man this is the beauty of this movie. The same arguments for Joi’s love being nothing but programming can be used for genuine love. It’s really impressive to me how perfectly ambiguous it is. That shit takes skill.

 

[Escape Goat]

So which one's more interesting:

a) Deckard is a replicant himself and was able to repoduce with Rachel

or

b) Deckard is just a man who knocked up a replicant?

It can only be option A. I doubt they gave replicants working reproductive organs. So Deckard evolving some semen or Rachel a womb would be nothing short of divine intervention.