This is the only scene in the movie that I think fails it. It seems like the intention of the movie (and Villeneuve's) is to push the idea that K and Joi's relationship wasn't real. I mean, at least that's how K interprets that moment, with him resoluting himself to helping Deckard (supported by what the rebel leader said with "our fight is real" (paraphrasing here)). But that's why it also feels like that's what the people behind the movie also thought. I hate that. I hate it because it feels like Villeneuve and the screenwriter didn't understand's Joi's character. It feels like they failed her. And it's cruel because K ends up believing that Joi didn't really loved him. Which is bullshit.
The only thing different between K and Joi is he is made of DNA, while she is made of 1s and 0s. That's it.
I disagree. I think there's absolutely a strong enough case that the Joi that K knew
did legitimately love him and was her own character. What makes that last scene stand out to me is that it adds in a dash of ambiguity from K's perspective. We the audience can generally feel secure in knowing that Joi genuinely loved K- but now K isn't as sure, which is really goddamn tragic and heartbreaking for both him and Joi.
It's definitely not a happy situation at all, but I think it fits in with the general approach of the story. In one of the recent interviews with Ana de Armas, Sylvia Hoeks and Mackenzie Davis, they talked about how they saw the film as being like an opera at times.
Essentially, K and Joi got royally fucked over by life.
It's probably a bit hokey for others, but I like to generally believe that there is some form of soul and afterlife for these characters in the Blade Runner universe, given the whole blatant dove flying up into the sky moment in the original film when Roy dies and how the recent Watanabe Blade Runner 2022 short features a similar moment with one of its other replicants there.
So hopefully K and Joi found some form of peace in whatever strange digital-analog divinity there is in the BR world.