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[Fallout-NL]

That tear isn't for the Replicant, it's for herself.

Wallace views the newborn as imperfect because it's barren, Luv is desperate to be the best in her daddy's eyes and from this point on she goes out of her way to prove it so she doesn't become obsolete too.

Yeah maybe, that would fit with her lack of empathy for Joi for instance.

 

[Heckler456]

By the way, what are you guys getting from Mariette's line to Joi? Her saying "I've been inside you. There's not as much there as you think".

 

[HariKari]

By the way, what are you guys getting from Mariette's line to Joi? Her saying "I've been inside you. There's not as much there as you think".

Could be literal - possible that she modified Joi in some way. But it's probably just a taunt. A replicant putting down a more limited program, perhaps.

 

[Zakalwe]

By the way, what are you guys getting from Mariette's line to Joi? Her saying "I've been inside you. There's not as much there as you think".

She's looking down on what she perceives to be an inferior lifeform.

Much like humans do with Replicants, she does with AI programs.

I think this says more about Luv's arrogance than it does Joi's potential sentience, especially when both films have set the precedence when it comes to the exploitation of life forms that have the potential to be more than their programming.

It could be either zealous devotion, or conflicted and repressed emotions.

Probably a mix of all of this. Luv's a boiling pot.

 

[NateDog]

Luv and her arc are basically the only thing i didn't like. Anybody got a good explanation how she fits in all of this?

Personally Luv's arc was one of the things I enjoyed most about the movie. The first thing on my first viewing that stood out was how similar to Rachel she looked. She is endlessly subservient to Wallace and his goals and orders, yet in almost everything she does she holds the look of someone torn. She is a replicant that is told she is special and "the best one", much like K is and is led to believe, yet by the end she realises she is just a means to an end for Wallace, like all of the other replicants he either uses as bodybags or simply disposes of as he likes. It seems clear she is at odds with a lot of her orders and what she has to do, and at times (like the tear on her face as she kills the Major) she may not understand why but she feels what she is doing either may be or is wrong.

She is very closed off, and we may never truly know if she had other motivations for finding the child. Was she always going to hand it over to Wallace? She placed such an importance on getting Deckard out of the ship safe that she wavered and didn't ensure she killed K first (and I know some people had hangups on this point as a classic villain-not-finishing-off-the-protagonist thing, but I interpreted it as her realising Deckard could be drowned at any minute and that she was putting his survival above all else, and that her complacency which led her to not finish the job - something she did every other time - suggested she was conflicted to the point where it affected her "performance", something akin to how K's second baseline test went. Maybe she even did this knowingly, putting Deckard's survival above her own. Honestly I found her one of the most intriguing points of the movie and I think there is a huge amount more to her than simply being another toy for Wallace, albeit a more effective one than a lot of other replicants.

 

[Heckler456]

She placed such an importance on getting Deckard out of the ship safe that she wavered and didn't ensure she killed K first

As has been pointed out by other people, she's actually imitating Wallace in that scene. Wallace slices the replicant in the belly, kisses her, and lets her bleed out. Which is what she does too.

 

[Diprosalic]

Personally Luv's arc was one of the things I enjoyed most about the movie. The first thing on my first viewing that stood out was how similar to Rachel she looked. She is endlessly subservient to Wallace and his goals and orders, yet in almost everything she does she holds the look of someone torn. She is a replicant that is told she is special and "the best one", much like K is and is led to believe, yet by the end she realises she is just a means to an end for Wallace, like all of the other replicants he either uses as bodybags or simply disposes of as he likes. It seems clear she is at odds with a lot of her orders and what she has to do, and at times (like the tear on her face as she kills the Major) she may not understand why but she feels what she is doing either may be or is wrong.

She is very closed off, and we may never truly know if she had other motivations for finding the child. Was she always going to hand it over to Wallace? She placed such an importance on getting Deckard out of the ship safe that she wavered and didn't ensure she killed K first (and I know some people had hangups on this point as a classic villain-not-finishing-off-the-protagonist thing, but I interpreted it as her realising Deckard could be drowned at any minute and that she was putting his survival above all else, and that her complacency which led her to not finish the job - something she did every other time - suggested she was conflicted to the point where it affected her "performance", something akin to how K's second baseline test went. Maybe she even did this knowingly, putting Deckard's survival above her own. Honestly I found her one of the most intriguing points of the movie and I think there is a huge amount more to her than simply being another toy for Wallace, albeit a more effective one than a lot of other replicants.

Thanks.

I need to watch it again. I got a good amount of those things but i couldn't really place her in the overarching themes of the movie. She was quite different.

 

[FriendlyGoat]

By the way, what are you guys getting from Mariette's line to Joi? Her saying "I've been inside you. There's not as much there as you think".

Perhaps they've literally been inside her code.

Note that Mariette finds out K has a Joi when she first meets him. Then somehow when Joi called her over she knew she was going to K's and came ready to bug him. And most of Joi's actions after Mariette meets him push him to find Deckard, even playing up the special angle that Freysa said the others had felt. And after they find a wounded K they break the tracker to hide the evidence of manipulation. And you know they are manipulating him when Freysa pushes him to kill Deckard, telling him his sacrifice will prove his humanity.

Even Joi's moments of independence are in favor of Freysa's group. Telling K to break the antenna comes after Mariette planted the bug and has a means to track him. And breaking the home device prevented both the police and Wallace Corp from gleaning anything from her about the child or the investigation.

So the line means they've literally been inside her, and maybe that she really doesn't have much there and any sense of sentience is truly an illusion.

 

[hendersonhank]

Doesn't make sense? Stelline lives a totally isolated existence with no meaningful social contact and her only way of affecting the world in any way is the memory packages she produces for Wallace's replicants. As an artist and as a human, it's perfectly logical that she would want to put a part of herself into her work and release it into the world. That's the only way for her to make any impression on the outside world. It being illegal is totally irrelevant, she is already living like a prisoner anyway.

Many Wallace replicants have that memory, not just K, that was made clear in the movie.

Yes, it doesn't make sense. Your theory literally contradicts everything we know about the situation and relies on making assumptions that are contrary to what the movie shows.

• Stelline says it's illegal to use real memories -- but you want to assume she did anyway
• Stelline says there's a little of the artist in her work -- but you want to assume she just put an entire memory of her own in, unaltered
• Stelline says she is the best because of her imagination -- but you want to assume she used a completely unaltered, entirely UN-imaginary memory
• Stelline says she does this because she wants replicants to have happy memories -- but you want to assume she gave them a very UN-happy memory

And there is no indication whatsoever that anyone else has that memory, I don't know where you're getting that from.

IMO it's just a bad bit of forced writing -- just a way to have K 1) think he's the child and 2) meet Stelline and realize she is the child. Without the illogical scenario of K having that memory, he never would have gone to Stelline and never would have known she was the child even if he had gone to her.

 

[Patrick Young]

I watched the short films in release order. Pretty bummed the last one was anime.

 

[Heckler456]

Yes, it doesn't make sense. Your theory literally contradicts everything we know about the situation and relies on making assumptions that are contrary to what the movie shows.

• Stelline says it's illegal to use real memories -- but you want to assume she did anyway
• Stelline says there's a little of the artist in her work -- but you want to assume she just put an entire memory of her own in, unaltered
• Stelline says she is the best because of her imagination -- but you want to assume she used a completely unaltered, entirely UN-imaginary memory
• Stelline says she does this because she wants replicants to have happy memories -- but you want to assume she gave them a very UN-happy memory

And there is no indication whatsoever that anyone else has that memory, I don't know where you're getting that from.

IMO it's just a bad bit of forced writing -- just a way to have K 1) think he's the child and 2) meet Stelline and realize she is the child. Without the illogical scenario of K having that memory, he never would have gone to Stelline and never would have known she was the child even if he had gone to her.

You're being kinda obtuse here.

Her saying it's illegal to K is completely irrelevant, and says nothing about how she really thinks about implanting "real memories". There is probably a rule/law against implanting real memories, but she's not going to say she shirks that rule to an LAPD Blade Runner, is she? This also partly explains why she says "it's a real memory" in an as circumspect a way as possible. But why she felt like she had to say that it's real to begin with is internal reasoning that we as the audience are not privy to. It could be explained by her wanting to connect with someone over something though. Or just an in the moment thing. Why did Deckard open up to K about Rachael when he's a Blade Runner that could potentially mean to do him harm? We don't know, it's one of those things.

Her saying "there's a little of the artist in her work" is a statement much more in favor of her implanting one of her own memories than it is proof against it. It can literally be directly interpreterend as her tipping her hand.

And again, the memory is not an unhappy one. It's a triumphant one, as Joshi says. "Fighting for what's yours". Unless you're going to tell me that they give replicants only happy memories? Remember, she just makes the memories. Wallace corp implants them. I don't think they blindly implant everything the memory-weavers hand over. (Also, you should really watch Inside Out if you think unhappy memories are bad! )

And her having a great imagination does not preclude her from wanting to connect with the outside world (or even subconsciously with her own kind, sorta kinda) by sharing her own story. I'd say you have a point if this were the only argument, but there's too much going against it.


Besides, all of this totally plays into the "what is real" theme anyway. What's the difference between a real memory, and one that's made to be real? The only difference is that the actual real memory is one that's been lived.

Perhaps they've literally been inside her code.

Note that Mariette finds out K has a Joi when she first meets him. Then somehow when Joi called her over she knew she was going to K's and came ready to bug him. And most of Joi's actions after Mariette meets him push him to find Deckard, even playing up the special angle that Freysa said the others had felt. And after they find a wounded K they break the tracker to hide the evidence of manipulation. And you know they are manipulating him when Freysa pushes him to kill Deckard, telling him his sacrifice will prove his humanity.

Even Joi's moments of independence are in favor of Freysa's group. Telling K to break the antenna comes after Mariette planted the bug and has a means to track him. And breaking the home device prevented both the police and Wallace Corp from gleaning anything from her about the child or the investigation.

So the line means they've literally been inside her, and maybe that she really doesn't have much there and any sense of sentience is truly an illusion.

I didn't get that impression, I'm more with Zakalwe on this. But it does sorta kinda fits, in terms of the pure mechanics of it? I don't think that's what they meant for us to get out of it though.

But then again, I do think it'd be kind of a stretch to assume the resistance could so elegantly reprogram an AI to do exactly the things they need her to do. I think the AI in this universe, like the replicants, kind of are open-ended. In that humans built them initially with a strict purpose, but the replicants/AI exceed that purpose simply due to emergent behavior.

 

[FriendlyGoat]

What? No. It was "It was made from a tree".

I don't think she says "it was made", she only says "From the tree--" but the line gets cut off by Joi. So you are meant to think she means from the tree in the picture, but on second viewing it really sounds like she says "From the drea--". With the way the line is cut off there's no way that isn't intentional.

 

[……forgetit]

Just saw this, good film, interesting themes, but entirely too long, and I’m someone who rarely complains about film length.

 

[RoH]

I don't think she says "it was made", she only says "From the tree--" but the line gets cut off by Joi. So you are meant to think she means from the tree in the picture, but on second viewing it really sounds like she says "From the drea--". With the way the line is cut off there's no way that isn't intentional.

This is pretty good and makes a lot of sense!! I can’t wait for the home release of this masterpiece!!

 

[hendersonhank]

You're being kinda obtuse here.

Her saying it's illegal to K is completely irrelevant, and says nothing about how she really thinks about implanting "real memories". There is probably a rule/law against implanting real memories, but she's not going to say she shirks that rule to an LAPD Blade Runner, is she?

That would explain why she would lie, if we had any reason to think she is lying. But we don't, so we can take her statement at face value.

But why she felt like she had to say that it's real to begin with is internal reasoning that we as the audience are not privy to.

Huh? He asked her if it's real, she told him it is. Why would she lie?

Her saying "there's a little of the artist in her work" is a statement much more in favor of her implanting one of her own memories than it is proof against it.

Again, you are asking us to assume that she didn't mean exactly what she said. Of course there is a little of the artist in their work, this is just a truism. There is no reason to assume it's a wink wink nudge nudge way of saying "sure, I just give them my memories".

And again, the memory is not an unhappy one. It's a triumphant one, as Joshi says. "Fighting for what's yours".

Madam put a pleasant spin on it. It certainly did not seem "happy" or "triumphant" to K.

Unless you're going to tell me that they give replicants only happy memories?

That's exactly what Stelline said she does and in fact her reason for doing what she does. Whether other memory subcontractors do the same thing is unknown. Although one would think that when the goal is to make them emotionally stable, implanting painful or traumatic memories might not be the best course of action.

Another thing: If Stelline was willy-nilly selling her own memories to Wallace, why would she be so overcome when she met a replicant with one of them?

 

[Donos]

Just saw this, good film, interesting themes, but entirely too long, and I’m someone who rarely complains about film length.

What felt long to you? Drawn out scenes or unnecessary plot/content?

Personaly i didn't felt that it was long so it is interesting for me why people felt that way.

Appreciate how Villeneuve introduces things with longer, quiter scenes. Liked that in Sicario too.

 

[FriendlyGoat]

I didn't get that impression, I'm more with Zakalwe on this. But it does sorta kinda fits, in terms of the pure mechanics of it? I don't think that's what they meant for us to get out of it though.

But then again, I do think it'd be kind of a stretch to assume the resistance could so elegantly reprogram an AI to do exactly the things they need her to do. I think the AI in this universe, like the replicants, kind of are open-ended. In that humans built them initially with a strict purpose, but the replicants/AI exceed that purpose simply due to emergent behavior.

Think back to the call scene, where her functions were so easily overridden by Joshi, or the fact that she's been used by Luv to keep tabs on K. She's been shown to be a tool, used and manipulated remotely. And she is the only example of AI we've seen, so it's hard to extrapolate their depth.

However, it is also clear the Wallace Corp has no problem creating beings with higher function and subjugating them to use as tools. So I think it can be both, that she is used and manipulated by all sides, but also to what extent her feelings are "real" is open to discussion. They didn't have to rewrite her entirely, just manipulate her here and there within her own established programming/behavior. Them using her doesn't mean she can't also display emergent behavior (though said emergent behavior is also conveniently in their favor, or reflective of her original design intent to tell K what he wants to hear).

I think like many things in the film, this particular plot point was written in such a way that it could be either or both, with evidence both ways that neither explicitly confirms nor denies.

Edit: another point of evidence is that Mariette was tasked with figuring out what K was up to, but she only did minor digging in person. She gave up asking him questions and walked off, without gleaning anything specific other than spotting the pictures, right after finding out about his Joi.

 

[Heckler456]

That would explain why she would lie, if we had any reason to think she is lying. But we don't, so we can take her statement at face value.



Huh? He asked her if it's real, she told him it is. Why would she lie?



Again, you are asking us to assume that she didn't mean exactly what she said. Of course there is a little of the artist in their work, this is just a truism. There is no reason to assume it's a wink wink nudge nudge way of saying "sure, I just give them my memories".



Madam put a pleasant spin on it. It certainly did not seem "happy" or "triumphant" to K.



That's exactly what Stelline said she does and in fact her reason for doing what she does. Whether other memory subcontractors do the same thing is unknown. Although one would think that when the goal is to make them emotionally stable, implanting painful or traumatic memories might not be the best course of action.

Another thing: If Stelline was willy-nilly selling her own memories to Wallace, why would she be so overcome when she met a replicant with one of them?

Like I said, obtuse.

Your argument hinges on the notion that literally nothing is going on underneath the surface level of anything, ever. You want to believe that? Fine. But that's just not the case, so we're at kind of an impasse here.

 

[Schopenhauerian]

By the way, what are you guys getting from Mariette's line to Joi? Her saying "I've been inside you. There's not as much there as you think".

It was clearly a hostile remark from Mariette, so we'd have to also consider what occasioned/caused that remark (a hostile remark that occurs without any apparent trigger comes off as merely bizarre).

As I described in another post, for me it's noteworthy that even while explicitly putting down Joi (as less ‘human' than Mariette herself), Mariette implicitly attributes romantic desire/ambition to Joi (a decisively ‘human' attribute), which helps to serve the thematic purposes ("...makes us question...") that others have highlighted.

I would note also that while Mariette's remark was explicitly hostile, it's not necessarily made clear to what extent her specific claim ("...not so much there...") was based merely on some prejudice that she might have had against AI's (as suggested earlier by her ”...Oh I see, you don't like real girls..."), or instead based on some particular/actual insight that Mariette might have had while she was sync'ed with Joi.

At a more mundane level, Mariette would also be motivated by the need for misdirection: she's just placed the bug in K's coat, so any effort to divert attention to her own person (with a hostile remark, for example) would be helpful. Felt similar in that way to what K tried to do at the Wallace building, when Luv was uncomfortably fixated on the reason for his interest in Rachel, and he suddenly allows his face to become slightly more animated, and changes the subject to something potentially more invigorating: ”She likes him. This Officer Deckard..."

 

[Fallout-NL]

Like I said, obtuse.

Your argument hinges on the notion that literally nothing is going on underneath the surface level of anything, ever. You want to believe that? Fine. But that's just not the case, so we're at kind of an impasse here.

I have to side with hendersonhank here though. The film offers no explanation at all for why that memory ended up with him specifically.

Another thing: If Stelline was willy-nilly selling her own memories to Wallace, why would she be so overcome when she met a replicant with one of them?

This for instance is one of the many things about it that are off.

 

[Captain Skeleton]

The French Replicant says to K about the child being him and how they all though the child in the memory was them.

This memory is what's brought them all together and unified them.

 

[Dreamcast2]

Just saw this, good film, interesting themes, but entirely too long, and I’m someone who rarely complains about film length.

A movie like Transformers 2 bores me to death and feels like a million years. Blade Runner 2049 went by in a flash for me. I was completely captivated at all times and didn't feel like any moment was superfluous.

 

[Heckler456]

I have to side with hendersonhank here though. The film offers no explanation at all for why that memory ended up with him specifically.



This for instance is one of the many things about it that are off.

What's off about her becoming emotional after seeing that memory? She has been making memory after memory 24/7, for years, while being locked in a glass box. Is it really that out there for her to shed some tears after seeing how one of her memories has affected a replicant? Maybe she's crying over the notion that she has some sort of connection with someone else over this one memory? Does the movie really need to explicitly state "here is the exact reason for why she did this, and reacted this way" for it be make logical sense? I really don't think so. I think that'd be bad movie making.

And why does it end up with him specifically? Luck. Movies are about extraordinary events, and worrying about "what are the odds that the memory just so happens to be inside K's head, and he just so happens to stumble across Sapper, and..." is just setting yourself up for disappointment. Plausibility is what's important, not probability.

The French Replicant says to K about the child being him and how they all though the child in the memory was them.

This memory is what's brought them all together and unified them.

See, I thought that too. But what she specifically says "we all wish it was us" iirc from last night. Now, that could point to every one of them sharing that one memory. If not for the fact that she's a Nexus 8, and can't possibly have that memory. So I think she's just saying "we all wish we were the special one/the one who was born", or maybe even that they all wish they were the one to bring the replicants to their next stage of existence or whatever.

 

[Glass]

Saw this in an Imax 4DX screening, the kind where the seats throw you about and you get gusts of wind blown across the theatre. And most extreme of all, you legit get rained on.

I will never need to see another film in 4DX, but in a universe where the rain never lets up, it was such a unique experience getting to see a Blade Runner film in the cinema, whilst being rained on.

 

[Mr. Sam]

The French Replicant says to K about the child being him and how they all though the child in the memory was them.

She's much less overt than that; she says they all want to be the child.

 

[Fallout-NL]

The French Replicant says to K about the child being him and how they all though the child in the memory was them.

This memory is what's brought them all together and unified them.

No, as I've said before:

But there is nothing to indicate that 'lots of replicants have that memory.'

Freysa does say 'we all want it to be us,' but that was metaphorical, not specifically with regards to that memory. After all, all the other replicants that supposedly have that memory - even if they do have it - can not 'want' anything when it comes to that memory because they are not aware of its significance.

Without K's (hard fought) context for that memory, it has no meaning. Therefore it is not that specific memory that unified the replicants. If it was, then what was the point of K's investigation or journey in the film? -> If everyone supposedly already knew about that memory and where it came from. Not to mention that it's supposed to be a secret, you know, to protect Stelline.

I love the film. But this, sadly, does not make a lot of sense.

What's off about her becoming emotional after seeing that memory? She has been making memory after memory 24/7, for years, while being locked in a glass box. Is it really that out there for her to shed some tears after seeing how one of her memories has affected a replicant? Maybe she's crying over the notion that she has some sort of connection with someone else over this one memory? Does the movie really need to explicitly state "here is the exact reason for why she did this, and reacted this way" for it be make logical sense? I really don't think so. I think that'd be bad movie making.

And why does it end up with him specifically? Luck. Movies are about extraordinary events, and worrying about "what are the odds that the memory just so happens to be inside K's head, and he just so happens to stumble across Sapper, and..." is just setting yourself up for disappointment. Plausibility is what's important, not probability.

If it really was something as dumb as luck, which is just immensely improbably considering he's also investigating that very case, then the film did not have to go through that song and dance of him being special and then not being special. Those incredibly small odds somehow falling on him are diametrically opposed to what they went out of their way to do with the twist in the first place.


I don't think it's off that she's overcome with emotion on seeing that memory (I thought it was pretty), what I meant is that it is off logically since it does necessarily mean surprise on her part, which means she hasn't been using that memory very often, which means the other replicants don't have that memory and only K has it - again - making him special.


/edit: also I don't have a problem with leaving things up to the imagination. Not everything needs to be explained. But this is plot hole territory. Not ambiguity.

 

[Captain Skeleton]

But she must know what that memory is in order to be able to say that to K.

Many Replicants must have the same set of memories.

Say you have a million Replicants. You can't make a unique set of memories for each one.
But also you need specialisations. Give a combat team similar memories to give them similar emotional responses to given situations. These makes them easier to predict and easier to control, which is probably why Wallace thinks his replicants will always obey him.

Also we don't really know if Replicant in the original has memories except for but Rachel.

Actually scratch that Gaff knew Deckards Unicrons dream.

 

[Zakalwe]

But she must know what that memory is in order to be able to say that to K.

Many Replicants must have the same set of memories.

Say you have a million Replicants. You can't make a unique set of memories for each one.
But also you need specialisations. Give a combat team similar memories to give them similar emotional responses to given situations. These makes them easier to predict and easier to control, which is probably why Wallace thinks his replicants will always obey him.

Also we don't really know if Replicant in the original has memories except for but Rachel.

Actually scratch that Gaff knew Deckards Unicrons dream.

Rachel was the only Replicant we see in BR who has memories, unless you consider Deckard a Replicant.

And yeh, I'd imagine they re-use memories a lot. They probably tailor them very specifically to suit their roles, plus I doubt they'd take that much care for life-forms they use primarily as tools.

 

[JB1981]

The original Blade Runner is playing at select US AMC theaters Tues and Wed this week.

 

[Heckler456]

If it really was something as dumb as luck, which is just immensely improbably considering he's also investigating that very case, then the film did not have to go through that song and dance of him being special and then not being special. Those incredibly small odds somehow falling on him are diametrically opposed to what they went out of their way to do with the twist in the first place.

What they went out to do with the twist is for the benefit of K's character. To show the audience that it's not how you came to be that's important (or in the case of replicants, that makes you human). It's the choices you make, and the life you live. What makes you real is your own experience. I don't see how this is in any way lessened by the mere fact that the odds are small for him to have this specific memory implanted in his head.

And again, movies are inherently about improbably and extraordinary events... That's what makes them interesting.

I don't think it's off that she's overcome with emotion on seeing that memory (I thought it was pretty), what I meant is that it is off logically since it does necessarily mean surprise on her part, which means she hasn't been using that memory very often, which means the other replicants don't have that memory and only K has it - again - making him special.

Ah I get what you mean with the odds-thing now.

What's important wasn't that he was simply special or whatever. He wanted to be born, "loved like a real boy". The whole soul thing, and "to be born is to have a soul". That's what would have been special. Having a specific memory implanted that leads him along this quest doesn't accomplish that specific thing.

 

[smisk]

That BMD piece is phenomenal. Gave me a deeper appreciation of the film and made me genuinely emotional. Really need to see this again. Hopefully I can carve out 3 hours some evening this week.

Gotta say though, Leto was the worst part of the movie. Someone said on Twitter that all his dialogue sounds like it's from a JRPG villain, and I couldn't stop thinking about that every time he opened his mouth. Luckily he didn't really have that big a role.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

It doesn't explicitly say either way, but my guess is that there never was a disease.

My only issue with the whole movie is, how the fuck does K become a LAPD Blade Runner made to hunt remaining Nexus models when he himself is a Nexus? How does he get to the point he is at in the beginning of the movie without his eyeball being checked for his serial number at some point?

I assume he was made *for* the LAPD. He's hunting the earlier, disobedient models. He's a later model.

 

[BorkBork]

I don't think she says "it was made", she only says "From the tree--" but the line gets cut off by Joi. So you are meant to think she means from the tree in the picture, but on second viewing it really sounds like she says "From the drea--". With the way the line is cut off there's no way that isn't intentional.

I heard "From the dream." Will have to listen for it on a rewatch.

Another thing: If Stelline was willy-nilly selling her own memories to Wallace, why would she be so overcome when she met a replicant with one of them?

Because she is reliving one of her most emotional intense and affective memories? That's kind of the swerve in the first place - the audience is supposed to believe that she is simply merely reacting to the beauty of the constructed memory because she is portrayed as a sensitive soul and is a master who is moved by great craft, but in reality it goes much deeper because it's actually her lived experience.

My reading is that Stelline is supposed to be 2049's Sebastian. Juri certainly plays her that way - creative, sensitive, and terribly lonely due to their genetic conditions. I don't see a duplicitous or conspiratorial air to her, outside of her little white lie that fits with her character. Making is simply both Stelline and Sebastian's way of building meaning to connect with a world that has rejected them. Of course, 2049 leaves open the question of whether Stelline will suffer the same fate as Sebastian - an innocent that's used up and discarded by others for their own means.

With regards to luck, it's not a big deal. Without K finding the clue on the tree, there would be no story and no movie. He would just continue to do his job and come home to Joi. The trigger happens to be during a job retiring a replicant, which happened to be connected to this Deckard/Rachel saga. If you can't accept that premise, I don't know what to tell ya. It's akin to asking why there are sentient beings in the universe. Well, if there are no sentient beings then no one would be there to ask the question. There would be no starting point.

 

[Fallout-NL]

What they went out to do with the twist is for the benefit of K's character. To show the audience that it's not how you came to be that's important (or in the case of replicants, that makes you human). It's the choices you make, and the life you live. What makes you real is your own experience. I don't see how this is in any way lessened by the mere fact that the odds are small for him to have this specific memory implanted in his head.

Ah I get what you mean with the odds-thing now.

What's important wasn't that he was simply special or whatever. He wanted to be born, "loved like a real boy". The whole soul thing, and "to be born is to have a soul". That's what would have been special. Having a specific memory implanted that leads him along this quest doesn't accomplish that specific thing.

Yes, but you're explaining the themes to me now . I understand those and acknowledge them fully.

And again, movies are inherently about improbably and extraordinary events... That's what makes them interesting.

I would argue that this world we're being shown is extraordinary enough that we don't need almost impossible things to happen in addition to that. The film seems to understand this when they fool you into believing K is true born for a decent chunk of it. But if this is their choice, which is a good one and I agree with fully, they should have done a better job of explaining how he ended up with that memory and why.

Is it so that Stelline can meet her father? Then she wouldn't be surpised to see that memory. Does Deckard have something to do with it? No he said he needed to be a stranger, not something he's likely to change.

I just can't think of any good reason for it.

With regards to luck, it's not a big deal. Without K finding the clue on the tree, there would be no story and no movie.

Hey, don't pretend anyone has a problem with him finding the clue on the tree . It his job to do detective shit.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

By the way, what are you guys getting from Mariette's line to Joi? Her saying "I've been inside you. There's not as much there as you think".

She's looking down on her, but it's also a hint to the audience that Joi isn't really a special companion to K, but rather a shallow AI that tells him what he wants to hear. When the billboard version repeats some of the same lines as K's Joi, that's when the game is really up. And K realizes it too, that he's been deluding himself.

 

[jellies_two]

I wonder if Gosling was thinking at the end, well here I am again, killing someone trying to escape in a car on a dark beach with waves crashing (Drive).

 

[Zakalwe]

She's looking down on her, but it's also a hint to the audience that Joi isn't really a special companion to K, but rather a shallow AI that tells him what he wants to hear. When the billboard version repeats some of the same lines as K's Joi, that's when the game is really up. And K realizes it too, that he's been deluding himself.

I think the advert Joi tells us the opposite just as much: that K's Joi was real. The advert doesn't look directly at him but stares past him with black eyes, it acts overly sexual which Joi was not.

At this point we ask ourselves: If K's Joi was unique to him, if she grew into a unique version based on the experience of her owner's desire, then how is this any different to how we grow as humans via the experiences that shape us? How much of our "programming" controls our desires?

Honestly, Joi being a shallow program kind of goes against the themes of both films and reduces Joi's character to a an agency device for the protagonist.

You can interpret both ways, I'm going with romance over cynicism.

 

[NateDog]

As has been pointed out by other people, she's actually imitating Wallace in that scene. Wallace slices the replicant in the belly, kisses her, and lets her bleed out. Which is what she does too.

That may be true, but Wallace wasn't fighting for his life with that replicant, he was displaying his displeasure that they still hadn't found a way to replicate what Tyrell managed with Rachel. Luv, on the other hand, was fighting with another replicant that was interfering with what Wallace saw as an integral part of his investigations into the child born of a replicant (probably the most important part for many years, really) and that could have easily killed her, and this was while she was the one in charge of getting information from that integral part, which was Deckard. Her merely trying to imitate Wallace there while uttering "I'm the best one" is complacency itself.

 

[Tatsumaki Senpuukyaku!]

In the end of the movie, where are they going when luv says they are going "home"? Is it ever made explicit? Looks like somewhere offshore in the Pacific ocean.

 

[Zakalwe]

In the end of the movie, where are they going when luv says they are going "home"? Is it ever made explicit? Looks like somewhere offshore in the Pacific ocean.

Off-world. They were headed to a space port.

Wallace states they're taking Deckard off-world, and you hear clearance given for the port over the radio.

 

[Tatsumaki Senpuukyaku!]

Off-world. They were headed to a space port.

Wallace states they're taking Deckard off-world, and you hear clearance given for the port over the radio.

Is there any significance to Luv calling it home other than it revealing that she was manufactured off world?

 

[Zakalwe]

Is there any significance to Luv calling it home other than it revealing that she was manufactured off world?

None that I can see.

 

[Heckler456]

I would argue that this world we're being shown is extraordinary enough that we don't need almost impossible things to happen in addition to that.

Aha, but that's a logical fallacy. As they say: improbable things happen. It's not "almost impossible". It's very much possible. It only needs to happen, and this is a story about it happening. There's nothing impossible about it happening, because it happened, you know?

If you want to let that negatively impact your belief in the story, well, you do you. But this isn't a flaw.

The film seems to understand this when they fool you into believing K is true born for a decent chunk of it. But if this is their choice, which is a good one and I agree with fully, they should have done a better job of explaining how he ended up with that memory and why.

Is it so that Stelline can meet her father? Then she wouldn't be surpised to see that memory. Does Deckard have something to do with it? No he said he needed to be a stranger, not something he's likely to change.

I just can't think of any good reason for it.

Again, it's happenstance. If you were adopted, would it be any less meaningful to meet your father if you just so happen to stumble upon him? I don't understand why there needs to be purposeful intent behind setting everything in motion.

Ana shared that memory to "put something of the artist in her work". The why isn't at all important. It's like, why do people carve their name into a tree, or attach a lock onto a bridge, or whatever else. It's because it's cool to do. And for someone that has been locked in a glass cage for the last decade plus, I bet it's even more meaningful to know that something of her is out there, and that replicants are sharing that feeling with her. Like, what more reasoning does there need to be for her to just send some of her memories out there?

That may be true, but Wallace wasn't fighting for his life with that replicant, he was displaying his displeasure that they still hadn't found a way to replicate what Tyrell managed with Rachel. Luv, on the other hand, was fighting with another replicant that was interfering with what Wallace saw as an integral part of his investigations into the child born of a replicant (probably the most important part for many years, really) and that could have easily killed her, and this was while she was the one in charge of getting information from that integral part, which was Deckard. Her merely trying to imitate Wallace there while uttering "I'm the best one" is complacency itself.

Yeah, it's complacent. I'm just saying that there's a reason for her to leave him like that.

Also, she does the same thing to Joshi (stabbing her, and leaving her to bleed out), and she doesn't really finish off Coco either.

 

[BorkBork]

No, as I've said before:

Without K's (hard fought) context for that memory, it has no meaning. Therefore it is not that specific memory that unified the replicants. If it was, then what was the point of K's investigation or journey in the film? -> If everyone supposedly already knew about that memory and where it came from. Not to mention that it's supposed to be a secret, you know, to protect Stelline.

I love the film. But this, sadly, does not make a lot of sense.

I'm growing increasingly confused at your critique.
Without K's quest, yes, the horse memory would just be a memory.
The replicants are not unified by the memory; they are unified by the hope of a replicant child saviour, which is confirmed to be a real thing by Freysa.
"We all wish we were the child" - what free-thinking replicant wouldn't want to be special?
No one knew that the horse memory was real (or cared really) before K, outside of Stelline.
The horse memory doesn't matter to the resistance. It's just another memory (a nice and comforting one) unless there was something in the real world to trigger it.
No one could have accounted for the fact that Stelline made a horse memory that happened to be real that happened to ignite a trail of investigation that could lead a LAPD Blade Runner to figure out the identity of the replicant child.
None of this was planned.

Am I missing something here?

If it really was something as dumb as luck, which is just immensely improbably considering he's also investigating that very case, then the film did not have to go through that song and dance of him being special and then not being special. Those incredibly small odds somehow falling on him are diametrically opposed to what they went out of their way to do with the twist in the first place.

K goes to kill a replicant. He finds a box of bones. It turns out to be a connected cold case. He goes back to the scene and finds another clue. The clue triggers an impossible memory. He goes to verify its authenticity. He believes he confirms it after finding physical proof and corroborating testimony. Later on he realizes his error and figures out the entire truth. None of this stuff borders on being impossible or farfetched to me?

I don't think it's off that she's overcome with emotion on seeing that memory (I thought it was pretty), what I meant is that it is off logically since it does necessarily mean surprise on her part, which means she hasn't been using that memory very often, which means the other replicants don't have that memory and only K has it - again - making him special.

Consider this: Stelline doesn't seem to get many visitors, and probably even fewer who would come to ask about one of her most heartfelt memories. Other replicants don't ask because they're slaves and are not in the business of investigating memories. Remember how Joshi gets super pissed at K for even detouring out to an upgrade center? This sort of event doesn't happen in Stelline's life, so naturally she is overwhelmed at being shown her own memory, likely the first time since she made it, which must be at least as long ago as K is old.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

I think the advert Joi tells us the opposite just as much: that K's Joi was real. The advert doesn't look directly at him but stares past him with black eyes, it acts overly sexual which Joi was not.

At this point we ask ourselves: If K's Joi was unique to him, if she grew into a unique version based on the experience of her owner's desire, then how is this any different to how we grow as humans via the experiences that shape us? How much of our "programming" controls our desires?

Honestly, Joi being a shallow program kind of goes against the themes of both films and reduces Joi's character to a an agency device for the protagonist.

You can interpret both ways, I'm going with romance over cynicism.

I think the movie has it two ways.

At first, it raises the questions about what is life, and how are we defined. And also the rather uncomfortable notion of a slave owning a slave (which he then partially "sets free" with the device). And then later, it gets to show us that K has been hooked on something ultimately limited and fake. And at that point, the movie is making a point about what we do to ourselves with technology and becoming hooked on it.

That's how I read it anyway. That scene with the billboard was pretty heartbreaking to me.

But most of all, I love that this movie can raise all these questions in the first place. Most big movies I like the less I think about them. This one, I like more the more I think about it.

 

[Dark_3nergy]

Watched Dark City and OG Blade Runner this weekend.

I really feel that Blade Runner 2049 enhances my experience watching Blade Runner 2019. I feel a lot more attached to Deckard's and Rachel's characters moreso then I did when I watched it as a standalone piece. I also feel I was able to appreciate 2019's ideas about how demonizing replicants can be, compared to how we see Officer K and his interactions with other replicants in 2049. 2049 feels like replicants are in abit more of a greyer area, where as 2019 the film seemed to paint them in more black/white strokes.

 

[Mr. Sam]

I had the argument with my girlfriend about whether or not K succumbs to his injuries at the end. I argued that he must, otherwise why use that piece of music (the piece that accompanies Batty's death in the original)? She ended up agreeing with me.

Did we reach a consensus with that in here?

 

[Heckler456]

I had the argument with my girlfriend about whether or not K succumbs to his injuries at the end. I argued that he must, otherwise why use that piece of music (the piece that accompanies Batty's death in the original)? She ended up agreeing with me.

Did we reach a consensus with that in here?

I feel like he definitely stopped breathing and moving anyway.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

I'm pretty sure he died.

I actually didn't care for that aspect of the ending. He didn't need to die and it felt a little cliched, succumbing to a wound at the end of the story. I'd rather he hobbled off into the snow.

 

[Disheveled_Zen]

I had the argument with my girlfriend about whether or not K succumbs to his injuries at the end. I argued that he must, otherwise why use that piece of music (the piece that accompanies Batty's death in the original)? She ended up agreeing with me.

Did we reach a consensus with that in here?

I feel they intentionally left it ambiguous to leave it open and possibly bring him back in a sequel.