My appreciation of Blade Runner 2049 only continues to grow. It plays a lot on cable and I am always mesmerized by the incredible visuals and also the narrative clarity, the seemingly effortless direction and, above all, the humanity.
I remember seeing it opening weekend all the way in 2017 (has it been that long?) and like a lot of people feeling a bit left cold. I think these were the reasons (some spoilers):
1) The marketing went out of its way to hide the fact that K (Ryan Gosling) is a replicant. In hindsight even Denis Villeneuve said this was probably a mistake, and that the surprise wasn’t worth the effort.
It also bears out Harrison Ford’s argument from the first movie: Ridley Scott thought of Deckard as a replicant, but Ford argued that there needed to be a point of human identification for the audience, and played Deckard solely as human. (The resulting ambiguity became one of the film’s most memorable assets.) The sequel story about a replicant in a relationship with his digital companion is so restrained it just didn’t seem to connect with a mass audience.
2) Denis Villeneuve’s directorial style favors large, empty spaces, the cleanliness of which seemed to fight against the busy, dense aesthetic of the original.
3) The sequel score is fine but operates in the shadow of a transcendent masterpiece. Vangelis’ original is so melodic, unforgettable and innovative—there’s no way to overlook its absence.
4) This is a minor thing, but in the years since 1982, Blade Runner has gone from a predicted future to a speculative, parallel world. “This is a warning” has way more impact than “Once upon a time.”
All these things aside, I just love the film and find it endlessly watchable (and the script endlessly readable). Kudos to everybody involved.
There is one thing that has always bothered me, though: after capturing Deckard, why doesn’t Luv just kill K? This is Austin Powers territory here: she leaves him alive, and of course he comes back and kills her. Isn’t she the most calculated, thorough and ruthless villain? Even in the theater in 2017 I was like, “He’s gonna have to crawl out that window because of course they’ll just execute him.”
I still don’t get it.
Oh but that is one last thing about the film that I think kept it from being a big hit: the climax is a fight with the henchman (-woman). Like they were keeping the “Big Bad” for the next movie. Always narratively underwhelming when there’s no confrontation with the Big Bad!
If you haven’t seen it, by the way, check out Allison Hammond’s hilarious interview with the stars which went viral for being a good-natured train wreck:
I only recently remembered that Allison Hammond is now a presenter on The Great British Baking Show now, where she’s doing a fabulous job.
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