I would like to open a thread to discuss various plot points among people who have already seen the movie. I have some questions.
Of course anyone who HASN'T seen the movie should stay away, because the surprises in the plot are key to its enjoyment.
I can't wait to see this! The original is my favorite movie. The reviews have been great so far and I loved "Arrival", the Director's previous work.
You won't be disappointed. The thing is a love letter to Blade Runner fans.
Saw it today.Fantastic.Totally satisfying to me on every level.I dug the original Blade Runner but i wasn't a true believer.
"please do not understand me too quickly"-andre gide
Did you have any, uhhh, questions about plotpoints???
Just got back from seeing it on an IMAX screen - thanks for that suggestion, rcarlberg. Watching on a TV will be a big letdown probably, the next time I see it.
I had some questions, but my son and his friend mostly answered them for me. I think. The part that confused me was the two different parties arriving in Vegas at the same time. It wasn't clear it was two different parties to me, so I didn't know Deckard and K had been taken to different places.Originally Posted by rcarlberg
The visuals were of course great, but the music and sound effects were almost better! Especially on the theater's good sound system. It was practically Sensurround!
Okay, here goes. It’s a given in this movie that Deckard is a replicant. This was a matter of much controversy in 1982, with many people feeling that a replicant would not hunt replicants, and that he couldn’t be a Nexus 6 if he was already retired from the police force. However with the release of the director’s cut in 1992, I thought Ridley Scott explained this quite cleverly. When Voight-Kampffing Rachel at Tyrell, Deckard gives away the clue when he says “How can it not know what it is?” Deckard himself doesn’t know he’s a replicant — until the moment he stumbles across Gaff’s origami unicorn. It is at that moment that he realizes he and Rachel are the same species. All his memories of being an ex-Blade Runner must be implants.
So in the new movie he explains “They were hunting us.” Apparently Gaff’s lenience in letting Deckard and Rachel escape was not shared by the rest of the police force? Once he finds out he’s a replicant I guess that means he becomes dangerous? If this is so, why would Gaff clue him into his identity?
Yet there’s a substantial underground colony of escaped replicants, led by the one-eyed woman Freysa (who removed her own eye to avoid detection.) Deckard apparently was never part of this group. He's gone to great lengths to hide in a booby-trapped radioactive city -- while all the other replicants simply live in the sewers?
Deckard's daughter, Dr. Ana Stelline (the memory creator) -- is she human or replicant? Miraculously born of two 'experimental' replicants (who indeed turn out to be "more human than human"), would she carry the lineage of the human gametes which her parents must have carried? Is that why she's genetically defective, and has no immune system? If she was born, I guess that makes her human (no serial numbers on her)? (I don't buy Lieutenant Joshi's explanation of there being a "soul" but certainly being born would make you not a replicant, wouldn't it? Interesting conjecture...)
The memories that Stelline creates, she can tell real memories from created ones. And yet, when K allows her to peer into his memory of the wooden horse and the orphanage, she doesn't react except to cry a little. If this was a REAL memory, one of her memories, wouldn't she have had a very strong reaction to meeting someone else with her memory?
But if she was raised in an orphanage, what about her immune deficiency? Wouldn't that have manifested earlier than age 7?
She says the room she lives in was created for her when her deficiency became apparent. By whom? Her mother was dead, her father had never met her, and she was an inmate in an orphanage.
When K is looking at the DNA of the replicant baby, he discovers that two identical sets exist, one male and one female (that's bad biology, but nevermind). The records say the girl died and the boy is still alive -- leading him (and the audience) to believe that he might be that missing baby. Later Deckard says he scrambled the records. So maybe the girl didn't die, and K is really the replicant decoy created from Ana's DNA and implanted with her memories.
Last: At the tail end of the film, when K is fighting the evil replicant bitch Luv while Deckard is chained in the car, she yells to K something like, "You were always the best one." The "best one" what? The better of him and his identical twin sister? I thought at that moment that maybe Luv was his sister. But no, the film went another direction.
Still mulling over so many plotpoints, trying to make sense of it. Will see it again Tuesday.
Last edited by rcarlberg; 10-08-2017 at 01:55 PM.
The three interstitial shorts are here. Well worth watching (for explanatory purposes).
For some back-ground information ARTE-tv will air tonight (again) a documentary about Philip K. Dick, but it seems you can also watch it here:
https://www.arte.tv/de/videos/051147...-die-welt-sah/
I'm not sure, but it could be this docu was included in the Bladerunner ultimate collectors edition.
Article about Philip K.Dick and Blade Runner in The Quietus.
http://thequietus.com/articles/23343...k-dick-article
"please do not understand me too quickly"-andre gide
Thanks.This does answer some questions and elucidates much of what i saw in BR 2049.
Last edited by walt; 10-08-2017 at 02:14 PM.
"please do not understand me too quickly"-andre gide
I imagine they'll eventually end up on the DVD, but it MIGHT have been nice to play them in the theater instead of previews for more Transformers movies.
Online speculations I hadn't even considered:
- Ana isn't genetically defective at all, she was placed in the protective bubble for her own safety
- Ana placed her memories in lots of replicants, in the hopes that one of them would lead her father to her
- The prostitute Mariette picks up K's horse figurine because she's heard about it before from other replicant customers
- Mariette places the tracking device in K's coat because she's working undercover(!) for Wallace, who's looking for replicants with horse memories
Damn, there's a ton of comments under the YouTube videos of "Blade Runner 2049 Ending Explained" or "Blade Runner 5 Unanswered Questions." Most of the comments are from real dunderheads, who missed 9/10s of the movie.
Last edited by rcarlberg; 10-08-2017 at 02:39 PM.
* Ana isn't genetically defective at all, she was placed in the protective bubble for her own safety That's what I thought
* Ana placed her memories in lots of replicants, in the hopes that one of them would lead her father to her Hadn't thought that - could well be
* Mariette places the tracking device in K's coat because she's working undercover(!) for Wallace, who's looking for replicants with horse memories - No, she's working undercover for the rebel replicant woman who's missing an eye - there's the scene where she tells the three prostitutes to pursue him
There was a lot to take in, so I know it's easy to pick up on some things and miss others.
By whom? Wallace Corp? They spend the whole movie LOOKING for her, their "top memory designer." How could they not know she's the miracle baby?
Ah, I missed that! Wait though. How did Wallace's henchmen track K to Deckard's hideout? I thought that was the bug in his coat?
No, she was hidden by the one-eyed lady. Remember she said she held the baby - that's her in the photo holding the baby, I think. I'm not sure how the grub farmer fits in exactly, maybe he was just another replicant who was holing up there at that bio-farm.
Yeah, I'm not sure how they tracked him there. Actually, I think she might have used some of the police chief's computers, etc. to track K's vehicle, but maybe I made that up!
The whole holographic Elvis scene was really cool, and had me thinking of holographic Zappa!
They WANTED to use holographic Frank instead of holographic Elvis, but the film’s budget was only $200 million.
I guess this explains why every movie out there seems to be aimed at under-25 women.
I'm in a minority demographic.
This may not bode well for BR3.
I saw BR 2049 on Saturday at 11:30 am in Fresh Meadows.I was shocked that there weren't more than six or seven people in the theater.I assumed it would be packed.Go figger.
"please do not understand me too quickly"-andre gide
Apparently it "fizzled" in the first weekend at the box office. Around $35 million. That proves it's 'gonna be great!
One of the people with me Saturday night said he noticed several people leaving during the showing and not returning. He thought that was an indication of how good the movie is! I have to say, as I was watching it, while it was very engrossing it was also very draining (partly because of how long it is), so I can see it just being too exhausting for some people. But it's paid off in the amount of time I've spent thinking about it, and remembering certain scenes. I don't see a lot of new movies - I really only go to one or two movies in a theater per year, and they're usually kids movies! - but this is one I'm very glad I went to the effort to go see.
Back when I lived in NYC it was much easier to see movies - it really took no effort at all. Now that I live in the 'burbs it takes a little effort and On Demand and Streaming usually win out. For this, I was thankful that IMAX screens exist. But the previews for other new movies didn't show me anything I really felt I needed to see - they all looked like over-loud action films without the interest that Blade Runner 2049 had.
That's probably exactly why BR2049 isn't doing so well at the box office. It's an intellectual, thought-provoking morality tale -- not an "over-loud action film" about battling robots. Films these days are overwhelmingly made to appeal to the under-25, video-game-playing, testosterone-fueled, acne-pocked sensory-overload-addicted youth. BR2049 requires way too much thinking.
Hey, the soundtrack album (digital download only, at this point) makes a FABULOUS electronic drone CD if you strip out the Sinatra, Presley and that end-titles pop song.
Does it have the really loud drone sounds? - it was sometimes hard to tell if you were hearing the score, or the score combined with loud vehicle sounds, or what. It was a pretty cool, disorienting effect.
I didn't realize till I read it here that the opening wasn't a big success. I'm kind of surprised, but I guess I shouldn't be. Well, I'm sure the video release, streaming, etc. will do well. Probably a lot of older, armchair Blade Runner fans.
My son and his friend loved it (they love the original too), and he watched the original with friends last night. I'm glad he's so into it! I remember going to see the original with my best friend when it came out.
YES!!!
The soundtrack is a really cool combination of electronic drones (mostly low, with considerable energy in the 15-30 Hz octave) mixed with large percussion, industrial noises, various huge metallic banging/booming, and -- mixed way back -- some Tuvan throat singing, Indonesian flute, Gregorian Chant-type singing, a twirly propeller noisemaker (whose name I forgot) and electric piano (closer to Rhodes than Vangelis's flanged piano, but playing some of the same themes). If you cut out the Sinatra and Presley it fits nicely on one CD-R (the official set will be a 2-CD box).
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