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Blade Runner & Blade Runner 2049

I guess we all get something different out of films, but while there isn't a ton of venetian blind action, there was plenty of noir characterizations: the weary cop who doggedly pursues a case regardless of personal loss, the aggravated police chief who is always ridiculously tough but who also seems to support the following through of the case, multiple clues leading to suspects keeping the "whodunnit" aspect in play, the faithful wife who tries to help as an amateur but who places themselves in jeopardy, the hooker with a heart of gold, the business leader (crime boss) who has their confederate (thug) keep the investigation going so they can take advantage of the results of the investigation.
yeah it did have all those things, just never quite got noir enough for me ... i never liked gosling for a blade runner, although hes gifted ... saw fassbender in a trailer with this, that wouldve worked better
 
I was also puzzled by some of the plot elements in this film.


Spoilers.....

Say, for example, your police department’s forensic expert is murdered and the evidence of remains of the biggest case ever are stolen, you’d think the police would check all available sources to see who was wandering about the building at the time - especially as even the cars have drones which can monitor a crime scene. Wouldn’t this cctv (enhance, enhance, left, 7, 8, 9) match the same person who is also allowed to later wander in and kill Lt. Joshi. Nastily.

Also, Luv was observing K and even rained explosive death on those scavengers. ‘Do your job. Find the child’.
K then goes straight to the Miracle Child, yet this lead isn’t followed up by those monitoring him. She’s still there at the end.

Perhaps the director was too busy thinking about how to squeeze another giant woman into the picture (Big Marilyn, we see you) ...or have I got this wrong?
 
Here are my crazy thoughts about your remarks, Jimv1 - beware spoilers!

Say, for example, your police department’s forensic expert is murdered and the evidence of remains of the biggest case ever are stolen, you’d think the police would check all available sources to see who was wandering about the building at the time - especially as even the cars have drones which can monitor a crime scene. Wouldn’t this cctv (enhance, enhance, left, 7, 8, 9) match the same person who is also allowed to later wander in and kill Lt. Joshi. Nastily.

That is oddly dropped, but maybe not. Joshi seems to be struggling under bureaucracy and almost doesn't seem as in control of what she is doing as you'd think. Remember the bit where she seems to have the ability to give K two days before she loses all control of what is going on? I almost felt like somebody was watching her as much as the police office was watching K's every professional move with all the mental monitoring, so even with being in the leadership she may not have had much power. The sway that the new replicant corporation wields may be hard to buck, like the rich family patriarch in Chinatown. And since the forensic guy seemed to be a replicant, I don't think anybody cared about him more or less (when he dies, his reaction seemed more robotic than human). They might have cared about Lt. Joshi, who was explicitly said to be human, but maybe the evil corporation was ahead enough and were about to get offworld in a way that was ahead of the investigation... going offworld might have been the plan to avoid the inevitable police investigation looking for Luv (or they might have offered up Luv as a rogue element if need be after getting Dekkard offworld).

Also, Luv was observing K and even rained explosive death on those scavengers. ‘Do your job. Find the child’.
K then goes straight to the Miracle Child, yet this lead isn’t followed up by those monitoring him. She’s still there at the end.


I think this is easy... they were looking for a male child since all the doctored paperwork led to the idea of the female child being dead, so I don't think they realized that the miracle was a she rather than a he. One thing that I keep lingering on - Joe "K" believed he was the child but then found out it was a she... but suppose that he was actually the boy child that they claimed died, but in reality he was the boy who had enough "replicant" to be thought to be a full replicant?

Perhaps the director was too busy thinking about how to squeeze another giant woman into the picture (Big Marilyn, we see you) ...or have I got this wrong?

The giantesses might have more point that critics have been giving them (other than being remarkable visuals). In the field of statues, which represented an older earth culture since it the remains of the old city before nuclear fallout, they were giant idealized beings who were unmoving images of unrealistic femininity. Contrast them to the world of 2049 where the uber-Joi Pink Giantess appears to Joe K in his time of uncertainty. She comes off first as an advertisement, but then she refers to our hero replicant as Joe. I think this might mean than Joi's personality transcended her programing and maybe is becoming just as aware as replicants are (though a pessimist might say that Joi's personality and love for Joe is all programming, but the Blade Runner films often explores the fine line between robotic intelligence and reality). Uber-Joi might be the dawning of a new awareness and individual lives for the holograms, and her liveliness and motion and confidence is far more real the frozen statues of Las Vegas even being an illusion.
 
Didn't the Forensic guy refer to 'Skin Jobs' and then apologise?
He did, but I took it to be a slam that a Nexus 9 would give a Nexus 6, maybe. I just know when he was twitching, with his head slammed into his body he reminded me of an android with the kinds of twitching and the change to his eyes.
 
I think this is easy... they were looking for a male child since all the doctored paperwork led to the idea of the female child being dead, so I don't think they realized that the miracle was a she rather than a he. One thing that I keep lingering on - Joe "K" believed he was the child but then found out it was a she... but suppose that he was actually the boy child that they claimed died, but in reality he was the boy who had enough "replicant" to be thought to be a full replicant?
Joe K...Joke? Josef K (protagonist of Kafka's The Trial)?
 
Joe K...Joke? Josef K (protagonist of Kafka's The Trial)?
I've heard the Kafka floated as an idea... officially his name is K which is the first part of his serial number, but his holographic wife called him Joe because she thinks he should have a name of his own.
 
I've heard the Kafka floated as an idea... officially his name is K which is the first part of his serial number, but his holographic wife called him Joe because she thinks he should have a name of his own.
Of course, that could also be part of her programming... could be derived from 'ordinary Joe' or the name used by prostitutes for their clients - 'hey Joe'...
 
Oh yeah, and the 'K' component of the character's name...'Kindred'?
 
Once you start looking closer into it, you’re left with Ben Gunn and ‘Cheese’.

Do androids have weird dreams of electric cheese?
 
Oh yeah, and the 'K' component of the character's name...'Kindred'?
Almost certainly, although the Joseph K idea is one that would have appealed to Dick himself.

Still haven't seen it, but hope to get to it in the cinema.
 
I like that font.
 
What were the bees living on?
I'm glad you mentioned that. That's been bugging me too.
There was nothing there for them. No flowers, no sunlight, no water.
Perhaps a flaw in the logic of the story?
 
Was K wondering if he could be stung? Are the bees real? If they’re not, what are they living on.

Anyway. Did anyone leave the cinema with a theme ringing around in their heads.... at least half as good as this this one?
 
I’m going to insist the original is superior in style, content, intention and execution.
Seriously, if you’re loving the 2049, then great but......

 
Was K wondering if he could be stung? Are the bees real? If they’re not, what are they living on.

Anyway. Did anyone leave the cinema with a theme ringing around in their heads.... at least half as good as this this one?
The bees are more likely engineered, perhaps to adapt them to a life without the normal environment.
Their purpose in the film was to act as a kind of canary - sensitive to radiation, they would warn Deckard if the radiation became bad enough to endanger him.
 
The bees are more likely engineered, perhaps to adapt them to a life without the normal environment.
Their purpose in the film was to act as a kind of canary - sensitive to radiation, they would warn Deckard if the radiation became bad enough to endanger him.

You just made that up. It certainly wasn’t clear in the movie.
 
Seeing it tonight; stopped reading this thread a while back to avoid spoilers.

One question: although I've seen the original dozens of times, my wife has only watched it once, several years back--how much memory/knowledge of the first film is required/desirable?

(I can brief her if it's a matter of narrative elements).
 
Very good too long not as good as the first. Didn't like the "baddy" it was more Terminator than Bladerunner. In the first you were rooting for Deckard AND Batty Because both were victims.

Sets and sound was amazing needs to be seen in a decent cinema and don't go 3D

Jared Leto sucked, he was the worst thing in movie over acting at its finest.

8.5 out of 10
 
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Seeing it tonight; stopped reading this thread a while back to avoid spoilers.

One question: although I've seen the original dozens of times, my wife has only watched it once, several years back--how much memory/knowledge of the first film is required/desirable?

(I can brief her if it's a matter of narrative elements).
She'll be fine. My wife has seen it a few times and missed stuff but not enough to impact on her enjoyment.
 
You just made that up. It certainly wasn’t clear in the movie.
It wasn't clear to me, either. My friend who went with me came up with that idea.
 
One question: although I've seen the original dozens of times, my wife has only watched it once, several years back--how much memory/knowledge of the first film is required/desirable?
she wont need anything before, but everyone should watch the real blade runner after ...
 
Just got back: that was awesome. Not a gripe in sight: awesome.

The bees, in my opinion, are a foreshadowing of the replicant revolution movement: an army of drones that will sacrifice themselves for the queen.

More later...
 
Did anybody else see visual biblical reference?

Joe is lying on his back, having had the crap beaten out of him, gazing at the campfire in the night's sky.

Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.

Sidebar: 2017 Politics from 2049!
  • Luv delivering drone strikes on the poor at great distance while having her nails filed.
  • Extraordinary rendition for Deckard--in the off-world colonies!
  • Child-labour factories for consumer electronics.
  • Lt. Joshi LAPD thinks we need a 'wall' to keep the non-humans from the genuine humans--or it'll be a bloodbath.
 
Just got back: that was awesome. Not a gripe in sight: awesome.

The bees, in my opinion, are a foreshadowing of the replicant revolution movement: an army of drones that will sacrifice themselves for the queen.

More later...

The bees thing. Villeneuve said he was concerned about the decline of bees so he put their survival in as a message of hope. The problem is, this personal message doesn’t deal with their survival in an irradiated zone or where they found the flowers in Vegas to carry on existing.

How did you decide that he would come across bees?

There are a lot of problems with bees in the world right now. They are disappearing, so the fact that here you can see those creatures still alive and still present, was for me like a little spark of hope in this dystopian universe.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/02/movies/denis-villeneuve-interview-blade-runner-2049.html

The interesting thing about the film is that people are supplying their own thoughts on motives and rationale to fill in the deliberate ambiguity of the scripting.
 
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