Blade Runner 2049

[Totenkindly]

I am looking for a prior solitary thread about this and did not see one. might as well set one up, or merge this if we do find another. (The Search function here is whack and Google didn't find anything either.)

Anyway: It drops on Oct 6, and found this today:
Blade Runner 2049 Buzz: Critics Are Raving About the Long-Awaited Sequel << Rotten Tomatoes – Movie and TV News

I'm still leery, but I've touted Denis Villeneuve here before. If anyone can do a decent sequel movie, he's one of the best possible choices. The tone and approach and skillset fits right into his strengths. Any praise currently hitting social media from folks who have screened the film is directed towards, well, the directing as well as the cinematography.

I think I've heard complaints about picking Zimmer to do the score, but that's all so far. Also:

Soundtrack: Jóhann Jóhannsson, who had worked with Villeneuve on Prisoners, Sicario and Arrival, was announced as composer. Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch joined in July 2017. In September, Jóhannsson's agent confirmed that he was no longer involved with the film, but was contractually forbidden from commenting.[49]

The film has been rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for "violence, some sexuality, nudity, and language."[55]
The film has been reported to have a run time of 2 hours and 43 minutes, including 11 minutes of credits.[3]

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

My most anticipated film of the year. The director and cinematographer are on a hot streak.

 

[Totenkindly]

Villeneuve is probably my "current" fave director, and that was before "Arrival" released.

I still have to watch Incendies -- I have the bluray.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

Villanueve is my fave working director. Sicario blew my mind and Arrival was great.

 

[Qlip]

My issue so far that makes me wary is that the weight of the first movie, and the charm of the PKD story, is that it's very personal and ultimately small scale. From what I can see Villanueve is making this about events that matter on a grand scale within the world, I feel like it could go wayward. It could be a great movie, but maybe it wouldn't be a spiritual successor to Blade Runner. More like Alien -> Prometheus.

 

[Totenkindly]

.... oh god did you curse this film by name-dropping Prometheus in the thread?

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

No Vangelis? I'm out.

 

[Totenkindly]

Metcritic's got it at 85/100 right now (23 reviews).
I find them a little more helpful than RT in terms of actual quality.

Blade Runner 2049 Reviews - Metacritic

 

[Totenkindly]

One of the best movies I have seen all year.

It takes themes and concepts from the original Blade Runner and tells its own story, expanding on those themes. Villeneuve also isn't afraid to take his time (which I guess the 2:45 runtime shows) -- he lets the scene breathe at their own pace, it reminds me of the opening of Scott's "Alien" which tracks the crew for a good 45-55 minutes before crazy stuff happens. Here, stuff is happening, but he lets the movie be about the characters and how they experience each scene

It looks pretty amazing in 3D on the big screen. The soundtrack is really more about buttressing the emotional moodiness of the film. There are scenes between K and Joi that are just beautiful and painful. I think Leto has less screen time than Ford, maybe, if you tallied it all; Ford is great. Probably the weakest character is Robin Wright's -- she's a great actress, it's just her character doesn't have much through-line, she acts more like a plot point and/or motivator.

There's a few good twists I won't share. I do like that about Villeneuve's films, they all typically have a few surprises, but they never end up being what you think in the long term and they work to establish a more realistic big picture versus something totally fanciful. I like how his work is usually grounded.

The spoiler button here contains a link to an article that explains a lot of points of the film. It's worth reading after you see the movie, but not before, because it is laden (almost immediately) with spoilers.

Blade Runner 2049 Ending Explained | Screen Rant

 

[Galena]

One of the best movies I have seen all year.

It takes themes and concepts from the original Blade Runner and tells its own story, expanding on those themes. Villeneuve also isn't afraid to take his time (which I guess the 2:45 runtime shows) -- he lets the scene breathe at their own pace, it reminds me of the opening of Scott's "Alien" which tracks the crew for a good 45-55 minutes before crazy stuff happens. Here, stuff is happening, but he lets the movie be about the characters and how they experience each scene

It looks pretty amazing in 3D on the big screen. The soundtrack is really more about buttressing the emotional moodiness of the film. There are scenes between K and Joi that are just beautiful and painful. I think Leto has less screen time than Ford, maybe, if you tallied it all; Ford is great. Probably the weakest character is Robin Wright's -- she's a great actress, it's just her character doesn't have much through-line, she acts more like a plot point and/or motivator.

There's a few good twists I won't share. I do like that about Villeneuve's films, they all typically have a few surprises, but they never end up being what you think in the long term and they work to establish a more realistic big picture versus something totally fanciful. I like how his work is usually grounded.

The spoiler button here contains a link to an article that explains a lot of points of the film. It's worth reading after you see the movie, but not before, because it is laden (almost immediately) with spoilers.

Blade Runner 2049 Ending Explained | Screen Rant

All right, I'll take your word for it and buy that ticket for tonight.

 

[Totenkindly]

oh great i hope he likes it, otherwise i will have a target on my back lol

 

[Galena]

While it didn't have that certain something that would have made it one of my all time favorite movies, that something has absolutely nothing to do with quality.

It looks pretty amazing in 3D on the big screen. The soundtrack is really more about buttressing the emotional moodiness of the film. There are scenes between K and Joi that are just beautiful and painful. I think Leto has less screen time than Ford, maybe, if you tallied it all; Ford is great. Probably the weakest character is Robin Wright's -- she's a great actress, it's just her character doesn't have much through-line, she acts more like a plot point and/or motivator.

I appreciated that the soundtrack played it really subtle - not making like it had aspirations of occupying the same space as the original (yeah, I was excited about a Vangelis return after listening to this from last year, especially this track, which would have been very very happy over some cyberpunk end credits), but just doing its job well. Leto's character didn't really fit in, I felt, but then he was surprisingly in the background of the more intimate plotlines - the clear important ones.

The spoiler button here contains a link to an article that explains a lot of points of the film. It's worth reading after you see the movie, but not before, because it is laden (almost immediately) with spoilers.

Blade Runner 2049 Ending Explained | Screen Rant

I saw this url but not the article before I saw the movie, which is okay because spoilers don't bother me. But then I spent the entire film guessing that Luv would be the daughter just due to her physically looking like Rachael's offspring...all the way up to her death, where I was sitting there thinking "oh shit, we're fucking up here" and wondering how we would wrap up the story on that note.

The article was good to read afterwards.

 

[Mal12345]

I just got back from watching Blade Runner 2049. I sat in critical complacency as I allowed this movie to wash over me like that waves that almost took out poor Harrison. It took a little thinking to sort out and then piece together the impressionistic landscape on display before me.

My first thought is that this movie does not deserve 8.1 metacritic stars. I would give it 8.1 stars for effort. But this movie just didn't have the organic feel of the original Blade Runner. I also miss Rutger Hauer who brought the original to life, ironically enough for a created being. The star of Blade Runner 2049 looks like a little lost puppy dog. He is sad-looking because something is missing in his past. But he is not sad in reality, he is angry, hiding it behind a stoic mask.

There are no good guys or bad guys in this movie. There are just angry people, each with the same stoic self-presentation. Speaking in riddles also helps them avoid playing their subconscious "cards" on the table. If you are a super-realistic person you will hate this movie, because every conversation begins with some irrelevant reference. I mean, every single one of them, a formula played out by every person in the Blade Runner universe. They can't just cut to the chase right away. I'm surprised none of them brought up their bowel movements before attempting to disembowel their opponent with the omnipresent evil-looking blade everybody seems to carry in the future.

I realize that the person who made this person knows very well how to create a cinematic masterpiece. It was the writing that, unfortunately, brought down Blade Runner 2049.

 

[Mal12345]

I found a critic who kind of agrees with me (that's important too, ya know?):
Blade Runner 2049 Review: A Visual Stunner | Time.com

..."But even if Blade Runner 2049 never forgets where it came from, it somehow keeps losing its way. The picture’s moodiness is excessively manicured; this thing is gritty only in a premeditated way. Mostly, it feels like a capacious handbag, designed with perhaps too many extra compartments to hold every cool visual idea Villeneuve can dream up. This picture is even more ambitious than Villeneuve's last, the 2016 sci-fi parable Arrival.
That's not to say there aren't some inspired touches: The best of them is a retro-modern jukebox that looks like one of those old Victorian glass bells with a mechanical bird tootling inside, though the bird in this one is a mini hologram of one of the great singers of the 20th century. His crooning is a like the signal from ghost ship, calling through the years as if they were waves. Old movies send out those types of signals, too. Our job, when watching a sequel, is to sort-of remember and sort-of forget what came before. Blade Runner 2049 doesn't make us sort-of forget enough."

I added the bold text to make a point. And that is, the movie is visually stunning and contains some interesting back-scenery, but it lacks meat. It's like a Corvette which, unfortunately, has a four-banger installed under the hood (a Corvette normally has a V8 under the hood).

 

[Totenkindly]

I appreciated that the soundtrack played it really subtle - not making like it had aspirations of occupying the same space as the original (yeah, I was excited about a Vangelis return after listening to this from last year, especially this track, which would have been very very happy over some cyberpunk end credits), but just doing its job well. Leto's character didn't really fit in, I felt, but then he was surprisingly in the background of the more intimate plotlines - the clear important ones.

That was rather interesting -- like, some of the characters showing up more in the trailer didn't really have as much play in the actual movie. (I won't say which as to not spoiler it.... just interesting.)

I saw this url but not the article before I saw the movie, which is okay because spoilers don't bother me. But then I spent the entire film guessing that Luv would be the daughter just due to her physically looking like Rachael's offspring...all the way up to her death, where I was sitting there thinking "oh shit, we're fucking up here" and wondering how we would wrap up the story on that note.

The article was good to read afterwards.

She went from a seeming "special model" like Rachel to something more badass and ironically more of a pawn/extension of Wallace than a free agent. If anyone embraced personhood more, it was K and Joi... although I guess that was the point and what was alluded to in the dialogue and plot dynamics. K really wasn't "special" although we're led for a time to think he is and HE thinks it too... and when he realizes he's just a normal replicant like all the others, he's still left with deciding how he will use and spend his life and what values he will pursue. I think that really spoke to me. He was just an average, well, "joe" in the end who still did something that ended up marking him as "human" and further reaffirming that the line between replicant and human is mainly arbitrary.

That's kind of what the whole movie was about, exploring a different angle on the themes of the original through K's narrative. [btw, Hampton Fancher -- one of the screenwriters this time -- was also one of the screenwriters on the original film.]

There was that whole sex scene as well, modeled somewhat after the one in "Her" with the body surrogate, but this one was handled differently and was even more interesting since Joi was basically trying to sync up her image, and I love how the sync was not perfect so her appearance kept distorting and she'd sometimes have four hands and such. It's just thoughtful things like that -- imagining how it would play out if it actually happened and being willing to go there -- that makes me like Villeneuve's films.

I think Joi was an example to K -- she differentiated from the baseline of her protocol because she actually did love him, to the degree of sacrificing her life to stay with him. Which is what they were saying makes someone human... being willing to die for a higher cause. And he could tell she had humanized when he compares her to the street baseline late in the film, after his Joi is dead... leading him to do the same for something he believes in.

 

[Mal12345]

I had a hard time staying awake during this one.

 

[Mal12345]

All right, I'll take your word for it and buy that ticket for tonight.

Your reviewer used a non-word: "Vagueity." I don't know why someone would want to make up a word when a word for it already exists.

 

[Galena]

Your reviewer used a non-word: "Vagueity." I don't know why someone would want to make up a word when a word for it already exists.

For fun.

 

[Mal12345]

For fun.

There is always that ISFP penchant for playing with words that I need to consider. My ISFP wife plays with words all the time.

 

[Totenkindly]

Those damn ISFPs, always playing with vaguosity.