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Post by pairesta on Oct 7, 2017 8:03:02 GMT -5
Per the thread name, spoilers ahoy:
I'm not quite sure the final resolution on K's place in the whole plot. Basically, who gave him that memory, and for what purpose? Was it to "activate" him and get him to track down Deckard and the daughter? He had the daughter's memories implanted, and the one-eyed synth woman told him something like "we all think we are", meaning all synths have that latent memory?
This is where the movie got muddy for me. For all the time spent on it, the idea of a synth uprising gets tucked in in a five minute scene that doesn't come back up again.
Also it seemed to me like they still danced around Deckard's identity without definitively answering one way or another, unless I missed something. Lines about it were cryptic enough that you could read it either way. If that's the case, I liked how they handled it.
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Post by Lone Locust of the Apocalypse on Oct 7, 2017 9:40:04 GMT -5
I think it was just a meaningless coincidence that he had those memories, which I liked. I thought it was a poignant twist on the chosen one narrative.
No, not all replicants have that memory. The rebel leader's line was referring to the replicants' wish to be born and not created, i.e. authentic and not synthetic.
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Post by Lone Locust of the Apocalypse on Oct 7, 2017 21:59:04 GMT -5
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Post by Generic Poster on Oct 9, 2017 12:04:43 GMT -5
So, my wife thought this movie firmly established Deckard as a replicant. I thought it was more ambiguous - Leto could have just been fucking with him.
Of course, the latent ambiguity about Deckard depends on which version of the original you're dealing with, I guess.
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Post by Generic Poster on Oct 9, 2017 12:34:40 GMT -5
I particularly enjoyed that this new Blade Runner was still a future as imagined in the 1980s - giant Atari ads, the Soviet Union still being in place, etc.
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Post by Lone Locust of the Apocalypse on Oct 9, 2017 12:47:12 GMT -5
I thought this was great, but every one of Jared Leto's scenes could have been cut with no negative impact on the plot. Maybe, but his scene with Deckard was one of the most horrifying I've seen in recent memory. Wallace mocking Deckard by implying that Rachael's love for him was a lie and then summoning an almost exact replica of her made for an incredibly effective scene.
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Post by Generic Poster on Oct 9, 2017 13:00:18 GMT -5
Maybe, but his scene with Deckard was one of the most horrifying I've seen in recent memory. Wallace mocking Deckard by implying that Rachael's love for him was a lie and then summoning an almost exact replica of her made for an incredibly effective scene. See, all I could think of in that scene was how little that actress looked or sounded like 1982 Sean Young so the intended effect was totally lost on me. Seriously, out of the whole movie that was the scene that strained my suspension of disbelief the hardest. "Shouldn't we make her look more like Sean Young?" "No, the hairdo and the shoulder pads will do all the heavy lifting."
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Post by pairesta on Oct 9, 2017 13:30:18 GMT -5
Didn't they CGI her ala Tarkin in Rogue One? She had that weird CGI mouth thing going on.
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Post by Lone Locust of the Apocalypse on Oct 9, 2017 13:50:57 GMT -5
They digitally "youngified" Sean Young.
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Post by Lone Locust of the Apocalypse on Oct 9, 2017 14:09:03 GMT -5
Avengers running time: 143 minutes, no complaints Blade Runner 2049 running time: 163 minutes, "How are our bladders supposed to survive this?"
Are those 20 minutes really that big of a dealbreaker?
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Invisible Goat
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Post by Invisible Goat on Oct 9, 2017 14:14:28 GMT -5
It was great and I loved it. Visually awe-inspiring of course and I loved the overwhelming, nausea-inducing score. Not being ironic. I liked some of the subtler effects too, like how Joi was ever so slightly transparent. Also liked the 10 foot tall nipples. I don't have much of an opinion on Gosling or his performance but damn the man can wear a coat.
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Post by Lone Locust of the Apocalypse on Oct 9, 2017 14:20:25 GMT -5
It was great and I loved it. Visually awe-inspiring of course and I loved the overwhelming, nausea-inducing score. Not being ironic. I liked some of the subtler effects too, like how Joi was ever so slightly transparent. Also liked the 10 foot tall nipples. I don't have much of an opinion on Gosling or his performance but damn the man can wear a coat. I want, no, NEED that coat.
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Post by Generic Poster on Oct 9, 2017 16:16:42 GMT -5
I thought it was weird that the police could apparently immediately track wherever K was, but he seemed entirely unaware of this.
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Post by Jean-Luc Lemur on Oct 16, 2017 14:18:56 GMT -5
I finally have the chance/am in the mood to see this and should I see it in 3D or not?
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Oct 16, 2017 19:06:45 GMT -5
I thought this was great, but every one of Jared Leto's scenes could have been cut with no negative impact on the plot. Leto's character was fine, and Luv's reaction to that really fucking horrifying scene where he murders that new replicant add to the ambiguity of her character, and the scene with Wallace and Decker is good for making helping keep his status as a replicant unclear, but other than that you're right. Maybe I just need to watch it again, but Wallace's dialogue during the new-replicant-murdering scene was kind of a confused jumble, and was one of the weaker parts of the film imo.
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Oct 16, 2017 19:26:23 GMT -5
Per the thread name, spoilers ahoy: I'm not quite sure the final resolution on K's place in the whole plot. Basically, who gave him that memory, and for what purpose? Was it to "activate" him and get him to track down Deckard and the daughter? He had the daughter's memories implanted, and the one-eyed synth woman told him something like "we all think we are", meaning all synths have that latent memory? This is where the movie got muddy for me. For all the time spent on it, the idea of a synth uprising gets tucked in in a five minute scene that doesn't come back up again. Also it seemed to me like they still danced around Deckard's identity without definitively answering one way or another, unless I missed something. Lines about it were cryptic enough that you could read it either way. If that's the case, I liked how they handled it. I think Deckard's status as a replicant is very much meant to remain ambiguous, which I'd agree is good. My biggest issue with the idea of a sequel to Blade Runner when I heard they were bringing Ford back was that it would seem to make his character canonically not-a-replicant, but the movie addressed those issues with the idea of replicants with an open lifespan and focusing even more on the ambiguity of the film. As to Joe's place in the plot, my read on it is that he was given the memory of the 6/10/21 horse because a) he was placed in the Blade Runner division so the replicant army could keep tabs on him and so he would eventually end up alerting the underground replicant army when the Blade Runners/Wallace Corp. started closing in on the real "born" replicant, and b) possibly to serve as a decoy "born" replicant if need be (although Luv/Wallace never seem to have seriously considered him as possibly being Rachel's child). I wouldn't necessarily agree with General that it's a meaningless coincidence, because that's a bit contrived, but ultimately I think it is supposed to be a bit unclear, which I like, because it's more true to a PKD novel in that you can't ever be sure whether you have a legit explanation for what's happening or not. It's also why I'm OK with the incipient replicant rebellion playing such a small role in the film; as in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, BR2049 is ultimately focused more on Joe's (and Deckard's) reaction to a deeply confusing world without any clear-cut moral choices (I'd argue that one's sympathies should lie most heavily with the replicant army, but their "more human than human" attitudes and their apparent dismissal of artificial intelligence as also being persons are alarming), and how they cope in a world of uncertainty, a lack of respect for the rights of sentient persons, and soul-crushing consumerism than it is about the particulars of sociopolitical happenings that may or may not be happening at all.
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Oct 16, 2017 19:27:32 GMT -5
So, my wife thought this movie firmly established Deckard as a replicant. I thought it was more ambiguous - Leto could have just been fucking with him. Of course, the latent ambiguity about Deckard depends on which version of the original you're dealing with, I guess.Or whether you've read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?.
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Oct 16, 2017 20:21:50 GMT -5
I liked BR2049 a lot. I'd say it's at least on par with the original. I'd even go so far as to say that it feels like a more thematically faithful adaptation of a PKD novel; there's a lot more focus on what authenticity is and if it really matters, which is explored in depth in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, but not quite so much in Original BR. Joe's internal conflict about the authenticity of his memories and what it means for him to be a supposedly inherently obedient replicant, or possibly a "born" replicant, or possibly just a regular replicant, makes him a much more compelling lead than Deckard was in the original BR, and makes him more like the Deckard from the book. Likewise, Deckard himself is a more interesting character in BR2049. This is partly because Ford's performance here is probably better than it was in the original, but I think it's mainly because in the original the relationship between Deckard and Rachel was pretty creepy, to the point where it's hard to like or pull for Deckard at all. In BR2049, most of the creepiness of that relationship is excised, and his character can focus more on a relationship tragically cut short and on his being forced to spend his entire life away from his daughter in order to protect her.
Another thing that's good about the film is that they get rid of a lot (albeit not all) of the misogyny of the original film and of PKD's book. BR2049 (mostly) seems to be just depicting a misogynistic society (i.e. that horrifying scene where Leto stabs that replicant, AI wives who primarily function as emotional helpmates, and women being sexualized a lot more than men), whereas Original BR seemed to be more of the view that the over-sexualizing of female characters was cool and that Deckard was just cool and suave. BR2049 definitely still sexualizes female characters more than its male characters, but it's much less sexist than the original, or PKD's writing (which, to be fair, is a super low bar to clear).
Something else that the BR2049 got right about PKD that Original BR didn't really get into was the way that, in a world wherein bland, cynical consumerism has stripped experiences of any deeper meaning, and said consumerism holds an incredibly tight grip on society at large, people manage to live meaningful lives and have profound experiences in spite of this. Like in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Mercerism is on one level a fraudulent religion which capitulates to a deeply unjust ultra-consumerist society, but people still derive meaning and experience personal growth from practicing the faith. Or when Deckard finds a toad at the end of the novel, but learns its another fake, and yet is able to use it to cope with his experiences instead of continuing to obsess over getting a higher-status real pet. Likewise, in BR2049, there's something very depressing and creepy about the very concept of an AI spouse, and Joi's aforementioned emotional helpmate personality is deeply fucked up, but in spite of this, she and Joe are able to form an at least seemingly genuine relationship, which, "authentic" or not, is meaningful for Joe, and at the very least helps Joe to see himself as a person by adopting an actual name instead of a serial number. Also, despite it basically comprising about 10% of the film, the relationship between Joe and Joi manages to be way more compelling and moving than the relationship between Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson in Her.
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Oct 16, 2017 20:53:45 GMT -5
Also, what if when Joe pulled the 6/10/21 horse out of that furnace, if he'd dramatically unwrapped it, only it had said "6/11/21" instead, and he'd been like "Oh, June 11th, 2021. Looks like I remembered the date wrong then, so false alarm," and the movie had just ended there?
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Post by pairesta on Oct 17, 2017 5:59:33 GMT -5
Also, what if when Joe pulled the 6/10/21 horse out of that furnace, if he'd dramatically unwrapped it, only it had said "6/11/21" instead, and he'd been like "Oh, June 11th, 2021. Looks like I remembered the date wrong then, so false alarm," and the movie had just ended there? Or, when they dug up the box under the tree, they found that it was just 20th century Woods Porn?
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Post by pairesta on Oct 17, 2017 6:06:52 GMT -5
The more I think about the movie, the more I like it. As I said on the Last Movie Watched thread, the whole thing serves as an answer to the last line in Blade Runner. I'd like a second viewing on a much better screen, but clearing that real estate in my schedule in time to still catch it on a decent-sized screen seems unlikely.
It's all too predictable that it didn't do well, but it's still too bad this sort of movie-making isn't being rewarded. I'm sure it will grow an equally strong cult though.
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Post by pairesta on Oct 17, 2017 10:06:28 GMT -5
The more I think about it, this film is pretty much an answer to that question. Explain Well, the question/statement is about Rachel, and after the events of that film, she goes on to create life: something no other synth has ever done. She has impact on the world even 30 years later, after her death. Deckard has moved past the whole "is he a synth or not" question; it's moot. He's lived 30 years further. He brought life into the world and fought and sacrificed and lost for an ideal higher than himself. K's arc in the entire film is first finding out that he might be "special", then finding out he isn't, then realizing that that wasn't what gave him motivation anyways. He still felt those things, regardless; they were still real to him. He still formed a bond with Joi, they felt love for each other. He gave his life, too, for this higher ideal, to save Deckard, to let him reunite with his daughter. Maybe not an "answer" per se to the "who really lives" question, but a further exploration of it.
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moimoi
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Post by moimoi on Oct 17, 2017 21:45:35 GMT -5
I thought the film was beautiful and mostly satisfying, but it could have been 20 minutes shorter. After such a long journey, I also felt like there were too many unresolved issues at the end, including: Is Deckard a replicant? (in my mind, not definitively answered, which is fine) Is the Wallace corporation going to give up on trying to breed replicants? (clearly no) Is Jared Leto human? (probably not) Does the daughter work for Wallace? If so, why aren't she and Deckard on the run? This whole world is apparently under surveillance! What will the replicant rebel army do next? etc. etc. It felt like the first chapter of a trilogy that is definitely never coming, given its box office performance.
As for K and his place in the story - I think the rebel replicants set up a number of decoys to cover their tracks. Since K was probably created to be a Blade Runner, it would make sense to implant his memory to throw him off their trail. The daughter was probably sheltered in that junkyard at some point (her protectors tore the pages out of the child slave master's log) and hid the horse her father gave her, so she put that in K's memory as a personal touch (which is why she cries when she reads K's mind and says, without lying, that the experience was real). There might have been other Blade Runners implanted the same way, but they didn't stumble on to that particular case of the dead tree and thus that particular false memory wasn't triggered. I have to re-watch the scene where he compares the two DNA sequences, though. If K actually has the same DNA as the daughter, that would make him either her living twin or a deliberate replicant using her DNA...
I thought the performances across the board were pretty strong, though Leto is miscast and the Sean Young thing needed to be much more realistic to work on a dramatic level. The score and cinematography were amazing. The set pieces were cool. Thematically, I think my moviegoing companion captured it best as, "Your identity - who you are - is whoever you think and feel that you are" which certainly resonates in today's culture. I didn't find the movie sexist, since they were depicting a morally depraved, dystopian society that would embrace sexism along with various forms of slavery.
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Oct 17, 2017 22:15:45 GMT -5
I thought the film was beautiful and mostly satisfying, but it could have been 20 minutes shorter. After such a long journey, I also felt like there were too many unresolved issues at the end, including: Is Deckard a replicant? (in my mind, not definitively answered, which is fine) Is the Wallace corporation going to give up on trying to breed replicants? (clearly no) Is Jared Leto human? (probably not) Does the daughter work for Wallace? If so, why aren't she and Deckard on the run? This whole world is apparently under surveillance! What will the replicant rebel army do next? etc. etc. It felt like the first chapter of a trilogy that is definitely never coming, given its box office performance. As for K and his place in the story - I think the rebel replicants set up a number of decoys to cover their tracks. Since K was probably created to be a Blade Runner, it would make sense to implant his memory to throw him off their trail. The daughter was probably sheltered in that junkyard at some point (her protectors tore the pages out of the child slave master's log) and hid the horse her father gave her, so she put that in K's memory as a personal touch (which is why she cries when she reads K's mind and says, without lying, that the experience was real). There might have been other Blade Runners implanted the same way, but they didn't stumble on to that particular case of the dead tree and thus that particular false memory wasn't triggered. I have to re-watch the scene where he compares the two DNA sequences, though. If K actually has the same DNA as the daughter, that would make him either her living twin or a deliberate replicant using her DNA... I thought the performances across the board were pretty strong, though Leto is miscast and the Sean Young thing needed to be much more realistic to work on a dramatic level. The score and cinematography were amazing. The set pieces were cool. Thematically, I think my moviegoing companion captured it best as, "Your identity - who you are - is whoever you think and feel that you are" which certainly resonates in today's culture. I didn't find the movie sexist, since they were depicting a morally depraved, dystopian society that would embrace sexism along with various forms of slavery. I'm pretty sure at some point it was established that Wallace Corp. contracted memory creation work from Deckard's daughter, but I don't remember for certain. As to the other ambiguities, I think those were deliberate, and honestly, with most of them, I'd have been a bit disappointed if they had been resolved. One of the things that I was afraid about but which fortunately didn't come to pass with BR2049 was that the film would go about answering questions about the original that really didn't need to be answered. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? ends with a lot of uncertainty regarding Deckard's identity as a replicant, and as a person, and regarding issues which are totally beyond his control, so I think it's a good thing that there's a lot which is left unanswered in this film. Furthermore, I think the uncertainty about what happens with Deckard and his daughter at the end makes Joe's decision not to kill Deckard more poignant. Joe has spent the vast majority of his life believing himself to be a slave incapable of exercising agency; in refusing to follow the orders of the replicant army leader, he both fully establishes himself as his own person, sacrificing himself for the one semi-parental figure he has ever known, and then giving Deckard the chance to meet his daughter, even though it's a risky thing to do. So it wasn't just that Joe was disobeying orders to do what was obviously the right thing, as he did when he lied to his Blade Runner captain, he was able to make his own morally ambiguous decision. Because his daughter may well end up being found as a result of Joe's decision. Apparently, though, there are tentative plans for a sequel, as according to Wikipedia: "In October 2017, Villeneuve said that he expected a third film would be made if 2049 was successful. Hampton Fancher, the writer of both Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049, also revealed that he was considering reviving an old story idea involving Deckard travelling to another country, and Ford said that he would be open to returning if he liked the script." I think it'll be fine if the sequel doesn't happen though.
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Oct 17, 2017 22:23:18 GMT -5
I find it somewhat odd that people continue to refer to the film's protagonist as "K" rather than "Joe" in this thread where referring to him as "Joe" is not spoiling anything to anybody. It's kind of like referring to Finn from TFA as FN-2147, or like referring to Jean Valjean as "24601". It's not quite the same, as "Joe" doesn't adopt that name until about halfway through the film, but "K" is literally part of a serial number.
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Post by Mr. Greene's October Surprise on Oct 20, 2017 3:36:33 GMT -5
I find it somewhat odd that people continue to refer to the film's protagonist as "K" rather than "Joe" in this thread where referring to him as "Joe" is not spoiling anything to anybody. It's kind of like referring to Finn from TFA as FN-2147, or like referring to Jean Valjean as "24601". It's not quite the same, as "Joe" doesn't adopt that name until about halfway through the film, but "K" is literally part of a serial number. He's credited as "K" on Wikipedia, which is what I think people are relying on, here. Also... don't forget that "Joe" is literally only one letter away from "Joi"... and that it's Joi who suggests the name to him.
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Post by louiebb on Oct 20, 2017 4:13:25 GMT -5
I find it somewhat odd that people continue to refer to the film's protagonist as "K" rather than "Joe" in this thread where referring to him as "Joe" is not spoiling anything to anybody. It's kind of like referring to Finn from TFA as FN-2147, or like referring to Jean Valjean as "24601". It's not quite the same, as "Joe" doesn't adopt that name until about halfway through the film, but "K" is literally part of a serial number. He's credited as "K" on Wikipedia, which is what I think people are relying on, here. Also... don't forget that "Joe" is literally only one letter away from "Joi"... and that it's Joi who suggests the name to him. And that Joi called him "Joe" because that's what's in her software. My wife and I were talking about it after the movie, and we agreed that the last scene "where his girlfriend is a huge naked hologram" was really sad. I don't really think that K thinks of himself as "Joe" after that scene.
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Post by louiebb on Oct 20, 2017 4:18:42 GMT -5
I thought this was great, but every one of Jared Leto's scenes could have been cut with no negative impact on the plot. As someone else mentioned, that scene with the new replicant being birthed may have been plot-insignificant, but it was great as horror. Even before Leto slices her: Can you imagine being an adult and therefore able to remember the birth trauma? There's a scene in Mass Effect which brings that up, and all I could think about during that scene was how incredibly frightening everything would have been for the poor new replicant. I'm not sure: I think that such memories would be overwritten in most replicants, but I don't know for sure. It's an intriguing thought as world-building goes.
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Post by Lone Locust of the Apocalypse on Oct 20, 2017 9:49:34 GMT -5
He's credited as "K" on Wikipedia, which is what I think people are relying on, here. Also... don't forget that "Joe" is literally only one letter away from "Joi"... and that it's Joi who suggests the name to him. And that Joi called him "Joe" because that's what's in her software. My wife and I were talking about it after the movie, and we agreed that the last scene "where his girlfriend is a huge naked hologram" was really sad. I don't really think that K thinks of himself as "Joe" after that scene. Yeah, that was the strongest scene in my opinion. I really like how they made Joi and K's romance ambiguous. It's clear he really loved her, and the actress sells her love for K, but there's that knowledge in the back of your mind.
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Post by Mr. Greene's October Surprise on Oct 20, 2017 20:12:32 GMT -5
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