Blade Runner. Rutger Hauer has had a respectable career but the death scene of Roy Batty is the sickest portrayal I have ever watched! The same goes for Ford, Young, and Hannah. I liked BR 2049 but I can't say it's better than the first one. Blade Runner evokes the Hollywood era of movies in a totally original way, a unique and bold stroke for a science fiction movie.
The original, though Dennis' sequel is also very good. I'll put it this way, the original Blade Runner helped revolutionize film studies in academia in the US--it's very, very rare for a movie to be able to do that.
I am not the insane fanboy of the first that I see a lot of on YT, but I like it a lot. But I really didn't care for the sequel, mostly because it didn't fit thematically, and it was mis-represented in the marketing as being a Harrison Ford movie, and instead it was a Ryan Gosling movie.
Joe felt what it meant to love. Through his self sacrifice, he discovered the purpose of life. He discovered purpose itself. I believe that in his dying moments, that is when he truly felt alive, real, and ultimately... human.
He literally made the choice to not be a robot for the state anymore and do his own thing. Free will. "Who am I to you?" Lots to unpack, but basically, he affirmed his own humanity by choosing to enable a profound reunion.
I loved 2049 and maybe even prefer it over the first film. The most affecting part for me was K believing that he was the child only to find out that he wasn't. Imagine living your entire life thinking you were one thing. Then you find out that in reality you are something very, very special. Only to learn that, no, you're no more than what you thought you were to begin with. That loss was so overwhelming to me. Almost like a death in the family. I grieved for K in that moment.
I think in the end he's in peace since he knew he had a soul. Turns out the old hag's words held more weight than it seems - to die for something more important than yourself is the most human thing one can do.
I was Floored by how good this sequel was. The fact that we can even debate which one is better says a lot. I grew up with the original but I think 2049 is better. Excellent breakdown BTW. I appreciate the opinion of someone that truly loves the original
I saw it in the theater. This film left me sitting in my seat for a while after it was over. The rest of the evening I just kept thinking about life - meaning, purpose, love... the difficult and complex nature of reality etc. I love this film and consider it the greatest sci-fi next to Terminator 2 and Aliens. The film score was magnificent too. I ended up writing a summation after having seen it a second time: There was no real decoy. It was purely on paper. K/Joe is utterly, completely, unequivocally unremarkable, thus his name, Joe, as in average Joe. Joi does not possess a soul. She is completely fake. She is the other side of the Replicant coin and is made solely to please and coddle her owner/lover. Her entire branding scheme is that she'll be anything you want. Joi is K's fleeting dream of being special -- to be human... or as he put it, "to have a soul" -- so she always reinforced this to him. In her final moment she made sure to tell him she loved him. Wallace posed a question about whether Deckard was moved by love or by programming. To me there's no doubt whatsoever Deckard is fully human. The original movie is about a bad man finding his humanity through the grace of a machine. Wallace's question is not a literal "Are you human or machine?" question, but pondering what the difference is. If love is just neurochemistry, and if we are products of biological programming or something higher, like a soul. The ultimate takeaway is that it really doesn't matter. What matters is what we choose to do with our lives. We find and create our own meaning and purpose. In summary, 2049 is about dreams and delusions. K wants desperately to feel special so Joi tells him this constantly and he quickly assumes all the evidence points to him because it's his dream. He becomes deluded and forces himself into the situation even as it destroys him. He thinks this is what it means to be human - to grapple with one's humanity. Then upon meeting Freysa, K comes to learn that in fact he is not special after all. Not born but manufactured. He is torn between two sides telling him what his identity is and should be; the LAPD who informs his identity as that of a slave, and the resistance which informs his identity as that of a free Replicant. When K comes across the giant advert Joi on the bridge, she says to him "You look like a good Joe". He then realizes that not even the name his own Joi gave him was special. Her feelings for him were never real... just programming. K, at this point an emotionally broken Replicant, it is in this moment that he chooses to follow his own path and not let anyone tell him who he is or what he should do. He makes the most human decision of all and takes his life into his own hands. He saves Deckard for the same reason Roy did in the first Blade Runner. He wanted someone to remember him, for his final decision that fully validates him as human to not be in vain. No one else gave him his identity, only he did, and his sacrifice ensured forever that he was by every metric a human being, even if the world would ultimately forget him.
Do you actually know this? In the first film Gaff presents a chicken when deckard doesn't want to take on the job, the matchstick man could allude to Deckard falling for Rachel, and the unicorn could reveal an insight into Deckards dreams/memories or a chance to posses something unique rare and magic. Following that trend it would be more likely that Gaff is calling K a pejorative sheep, just following orders doing what he's supposed to.
You've considered quite a bit in your review/analysis of both films. Very, very thoughtful. I appreciate your comprehensive examination of so many areas of the plot, characters, re-use of music, and so on. Well done.
This is the first video of yours I've seen, and it alone sold me on your channel. Your self-awareness and introspection at the end are really nice to see, and the emotion in your voice was moving.
I actually think the tears in rain theme was used perfectly in the sequel. In the original the replicant shows deckard his humanity by saving his Life. In the Sequel it’s kinda the same, he saves his life and reunites him with his Daughter, although he has no stakes in it. So despite him not being the child, he shows empathy and (probably) dies in the snow. I cried when the theme started, and immediately thought they couldn’t have used it better.
Thank you so much for showing such reverence and care to the 1982 masterpiece. Most people tend not to show this film more than a passing respect for the technical aspects and completely pass over the deep questions and subtext of the plot. It is understandable as the film rewards many rewatches, but the way you were moved by it warms my heart as it is the same way I felt watching this film at the cinema in 1982 when I was 15 years old. I can only ever watch it by myself and and in a darkened room. Movies are amazing and your partner is a lucky person. Keep it up luv.
Identical twins have the same DNA, but also the same gender. Boy-Girl twins are fraternal twins and won't have identical DNA. That is how he knew one of the records was an edited copy of the other. There was only one child.
I love this movie. Like many, I do prefer the first. But this manages to be a worthy sequel, which I thought was impossible until I saw it. This was a fantastic theater experience for me. I went alone in the middle of the day and soaked it all in.
same, I was with a handful of others spread around at the cinema!later this year, I want to recreate Luvs office, with the earthy brown colour on the walls!
I'm glad you decided to wait and watch it again before issuing your reaction to it. I've seen reactors on here who give snap judgments of movies and are (perhaps) overly harsh or have unreasonable expectations, and it's always frustrating when they dismiss a movie based on those expectations. I'm of the firm opinion that a movie should be watched at least twice before judging it, especially by critics. A lot of movies that we regard as classics now were derided or dismissed by critics when they first came out. We can say in hindsight that "of course" they were wrong because they "just didn't get it", but we do the same things ourselves. When it comes to movies, there are so many ingrained preconceptions in all of us that we can't properly appreciate a movie for what it is *or* what it's trying to be on the first viewing. Whether it's a sequel that may or may not be trying to live up to the original, or part of a recognized genre going up against every other movie in that genre, or simply another movie made by a director, a writer, a crew, and/or an acting team that we've experienced before, we're all going to have preconceived notions of what it "should be", no matter how openminded we think we are. And if it's *none* of those things, then we have expectations of a movie that's trying to be "different" and are disappointed whether it is or isn't. It's not fair to the movie or the people who made it. So, we should all watch a movie twice before judging it; once to clear our expectations out of the way, and then again to take it for what it is. I'm glad that's what you did here.
I really apprectiated the fact that you held off on sharing this. It's also great that you were able to reflect and filter your thoughts with time. Great react! I really enjoyed this react, and your review! I would definitely recommend watching any/all of Robocop/Starship Troopers/Total Recall. I would also recommend the movie Soldier, staring Kurt Russel. It is set in the Blade Runner universe, and is a very impressive movie. Kurt Russel only has, like two or three lines of dialog through-out the entire movie, but you understand him just by his acting skill.
I found out fairly recently that Rutger Hauer came to Ridley Scott with a speech he had written himself and Ridley liked it.. so the fantastic "tears in rain" speech was written by Hauer and for me it is a defining moment for the movie. I think of Joy as a newer - digital - version of Pris and she was a "basic pleasure model". Over time she will be influenced by her interactions, but she probably comes with some basic settings and memories, so she, for example, likes the name Joe. She shows us that even a piece of software has become capable of real emotions. To me this world would disprove the existence of "souls". They are just an emergent property of the hardware - or software - as they are shown here.
Blade Runner has been my favorite movie since I saw it in high school when it was new. I never felt human as a teenager and really identified with the theme of what it means to be human. I bought it on VHS tape and watched it to death. When this sequel came out I was so nervous that it wouldn't be good, but I'd seen some of Denis Villeneuve's movies and had a lot of hope it would be good. I saw the movie in the theater alone and afterward sat outside the theater and thought about it. I had a lot of conflicting emotions about it and didn't know if I liked it or not. The similar music but not-quite-the-same kept bringing me out of the movie, but I did like the Tears in Rain theme. It felt right. This movie really grew on me, and now when I reach for a Blade Runner rewatch I'm hard pressed to make a choice between them. The themes are so good, but yet not the same, the little differences giving more breadth to the discussion of what being human really is and examining the scope of the human experience.
Fantastic review Bunny, especially on Father's Day. You found profoundness in this one I didn't and I watched the first movie's original theater release in college. You make us all proud with your emotional perceptions that aren't spelled out in the scenes. An old movie you might find interesting is George Lucas' "THX 1138" from 1971. It laid the groundwork for techniques he used in Star Wars along with a few predictions and some dark humor. You're getting better at this all the time. Happy Father's Day.
When I prepped to watch this sequel, I was ready to be completely disappointed. Was one of THE best sequels ever. Thanks for your reaction. Made it even better.
I saw it in the theater. This film left me sitting in my seat for a while after it was over. The rest of the evening I just kept thinking about life - meaning, purpose, love... the difficult and complex nature of reality etc. I love this film and consider it the greatest sci-fi next to Terminator 2 and Aliens. The film score was magnificent too. I ended up writing a summation after having seen it a second time: There was no real decoy. It was purely on paper. K/Joe is utterly, completely, unequivocally unremarkable, thus his name, Joe, as in average Joe. Joi does not possess a soul. She is completely fake. She is the other side of the Replicant coin and is made solely to please and coddle her owner/lover. Her entire branding scheme is that she'll be anything you want. Joi is K's fleeting dream of being special -- to be human... or as he put it, "to have a soul" -- so she always reinforced this to him. In her final moment she made sure to tell him she loved him. Wallace posed a question about whether Deckard was moved by love or by programming. To me there's no doubt whatsoever Deckard is fully human. The original movie is about a bad man finding his humanity through the grace of a machine. Wallace's question is not a literal "Are you human or machine?" question, but pondering what the difference is. If love is just neurochemistry, and if we are products of biological programming or something higher, like a soul. The ultimate takeaway is that it really doesn't matter. What matters is what we choose to do with our lives. We find and create our own meaning and purpose. In summary, 2049 is about dreams and delusions. K wants desperately to feel special so Joi tells him this constantly and he quickly assumes all the evidence points to him because it's his dream. He becomes deluded and forces himself into the situation even as it destroys him. He thinks this is what it means to be human - to grapple with one's humanity. Then upon meeting Freysa, K comes to learn that in fact he is not special after all. Not born but manufactured. He is torn between two sides telling him what his identity is and should be; the LAPD who informs his identity as that of a slave, and the resistance which informs his identity as that of a free Replicant. When K comes across the giant advert Joi on the bridge, she says to him "You look like a good Joe". He then realizes that not even the name his own Joi gave him was special. Her feelings for him were never real... just programming. K, at this point an emotionally broken Replicant, it is in this moment that he chooses to follow his own path and not let anyone tell him who he is or what he should do. He makes the most human decision of all and takes his life into his own hands. He saves Deckard for the same reason Roy did in the first Blade Runner. He wanted someone to remember him, for his final decision that fully validates him as human to not be in vain. No one else gave him his identity, only he did, and his sacrifice ensured forever that he was by every metric a human being, even if the world would ultimately forget him.
I completely get you here. Totally. Blade Runner 2049 made me feel incredibly conflicted as well. The problem is that 2049 is a really good movie. It's superbly acted, has a great plot, it takes its time to tell the story, it's beautifully shot, and violence is used sparingly but viscerally and powerfully. None of this 10 minutes striking poses with a magic sky beam crap. But it's also a Blade Runner movie, which means it has virtual perfection to live up to. Roy Batty might be the best antagonist in cinema history. He's intelligent, powerful, menacing, manipulative, and dangerous, but also reveals himself to be both wise and compassionate in his final moments. In Roy's final scene, the entire tale we just watched is turned upside down and forces us to question who the real villain of this story truly is. In his way, Roy is a hero. He is trying to help his friends survive in a system that is literally trying to kill them for having feelings, and Deckard is an executioner hired by that system to "retire" him like an out of control beast. Roy's methods are brutal, but what would we do to protect our own loved ones against such cruelty? And at the end, Roy's feelings shine through. In fact he overcomes his in-built design to be an "optimum combat model" and actually saves a life rather than takes it. In a way, Roy becomes "more human than human", to quote Tyrell. To the viewer, the realisation of the complexities of Roy's true character are revealed in a simple yet beautiful scene that has more emotional punch than any other in film, and manages to make me tear up every single time I see it. Any movie set in this world suffers terribly for not having Roy in it. As good as 2049 is (and I think it's extremely good), it just can't do 'Tears in Rain' justice.
I love the depth and introspective you have, especially revisiting this. I’m glad you waited to come back, and wow these movies bring out the emotions. It’s wild how a movie can do that, I love it. Thanks for sharing this!
Strangely enough, Luv is my favorite character, because she's just so fascinating. She's clearly far more aware, more developed, than other replicants, and yet she also obeys with *nearly* unswerving obedience. The only deviations in her obedience are things that let her perform violence or cruelty. And in her final moments, when she's beneath the water, we see in her face the truth behind her mask, that she is in reality filled with hate.
Luv was the only bad thing about this film. Keep in mind she's meant to be playing a similar part at a similar level to Roy from OG Blade Runner. Yeah. Edit: Really thought that her look, hair, suit, emotional feminist attitude, thinking she's stronger than she is with arrogance, and the fact she's the least good looking and heaviest female character all says to me that she undoubtedly, sucks. Edit 2: Also the oldest character besides the female commander.
@Cadeaux_Man Deckard doesn't have a parallel, he's in both movies. K and Roy are both the protagonists of the films they are in. Both are Replicants made to kill. They both help Deckard to survive and they both die to the exact same music at the end of the film. The director made it very easy for you with the same music playing at their deaths.
@GregorySnipe I see Roy has a desire and respect but also hatred of his creator, as does luv. Luv is just on the opposite perspective of not realising her potential freedom away from her creator, as Roy realised. K I see as a parallel to deckard. The same "am I different or human or not". Again done from the opposite perspective of "am I human?" Rather than deckards "am I not human". I see Luv may have been able to come to the same conclusion and freedom as Roy if she wasn't so blindly(lol) obeying her creator. I see deckard went kind off off the rails to what he may have envisioned his future to look like, and k in managing to be introspective of himself, managed to find freedom, much like deckard for four years(or more). Nice to discuss it with you and share different perspectives :)
I love how honest your are. And I feel the same way about the original... I saw it in the theater when I was 16 on first release, and it hit me like a bomb. 42 years later and Roy's death still brings tears to my old eyes, it was so profound. When I saw your reaction to the original, you brought tears to my eyes, because i knew what you were feeling, I completely understand. Also, it is impossible to even remotely imagine Blade Runner without that simply brilliant score by Vangelis; but I have to say I still think that beautiful music should have been left to that moment alone. K deserved his own moment with its own piercing theme. I get why you changed your view, though and that's totally understandable. Again, love your insights and honesty. I really enjoy your work, I look forward to seeing more. Cheers!
there were about three shorts made by the director with the actors for backstory... you should definately watch them on youtube. One is very significant for the big replicant at the beginning. Its my favorite back story short about who he was... Btw, these are not cut scenes, they were released before the movie came out to give back story for the side characters.
waiting was good advice. i had to wait 40 years. but seriously, this movie has to be watched as its own thing. this movie made me cry when i saw it. i thought it was not what i was expecting and its better than we could have expected given the current state of Hollywood sequels
Nice to see this posted on Father’s Day. Points for suspecting that Ana’s compromised immune system may be fictitious. I love how the film ends on Deckard’s little quarter smile reminiscent of the Mona Lisa.
You have to see the two dune films! They are great but I won’t spoil them by giving you any more info!! Same director as 2049 and arrival - another excellent film!
@thecocktailian2091 yeah, it was never filmed. The original scene was simple. The replicant talk to Deckard and he says "i'm Deckard. Blade Runner" and shot him. The producers wanted a film that doesn't go over 2 hours long. I recommend the documentary "Dangerous days: making Blade Runner" for more information. Superb and long documentary.
It actually makes sense that the born daughter of Rachel is immunocompromised. In making adults only Replicants don't develop, so they have a preset, rugged, simple immune system because theyre programmed that way from the factory, But when a child is born they DEVELOP their own immune system. And during oart if that process, normal human babies are VERY vulnerable, and part of that development involves getting their mother's antibodies from their mother's milk. They probably also get skin flora from their mother, and interact with the germs in the benign home environment... but if rachel managed to BEAR a child but couldnt naturally hand down an organically developed immune system, and then died, and the child was moved around a lot, put in aj orphanage surrounded by radiation, etc... it's possible that she developed a dysfunctional immune system, having neither a manufactured one, nor a fully inherited one, and a rough childhood. Just speculating. I think it makes sense.
The theme when Deckard meets Ana is earned and appropriate. In the first movie it plays each time Deckard connects emotionally to another, first Rachel and later Roy. "Joe" is also used as a generic designation for any man.
Bunny, I loved your reaction as well as your thoughts afterward. I understand your trepidations about 2049. For ne, even though I was weary about it, I liked it. I've had nearly 40 to ruminate about the original. I was happy to be back in that universe again. How far has you deep dive gone into Bade Runner?
I had the soundtrack of Blade Runner in my possession since I saw it in the theater 40 years ago. Tape cassette, then CD, then MP3s. It started with the New American Orchestra's version as Vangelis's version wasn't available straight away.
What an excellent review you picked up so many ideas that I didn't even think of when I first watched it. It only listening to the "Shoulder of Orion" podcast I realised how much I missed. It took me a few watches but I love this as much as the original now. Great vid!
I had the same response to reusing Tears the first time. Wouldn't be able to react/review these on a schedule, because they're so unsettling I just wanted sit on a mountain for a while and figure out how I felt.
I loved this reaction, the same happened to me in a way. i first saw Blade runner when i was a teen and loved it, in 2017 i was 28 years old and i was very excited to see the new one but after i got home from the theater i thought it wasn't the same or it didn't feel the same. 2 years passed and suddenly i rewatched 2049 and loved it, for the same reasons that you mentioned at the end of the video, and i thought both films were equally amazing. today, i think for me personally, 2049 is the one that resonates more with my inner self. i really love the visuals and music of 2049, how it has its own identity and how it talks about the same themes as the first one but in a different way. and im in love on how respectful it is with its predecessor. i have never seen a sequel that understood the task so well. i love the director too, i became his fan 😂... Luv is my favorite character of all. i know she is wallace's enforcer, but how tragic it is that the only thing that she was taught was to obey out of fear, she cries under very specific situations, maybe she feels that if she doesn't obey she will no longer be loved, and thats why she is so relentless and determined, an unstoppable force. i think deep inside we all have done things just to get affection from others, and if we stop maybe we will no longer be loved. from BR2049 screenplay: "LUV. Polite, efficient. Perfect. Moral as a tornado and about as safe. Beautiful, yes. The way a sword can be if it’s safely behind glass." is this Luv? or just love? thanks for the reaction, again, i enjoyed it very much
You have a beautiful soul. Love both your reactions. Decades after watching the first, I still think about this film. Have recently been watching reaction vids to the original and I think you are the best, dear. When you cried at Roy's death in the first reaction, it was so touching to me. I also tear up when Rachael tears up when she first realizes she is a replicant. Also loved your reaction to the...intense scene where Deckard corners Rachael and they confirm their feelings. A lot of reactors your age get all...squicky and pseudo preachy but you got it. Bravo! I also prefer the first, but...this was NOT a letdown, you know. Keep up the great work! Yes! Both Tyrell and Wallace are Luciferian figures. IMO the real villains...
I love this film, as well as the original. They explore very important questions and use the best strengths of science fiction to do it. K is an incredible character, who like us, wants to be the hero in his own story, wants to be special and matter, and as a conduit for us, we want it for him. It was a brave subversion to take that away, and I think lost some viewers because of it, but it makes him such a better character for it, because he chooses to be a hero and finds a path to it. He wasn’t given a great purpose to fulfill, but found his own purpose instead, and maybe found his own humanity and his own soul through it.
The 2002 Director’s Cut is the best version of the first Blade Runner movie. You have to see it to understand. Deckard has a narration which makes us understand the movie better and why Roy Batty saved him in the end.
I'm 2 weeks late commenting so no one will probably read it, but oh well Good sequel. I really enjoyed your fantastic analysis of the movie/characters. This movie makes it clear the Unicorn was always Rachael, as she could have children. Niander Wallace was obsessed with figuring out how Tyrell made Rachael that way. I want to know more about crazy replicant Luv's motivations. At the end I wish we got to listen to Deckard and Ana's conversation finally meeting, and her learning the truth about herself. I agree her illness was probably made up to trick authorities and keep her safe from discovery. Hopefully she can now have a life and get to know her father Deckard and he can tell her about her mother. You see Ana cry when she looks over the memory K/Joe brought her to analyze. She did say the memory was real but I wonder why she didn't tell him it was her memory? K's story is tragic, but understand why you felt initially upset about the same song being used at the end. I didn't notice that the first time. I know some people want to think Deckard is a replicant but the author Philip K. Dick that wrote the book Blade Runner is based on always said Deckard was written as human. That's also what makes him and Rachael having a child even more of a miracle. It proves the replicants are essentially human.
It's nice to see someone else so passionate about these movies. I shared my DVD of the original with a young female coworker and told her how good it was. She didn't dig it as well. Too young maybe?
I think it depends on the person. All my life I've recommended the original. Some people love it, some people are just indifferent to it. Same for the sequel, I've found.
I love both movies ... I think most of us that saw Blade Runner in the 80's or 90's waited decades never expecting a sequel, but loved the one we got. There is an anime Blade runner that goes deeper on what Wallace is on HBO. I love Roy Batty's scene at the end of original ... like Roy, and Deckard; K lived a life dealing death. And like Roy, K evolved emotionally to see life is precious, just hours before his own death. Deckard's daughter's memories are what made K suddenly lust for life just as Roy did. That's why K, gave his life to give her father to her ... to give them both the life of loving someone close, that K wanted for himself the whole movie, and Roy realized he had squandered seeking longer life instead of just living and loving his friends with the time they had.
No one seems to be aware of Philip K. Dick,the genius author of these movies. His genius books allways deals with the uncertainty of what is real. What does it mean that something is real? He is on another level alltogether compared to all other sci fi writers
It's always great how quickly you catch on to things. Also, suffocation is the deepest, most instinctive fear humans posses (and probably all vertebrates it's that deeply embedded in the nervous system.) It's even able to trigger a fear reaction in people who have a genetic defect that makes them immune to fear. Being starved of oxygen is a visceral, full-body, _organic_ fear that comes from much deeper than just the brain. The people with the genetic defect whom they tested it on were actually kinda thrilled to experience fear for the first time (they had them inhale carbon dioxide at levels high enough to trigger a suffocation response but still not really dangerous.)
Glad you gave the public this reacts. Your choices in editing after thinking and rethinking your take were thought provoking. Blade Runner 2049 is similar but it's definitely New Model Blade Runner. I like it, more than the original. There is more understanding of AI today than in the eighties. Bunny susses out the themes in a very satisfactory reacts. My favorite character was Joshi. I felt she was the source of the motivation K had that lead to him finding his family in the teeth of Wallace. Thanks bunny!
I respect the hell out of you for postponing your review. Talk about integrity! I felt exactly the same way after watching BR2049 for the first time, and I do mean exactly. And deep down in my gut I knew I wasn't being fair, so I abstained from shitting on the sequel in online forums. ^^ I took my time, watched it again and learned to appreciate what a one-in-a-million film this actually is: a worthy sequel to a timeless masterpiece that created a film genre. Especially in this day and age where everything gets remade, rebooted, reimagined or gets a shitty sequel by talentless hacks who aren't fit to shine the shoes of those greater creators whose coattails they're riding because they can't create anything of value. In this day and age, BR2049 stops being merely outstanding and actually becomes what Sapper talked about: a miracle.
I just read an article stating that Blade Runner 2049 was one of the biggest box office bombs in history (production/distribution costs versus box office income). The original Blade Runner also faired poorly when it first played in theaters and only later on gradually built up a substantial audience.
I saw Blade Runner in the theater back in 1982. Roy Batty's death scene was amazing. I like the first movie better but there were things I liked about Blade Runner 2049. Great reaction and analysis Bunnytails!!
Waiting sure was a good idea. I didn't wait as long as some, since I watched it as a kid in the 90s, again in my teens and many more times until now. I even read many of Philip K Dicks works and got into the cyberpunk subgenre. I had a lot of time to think about the film by the time the sequel released. I gotta say, it clicked instantly for me and I'm really glad they got the perfect director for the sequel. It's not often you get such a remarkable sequel and this one was treated with the utmost respect to the originals.
luv your reaction! it was a great decision to hold off on your initial review, and you really sit and think about it. As we all did. Some of us have the benefit of seeing the first film with voiceovers, and needing to wait more than a decade to see it again. we had the benefit of thinking over every line, noticing the mistakes, the continuity errors. We were able to meet in forums and discuss the film, and those of us who had seen it in Europe without the voiceovers, and with the unicorn scene to give us insights into what was really going on with the first film. so my first reaction to this film was very similar to yours. Disappointment in the soundtrack. Disappointment in the plot. Confusion over the themes. But that's exactly how it was with the first one. As much as I loved Vangelis's soundtrack, the melody was confusing. the slow drawn out notes, the dark undertones, I wasn't ready for that soundtrack at the age of 19. So yeah, Blade Runner 2049 was made with the same deep thoughtful care as the original, requiring a deep thoughtful review. For those who had not seen the first one, it was in many way easier to understand the profound messages of the second, because they were not busy comparing it to the first. and as with the first, the soundtrack has grown on me overtime, although I still think it's inferior to the originals.
The Verhoeven Trilogy isn't a trilogy, they're just 3 dystopian sci-fi movies made by a single director that are chock-full of violence and existential themes. I would watch them in chronological order though, but just know that ROBOCOP, TOTAL RECALL and STARSHIP TROOPERS are not in the same universe.
I read the horrible book sequel first and was terrified that this film might be based on it. So even though I didn't think 2049 was perfect, I was relieved when I watched it. I guess I set my expectations pretty low going in. In short, I think this was about as good as we can expect for a Blade Runner follow-up. I agree, the original is more detailed (the sets from the original had insane levels of detail -- which is also mentioned by the cast and crew).
I LOVE Vangelis and Tears in Rain, and even though it's titled after Roy's final words, I don't see it as something exclusive to Roy or inextricably tied to his identity. Tears in rain is an idea Roy was trying to communicate through metaphor and it came to him because it was raining. What he describes is death, ALL death. Human death and Replicant death, because he is in a very unique position to contemplate life, one lived "so very brightly." The song belongs more to the concept than to Roy. Consciousness, and memory....lost in the noise of reality and time. When Joe dies, it's snowing to illustrate this concept again as an echo of Roy's scene. I'd say a Replicant carrying out one final selfless act in the name of true humanity as he contemplates his insane life and premature death....is a pretty solid connection to Roy and the song despite "having nothing to do with the character." It was a moment you had with that song and Rutger Hauer and Harrison Ford in that scene on the screen, sure.....we all had it in our own time and way....but there's more to the music and what it's trying to achieve than just Roy Baty, on the rooftops with Deckard. And there's a reason they show Dr. Ana in Joe's scene as well making her own "memory" of snow.
K understands his best memories are Deckard's daughter's. In a sense Deckard is K's father too. That's why he cares. Because she cares. The advertisement for Joi doesn't know Joe's name. It calls everybody Joe. Like a hooker might say "Hey Joe, You want to party?". Since K doesn't have a name he takes the name Joi first calls him when he bought it. K lets himself die at the end because he knows the secret, and knows he was made so he would give it up. Deckard isn't like that, and has kept the secret. With Love dead all Wallace will ever find out from the other replicants he may capture is that K killed Deckard because that's all they know they sent him to do.
Blade Runner is a very important film to me, too. I was hesitant about the sequel but it turned out better than I could have imagined. I think you should see the 3 shorts they released just before this came out. "Blade Runner: Blackout 2022" "Blade Runner: Nexus" and "Blade Runner: Nowhere to Hide." They are all available on TH-cam. They help further expand that world. I would also like to recommend the 1997 Blade Runner game. Which, before all of this, was the closest thing to a sequel to the original, without changing Deckard's story. It was massively popular at the time, and an amazing experience that managed to capture the mood and the feel of the original. I think the remaster (with bonus content) is about 10 bucks. Well worth a playthrough.
This movie is perfection, from the story to the soundtrack and everything else in between. Its a movie that makes you think and takes a few viewings to get it. There are three shorts that take place between the first movie and this one. It explains the events that happened before this. I believe you can find them on here. And the Joi debate. I believe she went beyond her programming and developed into her own self.
You understand now, why some told you not to watch it too soon afterwards. I was not happy that it took so long for the sequel. After watching it a couple of times, I then understood the need for waiting for it.
Blade Runner director Ridley Scott and screen writer Hampton Fancher wanted to introduce Harrison Ford in Blade Runner using this scene with the farmer and the pot of soup and the fight but decided not to. Deni Villeneuve saw the old storyboards Ridley had done and asked if he could introduce "K" in this movie with the BR opening scene as was originally written. Scott said he was thrilled that Deni wanted to do this and even helped direct the opening.
I get it. I had to wait 30 years to see the sequel. I was mesmerized and astonished by 2049 as a worthy continuation of the story of what makes anyone or anything human. The original is still my #1 movie, as it was, and is what you said. Like it was made for me. As an aside, Blade runner is in the same universe as Alien. In the hall of replicants is an Engineer model.
Dave Bautista is so good in this small role at the beginning! If you get to watch "2048: Nowhere to Run" here on YT, along the two other BR shorts produced for BR 2049, you will see some amazing acting by Dave.
Your personal feelings for the first one are wonderful. I love how we can connect to film/art that way. I have that with _The Fountain_ (2006). A long time before that it was _Creator_ (1985). But then life imitated _Creator_ but I simply couldn't watch it again once my life similarities didn't have the happy ending that the film had.
She gave him Joe, purposely. She named him, not letting him tell her, a name he wanted, she named him. Think about it. Who would get Joy holograms.... who's left on earth? Humans. Joy was convinced, he was a boy, so she calls him Joe, not the adverb participle, ....a good joe....used in the advertisement.
Memories are a buffer for emotions. A four year lifespan was made to stop the emotions forming, replicants were not allowed emotions. Roy was holding a dove when he saved Decard from the first film, a sign of 'inner peace' and new beginnings. Replicants are a slave nation and must be controlled. One of my favourite pastimes is spotting the "human" females in a City of Angels... there are very few! x) K is having emotional responses! Liv is also a very emotional replicant. :)
Its a difficult one, In total isolation I prefer 2049 just a hair, but its not really a fair comparison because I got to Blade Runner after growing up seeing a lot of what it influenced. I mean, it did for movies what Gibson did for novels and 2000AD did for comics in defining the Cyberpunk genre; While I love Blade Runner I can only imagine how much more I would have loved it seeing it at its release when youve never seen anything like it before.
I really need to watch this movie sometime soon. Blade Runner is one of my absolute favorite movies, it is so deep, and intelligent and it almost fools you with the way it starts. I have avoided the movie for a long time because I worried it wouldn't live up to the original and I appreciate your thoughts that I need to give it space and time to be its own thing but also link to the original, and I look forward to seeing it finally.
I so appreciate your visceral anger at this film after seeing the first. All lovers of the original Blade Runner were more than trepidatious about a "sequel". This one is a respectful homage to its inspirational forefather. An excellent film in its own right. The fact that this film could have never existed without the first instantly puts this film second to its parent. There are many great films out there, but so precious few that impact ones life so deeply that it is carried with them in a near daily journey.
I'm completely in agreement with you. 2049 is a good film but it's not on the same level as the original. Basically because it didn't need a sequel. The whole point was its ambiguity to keep you thinking about the concept of what makes a human. The end. It's such a shame 2049 was such a good film but it's whole inception was unnecessary. I think that's why I didn't enjoy it as much first watch, it felt pointless. Only after rewatching I could appreciate how good it was.
The Blade Runner movies touched me deeply, too. 2049 did not do well at the box office so I doubt there will be any more Blade Runners. Pity. While I was not happy with some aspects of the movie, overall it was fantastic! It's a movie you need to see more than once. A few things; did you recognize Sapper? He was Drax the Destroyer in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. Dave Bautista. Roy Batty's hand was wounded and wrapped in the original and K's hand was also wounded and wrapped. On subsequent viewings I feel it's less distracting if you trust Joi. If you look closely at the scene with Sapper's eye, you'll see a serial number. That's why K wanted him to look up. I'll add more in another comment.
8:00 it's perhaps more obvious in IMAX but when she's being rained on the holographic algorithm adds rain to her image to enhance the illusion that she is real.
I appreciate the reaction, but also the reconsideration. Sometimes your immediate response to something is the best measure of how it really hits you, and sometimes it's the worst. It's good to take some distance sometimes and check back. And like your Trek season wrapup, it's interesting seeing (from the outside _and_ the inside, IMO; I hope doing them gives you something you can take away too) what sticks with you and what you forget; what you thought was very important right away and faded over time, what you dismissed on first watch but kept coming back to since, etc. I mean, if your opinion and understanding of something is fully formed and unchanging right away after you first finish it... how important can it really be?
Blade runner is probably my favourite movie ever, the sequel is also great. There are 3 shorts available on TH-cam that fill out a bit of story between the two movies
There were 3 short films made at the same time as this movie. That no one does for some reason. They provide background on Sapper John, The great blackout and a few other things. You should watch them.
Wow I’m actually glad you waited. Great insights! When I heard Vangelis’s “tears in rain” in 2049 in the theater it was OMG gave me chills. I wish they also used blade runner end titles for the 2049 credits. There is so much to this sequel. “why, who am I to you?” Deckerd asks - well almost your son. Something it clarifies from the original is we suspect something terrible has happened to the earth that is why people are trying to get “off world” and the need for replicants in the first place. And the constant rain. The book hints at world war 3 called terminus now we see San Diego has been obliterated and Las Vegas was radio active. Something I have loved about the original was that Los Angeles would most likely be a target in a nuclear war it shouldn’t survive and yet it did. Now we know SD gets it. Also though Joi was a product I think she was intuitive and capable of developing her own responses and emotions and Ana de Armas steals the show! I think Joi and K’s love was real. Ironic that Luv Sylvia Hoeks also steals the show killed her. Luv kills Joi. And her “I’m the best one” show replicants aren’t carbon copies but can be unique individuals. Deckerd I still say he is human because his arc is greater if human loved replicant and created a hybrid daughter Ana.
It isn’t easy to follow a masterpiece. I enjoyed this film, but the original is perfection. As such, I find this movie merely good. And I’ve tried to revisit it, but the themes are so powerfully explored in the original I just find myself watching that instead.
Ridley Scott learned his vast filming techniques from producing over 2,000 television commercials before he ever got into movie making. That's why he has such a unique vision that others have tried to replicate, (pun intended}. The first Blade Runner will always be my favorite no matter how many they make afterwards. It's similar to the Mad Max movies. Despite Fury Road had the biggest budget and the biggest stunts the first and second movies are better IMO.
Ana de Armas was incredibly charming as Joi in 2049. She is completely on K's side until her "death". However, there is the advertisement at the end that uses some of the language of K's Joi. This makes you question if K's Joi really developed a love for him or was she just following her programming that adapted to K's personality. If he got a new Joi, could he recreate her? Personally, I think not... but maybe. BTW, a common, generic name for a guy is a "Joe".
Yes. But also, does it even matter whether it was her programming if what they have feels (and consequently is) real to him and to herself as far as she is self-aware? Joi is obviously a learning and adapting AI, and could even freely act against her creator company's interests. I do think that their individual experiences created a unique program over time, one that could never be recreated exactly the same. Similar perhaps, but not the same. Nevertheless, she is an advertised product, specifically designed to be everything the customer wanted, which makes us contemplate about her artificiality and her actual nature - in parallel to the Replicants. It all boils down to those big, deep Blade Runner questions of "What is even real?" and "What makes us human?" and I feel like Joi encapsulates these aspects incredibly well. That's why I like her character so much. Well, that, and Ana de Armas of course ^^
I like Bunny's thoughtful discussions. I feel like they could have left out the narcissistic Wallace character ( I just read that the part was inspired by David Bowie, that would have been weird). The tears in the rain speech is a little easier to take if you believe in some kind of Heaven.
Which Blade Runner movie do you prefer and why?
Blade Runner. Rutger Hauer has had a respectable career but the death scene of Roy Batty is the sickest portrayal I have ever watched!
The same goes for Ford, Young, and Hannah.
I liked BR 2049 but I can't say it's better than the first one. Blade Runner evokes the Hollywood era of movies in a totally original way, a unique and bold stroke for a science fiction movie.
The original is still king. It created that world. This one is a simulation, an imitation. For example, Zimmer is competent, Vangelis is a genius.
There's nothing wrong with having high standards.
The original, though Dennis' sequel is also very good. I'll put it this way, the original Blade Runner helped revolutionize film studies in academia in the US--it's very, very rare for a movie to be able to do that.
I am not the insane fanboy of the first that I see a lot of on YT, but I like it a lot. But I really didn't care for the sequel, mostly because it didn't fit thematically, and it was mis-represented in the marketing as being a Harrison Ford movie, and instead it was a Ryan Gosling movie.
K did get to see a miracle in the end. The question Deckard asks, "Why do you care?" goes unanswered so we could answer it. His death meant something.
D:“Who am I to you?”
K-inside:”You’re the Father I dreamed of”
K-actually:”Go meet your daughter”
Joe felt what it meant to love. Through his self sacrifice, he discovered the purpose of life. He discovered purpose itself. I believe that in his dying moments, that is when he truly felt alive, real, and ultimately... human.
He literally made the choice to not be a robot for the state anymore and do his own thing. Free will. "Who am I to you?" Lots to unpack, but basically, he affirmed his own humanity by choosing to enable a profound reunion.
I loved 2049 and maybe even prefer it over the first film.
The most affecting part for me was K believing that he was the child only to find out that he wasn't. Imagine living your entire life thinking you were one thing. Then you find out that in reality you are something very, very special. Only to learn that, no, you're no more than what you thought you were to begin with. That loss was so overwhelming to me. Almost like a death in the family. I grieved for K in that moment.
I think in the end he's in peace since he knew he had a soul. Turns out the old hag's words held more weight than it seems - to die for something more important than yourself is the most human thing one can do.
The old hag? Jesus @@AneggoctopuS
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From A Savior To A Mere Ordinary
Person . A Thought Provoking
- Transition .
Wallace both figuratively and literally sees the world through the eyes of a machine.
12:39 The sheep is sort of a callback to what the movie is based on - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
I actually just finished reading it!
I was Floored by how good this sequel was. The fact that we can even debate which one is better says a lot. I grew up with the original but I think 2049 is better.
Excellent breakdown BTW. I appreciate the opinion of someone that truly loves the original
I saw it in the theater. This film left me sitting in my seat for a while after it was over. The rest of the evening I just kept thinking about life - meaning, purpose, love... the difficult and complex nature of reality etc. I love this film and consider it the greatest sci-fi next to Terminator 2 and Aliens. The film score was magnificent too. I ended up writing a summation after having seen it a second time:
There was no real decoy. It was purely on paper. K/Joe is utterly, completely, unequivocally unremarkable, thus his name, Joe, as in average Joe. Joi does not possess a soul. She is completely fake. She is the other side of the Replicant coin and is made solely to please and coddle her owner/lover. Her entire branding scheme is that she'll be anything you want. Joi is K's fleeting dream of being special -- to be human... or as he put it, "to have a soul" -- so she always reinforced this to him. In her final moment she made sure to tell him she loved him.
Wallace posed a question about whether Deckard was moved by love or by programming. To me there's no doubt whatsoever Deckard is fully human. The original movie is about a bad man finding his humanity through the grace of a machine. Wallace's question is not a literal "Are you human or machine?" question, but pondering what the difference is. If love is just neurochemistry, and if we are products of biological programming or something higher, like a soul. The ultimate takeaway is that it really doesn't matter. What matters is what we choose to do with our lives. We find and create our own meaning and purpose.
In summary, 2049 is about dreams and delusions. K wants desperately to feel special so Joi tells him this constantly and he quickly assumes all the evidence points to him because it's his dream. He becomes deluded and forces himself into the situation even as it destroys him. He thinks this is what it means to be human - to grapple with one's humanity. Then upon meeting Freysa, K comes to learn that in fact he is not special after all. Not born but manufactured. He is torn between two sides telling him what his identity is and should be; the LAPD who informs his identity as that of a slave, and the resistance which informs his identity as that of a free Replicant.
When K comes across the giant advert Joi on the bridge, she says to him "You look like a good Joe". He then realizes that not even the name his own Joi gave him was special. Her feelings for him were never real... just programming. K, at this point an emotionally broken Replicant, it is in this moment that he chooses to follow his own path and not let anyone tell him who he is or what he should do. He makes the most human decision of all and takes his life into his own hands. He saves Deckard for the same reason Roy did in the first Blade Runner. He wanted someone to remember him, for his final decision that fully validates him as human to not be in vain. No one else gave him his identity, only he did, and his sacrifice ensured forever that he was by every metric a human being, even if the world would ultimately forget him.
The sheep at 12:35 is in homage to the 1968 novel by Philip K. Dick that inspired the first Blande Runner film: Do Androids dream of Electric SHEEP. 😃
Do you actually know this? In the first film Gaff presents a chicken when deckard doesn't want to take on the job, the matchstick man could allude to Deckard falling for Rachel, and the unicorn could reveal an insight into Deckards dreams/memories or a chance to posses something unique rare and magic. Following that trend it would be more likely that Gaff is calling K a pejorative sheep, just following orders doing what he's supposed to.
You've considered quite a bit in your review/analysis of both films. Very, very thoughtful. I appreciate your comprehensive examination of so many areas of the plot, characters, re-use of music, and so on. Well done.
Thank you kindly!
This is the first video of yours I've seen, and it alone sold me on your channel. Your self-awareness and introspection at the end are really nice to see, and the emotion in your voice was moving.
I actually think the tears in rain theme was used perfectly in the sequel. In the original the replicant shows deckard his humanity by saving his Life. In the Sequel it’s kinda the same, he saves his life and reunites him with his Daughter, although he has no stakes in it. So despite him not being the child, he shows empathy and (probably) dies in the snow. I cried when the theme started, and immediately thought they couldn’t have used it better.
Thank you so much for showing such reverence and care to the 1982 masterpiece. Most people tend not to show this film more than a passing respect for the technical aspects and completely pass over the deep questions and subtext of the plot. It is understandable as the film rewards many rewatches, but the way you were moved by it warms my heart as it is the same way I felt watching this film at the cinema in 1982 when I was 15 years old. I can only ever watch it by myself and and in a darkened room. Movies are amazing and your partner is a lucky person. Keep it up luv.
Really appreciate the honesty and thoughtfulness
You've given an amazing and heartfelt breakdown of this story and its characters here
Identical twins have the same DNA, but also the same gender. Boy-Girl twins are fraternal twins and won't have identical DNA. That is how he knew one of the records was an edited copy of the other. There was only one child.
I love this movie. Like many, I do prefer the first. But this manages to be a worthy sequel, which I thought was impossible until I saw it. This was a fantastic theater experience for me. I went alone in the middle of the day and soaked it all in.
same, I was with a handful of others spread around at the cinema!later this year, I want to recreate Luvs office, with the earthy brown colour on the walls!
I wish I could see it in a cinema. It's just so beautiful and the sound, wow...
I'm glad you decided to wait and watch it again before issuing your reaction to it. I've seen reactors on here who give snap judgments of movies and are (perhaps) overly harsh or have unreasonable expectations, and it's always frustrating when they dismiss a movie based on those expectations.
I'm of the firm opinion that a movie should be watched at least twice before judging it, especially by critics. A lot of movies that we regard as classics now were derided or dismissed by critics when they first came out. We can say in hindsight that "of course" they were wrong because they "just didn't get it", but we do the same things ourselves. When it comes to movies, there are so many ingrained preconceptions in all of us that we can't properly appreciate a movie for what it is *or* what it's trying to be on the first viewing. Whether it's a sequel that may or may not be trying to live up to the original, or part of a recognized genre going up against every other movie in that genre, or simply another movie made by a director, a writer, a crew, and/or an acting team that we've experienced before, we're all going to have preconceived notions of what it "should be", no matter how openminded we think we are. And if it's *none* of those things, then we have expectations of a movie that's trying to be "different" and are disappointed whether it is or isn't. It's not fair to the movie or the people who made it. So, we should all watch a movie twice before judging it; once to clear our expectations out of the way, and then again to take it for what it is. I'm glad that's what you did here.
Im impressed with your reaction BunnyT. Your insights and intelligence are beyond your years. Thanks.
Agreed. She brought up things I hadn't thought of and I've seen both movies many many times. Helluva a reactor (and person).
I really apprectiated the fact that you held off on sharing this. It's also great that you were able to reflect and filter your thoughts with time. Great react! I really enjoyed this react, and your review! I would definitely recommend watching any/all of Robocop/Starship Troopers/Total Recall. I would also recommend the movie Soldier, staring Kurt Russel. It is set in the Blade Runner universe, and is a very impressive movie. Kurt Russel only has, like two or three lines of dialog through-out the entire movie, but you understand him just by his acting skill.
I found out fairly recently that Rutger Hauer came to Ridley Scott with a speech he had written himself and Ridley liked it.. so the fantastic "tears in rain" speech was written by Hauer and for me it is a defining moment for the movie.
I think of Joy as a newer - digital - version of Pris and she was a "basic pleasure model". Over time she will be influenced by her interactions, but she probably comes with some basic settings and memories, so she, for example, likes the name Joe. She shows us that even a piece of software has become capable of real emotions.
To me this world would disprove the existence of "souls". They are just an emergent property of the hardware - or software - as they are shown here.
Blade Runner has been my favorite movie since I saw it in high school when it was new. I never felt human as a teenager and really identified with the theme of what it means to be human. I bought it on VHS tape and watched it to death. When this sequel came out I was so nervous that it wouldn't be good, but I'd seen some of Denis Villeneuve's movies and had a lot of hope it would be good. I saw the movie in the theater alone and afterward sat outside the theater and thought about it. I had a lot of conflicting emotions about it and didn't know if I liked it or not. The similar music but not-quite-the-same kept bringing me out of the movie, but I did like the Tears in Rain theme. It felt right. This movie really grew on me, and now when I reach for a Blade Runner rewatch I'm hard pressed to make a choice between them. The themes are so good, but yet not the same, the little differences giving more breadth to the discussion of what being human really is and examining the scope of the human experience.
Fantastic review Bunny, especially on Father's Day. You found profoundness in this one I didn't and I watched the first movie's original theater release in college. You make us all proud with your emotional perceptions that aren't spelled out in the scenes. An old movie you might find interesting is George Lucas' "THX 1138" from 1971. It laid the groundwork for techniques he used in Star Wars along with a few predictions and some dark humor. You're getting better at this all the time. Happy Father's Day.
What a beautiful, thoughtful, honest response video.
When I prepped to watch this sequel, I was ready to be completely disappointed. Was one of THE best sequels ever. Thanks for your reaction. Made it even better.
I saw it in the theater. This film left me sitting in my seat for a while after it was over. The rest of the evening I just kept thinking about life - meaning, purpose, love... the difficult and complex nature of reality etc. I love this film and consider it the greatest sci-fi next to Terminator 2 and Aliens. The film score was magnificent too. I ended up writing a summation after having seen it a second time:
There was no real decoy. It was purely on paper. K/Joe is utterly, completely, unequivocally unremarkable, thus his name, Joe, as in average Joe. Joi does not possess a soul. She is completely fake. She is the other side of the Replicant coin and is made solely to please and coddle her owner/lover. Her entire branding scheme is that she'll be anything you want. Joi is K's fleeting dream of being special -- to be human... or as he put it, "to have a soul" -- so she always reinforced this to him. In her final moment she made sure to tell him she loved him.
Wallace posed a question about whether Deckard was moved by love or by programming. To me there's no doubt whatsoever Deckard is fully human. The original movie is about a bad man finding his humanity through the grace of a machine. Wallace's question is not a literal "Are you human or machine?" question, but pondering what the difference is. If love is just neurochemistry, and if we are products of biological programming or something higher, like a soul. The ultimate takeaway is that it really doesn't matter. What matters is what we choose to do with our lives. We find and create our own meaning and purpose.
In summary, 2049 is about dreams and delusions. K wants desperately to feel special so Joi tells him this constantly and he quickly assumes all the evidence points to him because it's his dream. He becomes deluded and forces himself into the situation even as it destroys him. He thinks this is what it means to be human - to grapple with one's humanity. Then upon meeting Freysa, K comes to learn that in fact he is not special after all. Not born but manufactured. He is torn between two sides telling him what his identity is and should be; the LAPD who informs his identity as that of a slave, and the resistance which informs his identity as that of a free Replicant.
When K comes across the giant advert Joi on the bridge, she says to him "You look like a good Joe". He then realizes that not even the name his own Joi gave him was special. Her feelings for him were never real... just programming. K, at this point an emotionally broken Replicant, it is in this moment that he chooses to follow his own path and not let anyone tell him who he is or what he should do. He makes the most human decision of all and takes his life into his own hands. He saves Deckard for the same reason Roy did in the first Blade Runner. He wanted someone to remember him, for his final decision that fully validates him as human to not be in vain. No one else gave him his identity, only he did, and his sacrifice ensured forever that he was by every metric a human being, even if the world would ultimately forget him.
I completely get you here. Totally. Blade Runner 2049 made me feel incredibly conflicted as well.
The problem is that 2049 is a really good movie. It's superbly acted, has a great plot, it takes its time to tell the story, it's beautifully shot, and violence is used sparingly but viscerally and powerfully. None of this 10 minutes striking poses with a magic sky beam crap. But it's also a Blade Runner movie, which means it has virtual perfection to live up to.
Roy Batty might be the best antagonist in cinema history. He's intelligent, powerful, menacing, manipulative, and dangerous, but also reveals himself to be both wise and compassionate in his final moments. In Roy's final scene, the entire tale we just watched is turned upside down and forces us to question who the real villain of this story truly is. In his way, Roy is a hero. He is trying to help his friends survive in a system that is literally trying to kill them for having feelings, and Deckard is an executioner hired by that system to "retire" him like an out of control beast. Roy's methods are brutal, but what would we do to protect our own loved ones against such cruelty?
And at the end, Roy's feelings shine through. In fact he overcomes his in-built design to be an "optimum combat model" and actually saves a life rather than takes it. In a way, Roy becomes "more human than human", to quote Tyrell. To the viewer, the realisation of the complexities of Roy's true character are revealed in a simple yet beautiful scene that has more emotional punch than any other in film, and manages to make me tear up every single time I see it.
Any movie set in this world suffers terribly for not having Roy in it. As good as 2049 is (and I think it's extremely good), it just can't do 'Tears in Rain' justice.
I love the depth and introspective you have, especially revisiting this. I’m glad you waited to come back, and wow these movies bring out the emotions. It’s wild how a movie can do that, I love it. Thanks for sharing this!
Glad you enjoyed it!
This is such a fantastic reaction, glad you took time to sit with it and let your thoughts marinate.
The candle that burns twice as bright burns, half as long. Thank you Bunny
Strangely enough, Luv is my favorite character, because she's just so fascinating. She's clearly far more aware, more developed, than other replicants, and yet she also obeys with *nearly* unswerving obedience. The only deviations in her obedience are things that let her perform violence or cruelty. And in her final moments, when she's beneath the water, we see in her face the truth behind her mask, that she is in reality filled with hate.
Luv was the only bad thing about this film. Keep in mind she's meant to be playing a similar part at a similar level to Roy from OG Blade Runner.
Yeah.
Edit: Really thought that her look, hair, suit, emotional feminist attitude, thinking she's stronger than she is with arrogance, and the fact she's the least good looking and heaviest female character all says to me that she undoubtedly, sucks.
Edit 2: Also the oldest character besides the female commander.
@@Cadeaux_Man She's not meant to be Roy in any way. K is Roy.
@@GregorySnipe incorrect. K parallels Deckard.
@Cadeaux_Man Deckard doesn't have a parallel, he's in both movies. K and Roy are both the protagonists of the films they are in. Both are Replicants made to kill. They both help Deckard to survive and they both die to the exact same music at the end of the film. The director made it very easy for you with the same music playing at their deaths.
@GregorySnipe I see Roy has a desire and respect but also hatred of his creator, as does luv. Luv is just on the opposite perspective of not realising her potential freedom away from her creator, as Roy realised.
K I see as a parallel to deckard. The same "am I different or human or not". Again done from the opposite perspective of "am I human?" Rather than deckards "am I not human".
I see Luv may have been able to come to the same conclusion and freedom as Roy if she wasn't so blindly(lol) obeying her creator.
I see deckard went kind off off the rails to what he may have envisioned his future to look like, and k in managing to be introspective of himself, managed to find freedom, much like deckard for four years(or more).
Nice to discuss it with you and share different perspectives :)
I love how honest your are. And I feel the same way about the original... I saw it in the theater when I was 16 on first release, and it hit me like a bomb. 42 years later and Roy's death still brings tears to my old eyes, it was so profound. When I saw your reaction to the original, you brought tears to my eyes, because i knew what you were feeling, I completely understand.
Also, it is impossible to even remotely imagine Blade Runner without that simply brilliant score by Vangelis; but I have to say I still think that beautiful music should have been left to that moment alone. K deserved his own moment with its own piercing theme. I get why you changed your view, though and that's totally understandable. Again, love your insights and honesty.
I really enjoy your work, I look forward to seeing more. Cheers!
there were about three shorts made by the director with the actors for backstory... you should definately watch them on youtube. One is very significant for the big replicant at the beginning. Its my favorite back story short about who he was... Btw, these are not cut scenes, they were released before the movie came out to give back story for the side characters.
Dave Bautista is sooo good in "2048: Nowhere to Run".
waiting was good advice. i had to wait 40 years. but seriously, this movie has to be watched as its own thing. this movie made me cry when i saw it. i thought it was not what i was expecting and its better than we could have expected given the current state of Hollywood sequels
I have the same idea about movies today.
Specifically Marvel Cinematic Universe and the DC Cinematic Universe.
Nice to see this posted on Father’s Day. Points for suspecting that Ana’s compromised immune system may be fictitious. I love how the film ends on Deckard’s little quarter smile reminiscent of the Mona Lisa.
Your perspective on these 2 films is itself beautiful.
You have to see the two dune films! They are great but I won’t spoil them by giving you any more info!! Same director as 2049 and arrival - another excellent film!
Great films, rubbish Dune films.
The beggining secene at the farm was originally written (including the boiling soup pot) by Hampton Fancher for the 1982 original movie.
Thats a nice bit of trivia I was unaware of.
@thecocktailian2091 yeah, it was never filmed. The original scene was simple. The replicant talk to Deckard and he says "i'm Deckard. Blade Runner" and shot him. The producers wanted a film that doesn't go over 2 hours long. I recommend the documentary "Dangerous days: making Blade Runner" for more information. Superb and long documentary.
Girl, I feel like you just took me to church in that final breakdown. Keep preaching. 🥰
It actually makes sense that the born daughter of Rachel is immunocompromised. In making adults only Replicants don't develop, so they have a preset, rugged, simple immune system because theyre programmed that way from the factory, But when a child is born they DEVELOP their own immune system. And during oart if that process, normal human babies are VERY vulnerable, and part of that development involves getting their mother's antibodies from their mother's milk. They probably also get skin flora from their mother, and interact with the germs in the benign home environment... but if rachel managed to BEAR a child but couldnt naturally hand down an organically developed immune system, and then died, and the child was moved around a lot, put in aj orphanage surrounded by radiation, etc... it's possible that she developed a dysfunctional immune system, having neither a manufactured one, nor a fully inherited one, and a rough childhood.
Just speculating. I think it makes sense.
The theme when Deckard meets Ana is earned and appropriate. In the first movie it plays each time Deckard connects emotionally to another, first Rachel and later Roy.
"Joe" is also used as a generic designation for any man.
Bunny, I loved your reaction as well as your thoughts afterward. I understand your trepidations about 2049. For ne, even though I was weary about it, I liked it. I've had nearly 40 to ruminate about the original. I was happy to be back in that universe again. How far has you deep dive gone into Bade Runner?
I had the soundtrack of Blade Runner in my possession since I saw it in the theater 40 years ago. Tape cassette, then CD, then MP3s. It started with the New American Orchestra's version as Vangelis's version wasn't available straight away.
I think you should give Gattaca (1997) a shot. Very thoughtful science fiction.
What an excellent review you picked up so many ideas that I didn't even think of when I first watched it. It only listening to the "Shoulder of Orion" podcast I realised how much I missed. It took me a few watches but I love this as much as the original now. Great vid!
I had the same response to reusing Tears the first time. Wouldn't be able to react/review these on a schedule, because they're so unsettling I just wanted sit on a mountain for a while and figure out how I felt.
I loved this reaction, the same happened to me in a way. i first saw Blade runner when i was a teen and loved it, in 2017 i was 28 years old and i was very excited to see the new one but after i got home from the theater i thought it wasn't the same or it didn't feel the same. 2 years passed and suddenly i rewatched 2049 and loved it, for the same reasons that you mentioned at the end of the video, and i thought both films were equally amazing. today, i think for me personally, 2049 is the one that resonates more with my inner self.
i really love the visuals and music of 2049, how it has its own identity and how it talks about the same themes as the first one but in a different way. and im in love on how respectful it is with its predecessor. i have never seen a sequel that understood the task so well. i love the director too, i became his fan 😂...
Luv is my favorite character of all. i know she is wallace's enforcer, but how tragic it is that the only thing that she was taught was to obey out of fear, she cries under very specific situations, maybe she feels that if she doesn't obey she will no longer be loved, and thats why she is so relentless and determined, an unstoppable force. i think deep inside we all have done things just to get affection from others, and if we stop maybe we will no longer be loved.
from BR2049 screenplay:
"LUV. Polite, efficient. Perfect. Moral as a tornado and about as safe. Beautiful, yes. The way a sword can be if it’s safely behind glass."
is this Luv? or just love?
thanks for the reaction, again, i enjoyed it very much
You have a beautiful soul. Love both your reactions. Decades after watching the first, I still think about this film. Have recently been watching reaction vids to the original and I think you are the best, dear. When you cried at Roy's death in the first reaction, it was so touching to me. I also tear up when Rachael tears up when she first realizes she is a replicant. Also loved your reaction to the...intense scene where Deckard corners Rachael and they confirm their feelings. A lot of reactors your age get all...squicky and pseudo preachy but you got it. Bravo!
I also prefer the first, but...this was NOT a letdown, you know.
Keep up the great work!
Yes! Both Tyrell and Wallace are Luciferian figures. IMO the real villains...
Thanks! I’m really happy you’ve enjoyed them ❤️
I love this film, as well as the original. They explore very important questions and use the best strengths of science fiction to do it. K is an incredible character, who like us, wants to be the hero in his own story, wants to be special and matter, and as a conduit for us, we want it for him. It was a brave subversion to take that away, and I think lost some viewers because of it, but it makes him such a better character for it, because he chooses to be a hero and finds a path to it. He wasn’t given a great purpose to fulfill, but found his own purpose instead, and maybe found his own humanity and his own soul through it.
The 2002 Director’s Cut is the best version of the first Blade Runner movie. You have to see it to understand. Deckard has a narration which makes us understand the movie better and why Roy Batty saved him in the end.
I'm 2 weeks late commenting so no one will probably read it, but oh well
Good sequel. I really enjoyed your fantastic analysis of the movie/characters.
This movie makes it clear the Unicorn was always Rachael, as she could have children.
Niander Wallace was obsessed with figuring out how Tyrell made Rachael that way. I want to know more about crazy replicant Luv's motivations.
At the end I wish we got to listen to Deckard and Ana's conversation finally meeting, and her learning the truth about herself. I agree her illness was probably made up to trick authorities and keep her safe from discovery. Hopefully she can now have a life and get to know her father Deckard and he can tell her about her mother.
You see Ana cry when she looks over the memory K/Joe brought her to analyze. She did say the memory was real but I wonder why she didn't tell him it was her memory?
K's story is tragic, but understand why you felt initially upset about the same song being used at the end.
I didn't notice that the first time. I know some people want to think Deckard is a replicant but the author Philip K. Dick that wrote the book Blade Runner is based on always said Deckard was written as human. That's also what makes him and Rachael having a child even more of a miracle. It proves the replicants are essentially human.
Of course I will read it. Never too late!
I have purchased "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" but I have yet to read it. I am excited to do so!
What a review! When the reaction part was done and there was still 20 minutes left , I knew I was going to have a good time.
Glad you enjoyed it!
The Pris makeup was a nice touch. Phenomenal film.
It's nice to see someone else so passionate about these movies. I shared my DVD of the original with a young female coworker and told her how good it was. She didn't dig it as well. Too young maybe?
I think it depends on the person. All my life I've recommended the original. Some people love it, some people are just indifferent to it. Same for the sequel, I've found.
@12:41 He's not calling K a sheep, he's the guy that did origami in the original movie!
"It's too bad she won't live, but then again, who does?"
Great reaction with emotion and heart.
I love both movies ... I think most of us that saw Blade Runner in the 80's or 90's waited decades never expecting a sequel, but loved the one we got. There is an anime Blade runner that goes deeper on what Wallace is on HBO. I love Roy Batty's scene at the end of original ... like Roy, and Deckard; K lived a life dealing death. And like Roy, K evolved emotionally to see life is precious, just hours before his own death. Deckard's daughter's memories are what made K suddenly lust for life just as Roy did. That's why K, gave his life to give her father to her ... to give them both the life of loving someone close, that K wanted for himself the whole movie, and Roy realized he had squandered seeking longer life instead of just living and loving his friends with the time they had.
No one seems to be aware of Philip K. Dick,the genius author of these movies. His genius books allways deals with the uncertainty of what is real. What does it mean that something is real? He is on another level alltogether compared to all other sci fi writers
Thanks for the laughs. Also check out soldier with Kurt Russell. It's part of the blade runner univers
It's always great how quickly you catch on to things. Also, suffocation is the deepest, most instinctive fear humans posses (and probably all vertebrates it's that deeply embedded in the nervous system.) It's even able to trigger a fear reaction in people who have a genetic defect that makes them immune to fear. Being starved of oxygen is a visceral, full-body, _organic_ fear that comes from much deeper than just the brain. The people with the genetic defect whom they tested it on were actually kinda thrilled to experience fear for the first time (they had them inhale carbon dioxide at levels high enough to trigger a suffocation response but still not really dangerous.)
When K saw the JOI hologram on the billboard he realized that JOI never loved him she was just programmed to simulate affection.
I don't think so. She had the name programmed that's all. What she did for him was a 1000 times more than simulated affection.
I watched this movie by myself at the movie theater. Instantly connected with it. It’s in my top 10 movies of all time.
Glad you gave the public this reacts. Your choices in editing after thinking and rethinking your take were thought provoking.
Blade Runner 2049 is similar but it's definitely New Model Blade Runner. I like it, more than the original. There is more understanding of AI today than in the eighties. Bunny susses out the themes in a very satisfactory reacts.
My favorite character was Joshi. I felt she was the source of the motivation K had that lead to him finding his family in the teeth of Wallace.
Thanks bunny!
I respect the hell out of you for postponing your review. Talk about integrity! I felt exactly the same way after watching BR2049 for the first time, and I do mean exactly. And deep down in my gut I knew I wasn't being fair, so I abstained from shitting on the sequel in online forums. ^^ I took my time, watched it again and learned to appreciate what a one-in-a-million film this actually is: a worthy sequel to a timeless masterpiece that created a film genre. Especially in this day and age where everything gets remade, rebooted, reimagined or gets a shitty sequel by talentless hacks who aren't fit to shine the shoes of those greater creators whose coattails they're riding because they can't create anything of value. In this day and age, BR2049 stops being merely outstanding and actually becomes what Sapper talked about: a miracle.
I am happy to know others had a similar experience to what I did. :D
I just read an article stating that Blade Runner 2049 was one of the biggest box office bombs in history (production/distribution costs versus box office income). The original Blade Runner also faired poorly when it first played in theaters and only later on gradually built up a substantial audience.
I saw Blade Runner in the theater back in 1982. Roy Batty's death scene was amazing. I like the first movie better but there were things I liked about Blade Runner 2049. Great reaction and analysis Bunnytails!!
I think I can honestly say I like both movie equally-On any given day I like one or the other more. But overall, even.
Waiting sure was a good idea. I didn't wait as long as some, since I watched it as a kid in the 90s, again in my teens and many more times until now. I even read many of Philip K Dicks works and got into the cyberpunk subgenre. I had a lot of time to think about the film by the time the sequel released. I gotta say, it clicked instantly for me and I'm really glad they got the perfect director for the sequel. It's not often you get such a remarkable sequel and this one was treated with the utmost respect to the originals.
Best Reaction to any movie ever. Thank you Blade Runner changed my life as well.
luv your reaction! it was a great decision to hold off on your initial review, and you really sit and think about it. As we all did. Some of us have the benefit of seeing the first film with voiceovers, and needing to wait more than a decade to see it again. we had the benefit of thinking over every line, noticing the mistakes, the continuity errors. We were able to meet in forums and discuss the film, and those of us who had seen it in Europe without the voiceovers, and with the unicorn scene to give us insights into what was really going on with the first film.
so my first reaction to this film was very similar to yours. Disappointment in the soundtrack. Disappointment in the plot. Confusion over the themes. But that's exactly how it was with the first one. As much as I loved Vangelis's soundtrack, the melody was confusing. the slow drawn out notes, the dark undertones, I wasn't ready for that soundtrack at the age of 19.
So yeah, Blade Runner 2049 was made with the same deep thoughtful care as the original, requiring a deep thoughtful review.
For those who had not seen the first one, it was in many way easier to understand the profound messages of the second, because they were not busy comparing it to the first. and as with the first, the soundtrack has grown on me overtime, although I still think it's inferior to the originals.
The Verhoeven Trilogy isn't a trilogy, they're just 3 dystopian sci-fi movies made by a single director that are chock-full of violence and existential themes. I would watch them in chronological order though, but just know that ROBOCOP, TOTAL RECALL and STARSHIP TROOPERS are not in the same universe.
I read the horrible book sequel first and was terrified that this film might be based on it. So even though I didn't think 2049 was perfect, I was relieved when I watched it. I guess I set my expectations pretty low going in. In short, I think this was about as good as we can expect for a Blade Runner follow-up. I agree, the original is more detailed (the sets from the original had insane levels of detail -- which is also mentioned by the cast and crew).
Loved your insights!
I LOVE Vangelis and Tears in Rain, and even though it's titled after Roy's final words, I don't see it as something exclusive to Roy or inextricably tied to his identity. Tears in rain is an idea Roy was trying to communicate through metaphor and it came to him because it was raining. What he describes is death, ALL death. Human death and Replicant death, because he is in a very unique position to contemplate life, one lived "so very brightly." The song belongs more to the concept than to Roy. Consciousness, and memory....lost in the noise of reality and time. When Joe dies, it's snowing to illustrate this concept again as an echo of Roy's scene. I'd say a Replicant carrying out one final selfless act in the name of true humanity as he contemplates his insane life and premature death....is a pretty solid connection to Roy and the song despite "having nothing to do with the character." It was a moment you had with that song and Rutger Hauer and Harrison Ford in that scene on the screen, sure.....we all had it in our own time and way....but there's more to the music and what it's trying to achieve than just Roy Baty, on the rooftops with Deckard. And there's a reason they show Dr. Ana in Joe's scene as well making her own "memory" of snow.
K understands his best memories are Deckard's daughter's. In a sense Deckard is K's father too. That's why he cares. Because she cares. The advertisement for Joi doesn't know Joe's name. It calls everybody Joe. Like a hooker might say "Hey Joe, You want to party?". Since K doesn't have a name he takes the name Joi first calls him when he bought it. K lets himself die at the end because he knows the secret, and knows he was made so he would give it up. Deckard isn't like that, and has kept the secret. With Love dead all Wallace will ever find out from the other replicants he may capture is that K killed Deckard because that's all they know they sent him to do.
Blade Runner is a very important film to me, too. I was hesitant about the sequel but it turned out better than I could have imagined. I think you should see the 3 shorts they released just before this came out. "Blade Runner: Blackout 2022" "Blade Runner: Nexus" and "Blade Runner: Nowhere to Hide." They are all available on TH-cam. They help further expand that world. I would also like to recommend the 1997 Blade Runner game. Which, before all of this, was the closest thing to a sequel to the original, without changing Deckard's story. It was massively popular at the time, and an amazing experience that managed to capture the mood and the feel of the original. I think the remaster (with bonus content) is about 10 bucks. Well worth a playthrough.
This movie is perfection, from the story to the soundtrack and everything else in between. Its a movie that makes you think and takes a few viewings to get it. There are three shorts that take place between the first movie and this one. It explains the events that happened before this. I believe you can find them on here. And the Joi debate. I believe she went beyond her programming and developed into her own self.
You understand now, why some told you not to watch it too soon afterwards. I was not happy that it took so long for the sequel. After watching it a couple of times, I then understood the need for waiting for it.
Blade Runner director Ridley Scott and screen writer Hampton Fancher wanted to introduce Harrison Ford in Blade Runner using this scene with the farmer and the pot of soup and the fight but decided not to. Deni Villeneuve saw the old storyboards Ridley had done and asked if he could introduce "K" in this movie with the BR opening scene as was originally written. Scott said he was thrilled that Deni wanted to do this and even helped direct the opening.
I get it. I had to wait 30 years to see the sequel. I was mesmerized and astonished by 2049 as a worthy continuation of the story of what makes anyone or anything human. The original is still my #1 movie, as it was, and is what you said. Like it was made for me. As an aside, Blade runner is in the same universe as Alien. In the hall of replicants is an Engineer model.
Dave Bautista is so good in this small role at the beginning! If you get to watch "2048: Nowhere to Run" here on YT, along the two other BR shorts produced for BR 2049, you will see some amazing acting by Dave.
Your personal feelings for the first one are wonderful. I love how we can connect to film/art that way. I have that with _The Fountain_ (2006). A long time before that it was _Creator_ (1985). But then life imitated _Creator_ but I simply couldn't watch it again once my life similarities didn't have the happy ending that the film had.
"The Fountain" is such a tremendously deep, yet woefully misunderstood film. I recommend it to anyone open to a philosophical sci-fi experience.
Agreed @@JeffB-SFJ
She gave him Joe, purposely. She named him, not letting him tell her, a name he wanted, she named him. Think about it. Who would get Joy holograms.... who's left on earth? Humans. Joy was convinced, he was a boy, so she calls him Joe, not the adverb participle, ....a good joe....used in the advertisement.
Memories are a buffer for emotions. A four year lifespan was made to stop the emotions forming, replicants were not allowed emotions. Roy was holding a dove when he saved Decard from the first film, a sign of 'inner peace' and new beginnings. Replicants are a slave nation and must be controlled. One of my favourite pastimes is spotting the "human" females in a City of Angels... there are very few! x)
K is having emotional responses! Liv is also a very emotional replicant. :)
Its a difficult one, In total isolation I prefer 2049 just a hair, but its not really a fair comparison because I got to Blade Runner after growing up seeing a lot of what it influenced.
I mean, it did for movies what Gibson did for novels and 2000AD did for comics in defining the Cyberpunk genre; While I love Blade Runner I can only imagine how much more I would have loved it seeing it at its release when youve never seen anything like it before.
I really need to watch this movie sometime soon. Blade Runner is one of my absolute favorite movies, it is so deep, and intelligent and it almost fools you with the way it starts.
I have avoided the movie for a long time because I worried it wouldn't live up to the original and I appreciate your thoughts that I need to give it space and time to be its own thing but also link to the original, and I look forward to seeing it finally.
I so appreciate your visceral anger at this film after seeing the first. All lovers of the original Blade Runner were more than trepidatious about a "sequel". This one is a respectful homage to its inspirational forefather. An excellent film in its own right. The fact that this film could have never existed without the first instantly puts this film second to its parent. There are many great films out there, but so precious few that impact ones life so deeply that it is carried with them in a near daily journey.
I'm completely in agreement with you. 2049 is a good film but it's not on the same level as the original. Basically because it didn't need a sequel. The whole point was its ambiguity to keep you thinking about the concept of what makes a human. The end.
It's such a shame 2049 was such a good film but it's whole inception was unnecessary. I think that's why I didn't enjoy it as much first watch, it felt pointless. Only after rewatching I could appreciate how good it was.
"Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things," Terry Pratchett, *I* *Shall* *Wear* *Midnight*.
The Blade Runner movies touched me deeply, too. 2049 did not do well at the box office so I doubt there will be any more Blade Runners. Pity. While I was not happy with some aspects of the movie, overall it was fantastic! It's a movie you need to see more than once.
A few things; did you recognize Sapper? He was Drax the Destroyer in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. Dave Bautista.
Roy Batty's hand was wounded and wrapped in the original and K's hand was also wounded and wrapped. On subsequent viewings I feel it's less distracting if you trust Joi.
If you look closely at the scene with Sapper's eye, you'll see a serial number. That's why K wanted him to look up.
I'll add more in another comment.
8:00 it's perhaps more obvious in IMAX but when she's being rained on the holographic algorithm adds rain to her image to enhance the illusion that she is real.
I appreciate the reaction, but also the reconsideration. Sometimes your immediate response to something is the best measure of how it really hits you, and sometimes it's the worst. It's good to take some distance sometimes and check back.
And like your Trek season wrapup, it's interesting seeing (from the outside _and_ the inside, IMO; I hope doing them gives you something you can take away too) what sticks with you and what you forget; what you thought was very important right away and faded over time, what you dismissed on first watch but kept coming back to since, etc. I mean, if your opinion and understanding of something is fully formed and unchanging right away after you first finish it... how important can it really be?
It helps having watched the original several years if not even decades before the sequel. Then the merits of the latter are more easily discerned.
Blade runner is probably my favourite movie ever, the sequel is also great. There are 3 shorts available on TH-cam that fill out a bit of story between the two movies
There were 3 short films made at the same time as this movie. That no one does for some reason. They provide background on Sapper John, The great blackout and a few other things. You should watch them.
"a soul" is a poetic reference here as it is most often used. The concept of a soul is just mythology.
Wow I’m actually glad you waited. Great insights! When I heard Vangelis’s “tears in rain” in 2049 in the theater it was OMG gave me chills. I wish they also used blade runner end titles for the 2049 credits. There is so much to this sequel. “why, who am I to you?” Deckerd asks - well almost your son. Something it clarifies from the original is we suspect something terrible has happened to the earth that is why people are trying to get “off world” and the need for replicants in the first place. And the constant rain. The book hints at world war 3 called terminus now we see San Diego has been obliterated and Las Vegas was radio active. Something I have loved about the original was that Los Angeles would most likely be a target in a nuclear war it shouldn’t survive and yet it did. Now we know SD gets it. Also though Joi was a product I think she was intuitive and capable of developing her own responses and emotions and Ana de Armas steals the show! I think Joi and K’s love was real. Ironic that Luv Sylvia Hoeks also steals the show killed her. Luv kills Joi. And her “I’m the best one” show replicants aren’t carbon copies but can be unique individuals. Deckerd I still say he is human because his arc is greater if human loved replicant and created a hybrid daughter Ana.
Deckard was saved by a replicant twice.
Your reactions are always really insightful. 👍
It isn’t easy to follow a masterpiece. I enjoyed this film, but the original is perfection.
As such, I find this movie merely good. And I’ve tried to revisit it, but the themes are so powerfully explored in the original I just find myself watching that instead.
Ridley Scott learned his vast filming techniques from producing over 2,000 television commercials before he ever got into movie making. That's why he has such a unique vision that others have tried to replicate, (pun intended}. The first Blade Runner will always be my favorite no matter how many they make afterwards. It's similar to the Mad Max movies. Despite Fury Road had the biggest budget and the biggest stunts the first and second movies are better IMO.
Ana de Armas was incredibly charming as Joi in 2049. She is completely on K's side until her "death". However, there is the advertisement at the end that uses some of the language of K's Joi. This makes you question if K's Joi really developed a love for him or was she just following her programming that adapted to K's personality. If he got a new Joi, could he recreate her? Personally, I think not... but maybe. BTW, a common, generic name for a guy is a "Joe".
Yes. But also, does it even matter whether it was her programming if what they have feels (and consequently is) real to him and to herself as far as she is self-aware? Joi is obviously a learning and adapting AI, and could even freely act against her creator company's interests. I do think that their individual experiences created a unique program over time, one that could never be recreated exactly the same. Similar perhaps, but not the same. Nevertheless, she is an advertised product, specifically designed to be everything the customer wanted, which makes us contemplate about her artificiality and her actual nature - in parallel to the Replicants.
It all boils down to those big, deep Blade Runner questions of "What is even real?" and "What makes us human?" and I feel like Joi encapsulates these aspects incredibly well. That's why I like her character so much. Well, that, and Ana de Armas of course ^^
I like Bunny's thoughtful discussions. I feel like they could have left out the narcissistic Wallace character ( I just read that the part was inspired by David Bowie, that would have been weird). The tears in the rain speech is a little easier to take if you believe in some kind of Heaven.