Finally was able to see this, fortunately, before it left theatres. I thought it was brilliant and beautiful, but also interminably slow and bleak, making it a lot less rewatchable than the original. But it’s easily my movie of the year.
It was really intelligent and nuanced, and I loved the soundtrack and visuals – only disliked a few things [SPOILERS]:
Since K was a new gen replicant, he obviously was subject to Wallace’s super-protocols that allowed him to better control his replicants in ways beyond the Nexus models (a fact particularly demonstrated in the 1st promotional prequel mini-film, but also within the movie). Since that’s the case, why didn’t Luv’s crew just turn him “off” once they found Deckard? I understand before that they wanted him to do his job (and Luv protected him for that purpose), but once accomplished, there would be no reason to keep him active and it seems like K would have just been shut down/given super-instructions to override other actions – if not when they met Deckard, then certainly in the end confrontation. If the intention was that he had “broken” his protocols (and there was a clear possibility that Deckard’s child could have been planting timebomb memories in the script), that would have been shown in the film.
Kinda hated the trash people - seemed too Mad Max. Including the orphanage, where they even put the overseer in a Fagin coat.
With Leto’s Wallace being the “ruler of the world”, yet he only sent out a dozen guys led by one advanced replicant – seemed more likely that he’d send out a 4,000 super-soldiers far more advanced than any blade runner model. Allowing K to single handedly stop him seemed a bit too much like video game writing in that respect.
Some other thoughts:
liked how hedonistic the society was, and the world building on the original in general (except as stated otherwise above) and how they didn’t retcon the original to better fit reality since the original movie’s release. As Dennis Miller once said, if you want to pacify people, given them the ability to sleep with dream girls “makes crack cocaine look like Sanka.”
very impressive that they actually used model buildings again, instead of CGI, just like they did in the original. That was probably unnecessary and likely more costly, but it’s a great touch.
You should watch at least the 2 live-action ones. They are only a few minutes long each, and one deals with Leto’s Wallace gaining the rights to restart replicants.
This was my favorite movie of the year by a large margin. A slow burn, hard sci-fi with a blockbuster budget. I’m not surprised by the luke warm box office. Actually, I’m absolutely shocked that it was made at all.
Denis Villeneuve has fast become one of my favorite directors. The visuals were a delight. I especially loved the black/gold theme reminiscent of Deus Ex Humand Revolution in the Wallas HQ scenes. The script was intelligent and thought provoking and explored some great questions with the concept of AI/replicants. I really enjoyed that we got to follow K around as he did some proper detective work.
My only complaint would be that I thought the ending felt a bit rushed.
Finally saw this on retail. Glad I didn’t pay more than a rental for this. It is even less sci-fi than Ex Machina, but obviously more actiony and crowd pleasing. IMO it is a decent sequel.
The big question is, would society accept a slave labour force? If replicants are made to be almost human, then it is not clear if they can be categorically denied as non-human. Can most of us be realistically assured that our clothes and electronic gadgets are made in non-slaveish condition in Asia? I think not, and it isn’t a burning issue bring down the house, so there is evidence to think similarly pessimistically. But it is a big question that wasn’t answered. Even Fallout 4 got the Railway as a foil to the Institute.
Even the birth is beside the point: only Rachel, as one of a kind replicant, can do that. As a rally point for replicant rights it is simply hollow. Wallace has more plausible reason to want to control that, like the plantation owner wanted to control the sexuality of his slaves.
I guess I am just disappointed that after Arrival Denis Villeneuve didn’t go further and think more realistically about what tension lies in a replicant infused society. It is a perfectly servicable and intelligent action movie. It tries so hard to establish the red herring and I think it succeed. But the end isn’t as provocative as Ex Machina because somewhere during that 163 minutes I already accepted K as a human. It is already normalise so much in the movie: the way he acts, thinks and feels. He would have passed the Turing test or any kind of test. He didn’t need to be told the truth to be human.
Hey I can answer that. It is because K is a property of LAPD, and therefore even his maker has no right to access him internally. That is still internally consistent.
I’m not sure it does, since clearly Jared built in additional controls and given his machinations, the backdoor controls he demonstrated seem likely to have been universally applied (why wouldn’t he? He obviously wasn’t restrained by ethics or conventional morality, so why do you presume he’d forego something so powerful even if (you presume) he contractually agreed to do so. Anyway, not a big point.
I don’t understand what you think is a red herring though. He’s not trying to obtain that information for some moot point - he wants that missing piece of information so that replicants are constrained by his manufacturing capabilities, so that they can more rapidly spread throughout the universe and not just a handful of colonies. He literally has a god complex.
And I don’t think there’s any question that the audience is supposed to be on the side of the replicants, and to feel like they are human (or at least intelligent life) in every way that matters and therefore should be enslaved – we are supposed to find their society disgusting, immoral, and tragic.
Saw it, liked it a lot. Would have loved it if they picked someone for the lead that could actually act. Imagine this movie with Urban or Ruffalo or anyone else as the lead. Though his deadpan woodeness kinda worked, I guess.
Man the lighting was fantastic, best lighting Ive seen in a movie in years. Each frame in some of the scenes was like a painting. The radioactive Vegas desert in particular was spectacular.
Also, the Holo girlfriend was really clever and exceptionally well done. Not over the top, very subtle. The scenes where she overlays herself on K and the street walker were so well done, they should win an award for that. Most unique sex scene I’ve ever seen.
Ryan Gosling’s K has the right kind of woodenness/emotionlessness. Sort of the anti-Fassbender where his David expresses the wrong emotions (e.g. glee/curious at suffering).
I purchased the Blu Ray and really enjoyed it. The tone and visuals are quite consistent with the ground-breaking original and the story was quite entertaining. Two thumbs up.
In a way, the movie definitively answers the question of whether Deckard is a replicant. Spoilers ahead.
Deckard is not a replicant.
Premise based on observations: Rachel was special as stated in the first movie. She was special because she could have children while other replicant women could not.
Logical assumption: There would be no reason to give general MALE replicants the ability to procreate unless FEMALE replicants could do the same. In fact, giving replicants the ability to procreate in general would raise a tremendous uproar among the populace. Hence the reason Rachel was made special and kept in Tyrell’s building. Thus normal male replicants also can not procreate.
So what does this mean and how does this prove Deckard is not a replicant? Because Wallace does not treat Deckard as special. If Deckard had the ability to procreate and was a replicant he would be as singularly unique as Rachel. He would be the key to Rachel’s lock. Wallace would not want him just to get to his daughter. Wallace would want Deckard because he represents half of the equation he wants to solve. In the absence of Deckard’s daughter, Deckard himself could also provide the path forward to allowing replicants to procreate.
Instead, Wallace wants Deckard for nothing more than to get to his daughter. Deckard is a piece of meat who is going to be tortured for information, not studied or even dissected. That is either an incredible and downright unbelievable oversight on Wallace’s part or Deckard is NOT SPECIAL. The only way he is not special is if all replicant males can father children, which again is illogical in a number of ways, or if he is simply just another human.
tl;dr version: Deckard is not treated as special. Therefore he must be just a human.
You are wrong because the premise is that Tyrell designed Deckard to meet and fall for Rachel and their “accidental” meeting was anything but accidental.
The sequel deliberately works both if he is a replicant or if he is not.
Your theory requires Deckard to be a replicant, go out into the big bad world to kill dangerous other replicants at great risk since he does not have the same physical abilities, have 4 other dangerous skin jobs escape and come back to Earth to kill Tyrell employees, have Deckard put on that particular case, travel back to Tyrell, fall in love, almost get killed at least 3 times and then choose to escape with Rachel.
Wow. That is more than a bit far fetched and that is being kind. It actually is not even remotely plausible. That makes the plots of Geostorm and Sharknado sensible in comparison. If Tyrell wanted Deckard to fall for Rachel he could have easily kept them both at Tyrell HQ and had them meet there, engineer an “emergency” and have them escape with no risk.
Moreover, it as previously discussed that theory also makes Wallace literally the world’s biggest movie moron in the 2nd movie. He has a unique replicant who holds the key to all he seeks and his only thought is to torture him? That makes no sense whatsoever.
We all know that the Blade Runner universe is a bit of a mess anyway, given all of the various versions. But that theory simply does not work on any level.
[quote=“Granath, post:303, topic:75988”]
Your theory requires Deckard to be a replicant, go out into the big bad world to kill dangerous other replicants at great risk…
No, it doesn’t. It just requires Deckard to be one of the replicants capable of mating with Rachel. Whether that makes him unique, one of every male replicants, or a smaller subset isn’t clear, but it’s certainly not necessarily group 1 or 2 (although it also could be).
You are clearly wrong here - surprised you are even continuing to argue the point. The filmmakers have expressly said that the issue of Deckard being a replicant is left open-ended in this movie.
Denis V expressly didn’t want to deal with an issue belonging to the previous movie, and didn’t want to expressly overwrite Ridley Scott’s movie or the more ambiguous theatrical release of the first movie, so he carefully crafted a sequel that works either way.
You are right that the filmmakers said they did not want to make a declaration either way. Their plot suggests something quite different because the logic breaks down quickly if Deckard is a replicant. The pieces no longer seem to add up if he is.
I am all ears for a logical explanation of how this all logically works if he is but have yet to seen one offered. The closest you have offered is that Deckard is not unique but normal for his series, in which case somehow Tyrell spent the money and time making many/all male replicants of that series capable of mating with a specific, sequestered (or even not created) female replicant and then relied on a set of extreme and unlikely set of circumstances to create that coupling. That just simply does not make much sense. It is possible. It just is not plausible.
or he is unique and was programmed to fall for Rachel;
or any male replicant could have impregnated Rachel;
or any male replicant or male human could have impregnated Rachel (which seems the most likely - that she was unique).
or any male replicant or male human could have impregnated Rachel but Deckard was programmed to find her irresistible making mating likely.
or some small group of male replicants (late models) could mate:
or some large group of male replicants could mate (anything but special task)
or any male replicant or male human could have impregnated Rachel but Deckard was programmed to expressly try to mate with Rachel (also suggested in the sequel).
There are many possibilities that don’t preclude him from being a replicant, and the filmmakers said they didn’t preclude him from being a replicant, so it’s weird that you think otherwise.
