Great flawed movie
Good flawed podcast
The females were the spine of this film
Mackenzie Davis also stars in a great little indie horror/thriller ‘Always Shine’ which is also about identity etc. Certainly worth a watch.
Have to disagree with Tom. The movie goes out of its way not to confirm Deckard’s replicant status. Everything is consistent with him either being human or a Series 8. Only Rachet is definitely one. It’s one of my issues with the film - it basically sweeps the unambiguity of the original (director’s cut) under the carpet.
Not sure about the bees. I thought at the time they were real, but looking back I don’t have any solid basis for that
Yeah, I bet you’re right. Those guys totally threw me on the podcast with this assertion, because frankly it hadn’t even occurred to me to look for any weaselling around in the movie about “is he or ain’t he?” There is no way anyone can watch the movie Ridley Scott intended to make without concluding Deckard is a replicant, so I can’t imagine why someone making a sequel to Ridley Scott’s movie would be coy about it. Thanks, Obama!
It seems like real bees would be an iconic way to represent a return to ecological normalcy in this pocket of desert wasteland, what with disappearing honeybees being the zeitgeist for animals dying out. I think the main reason to think they’re real is that we assume Deckard wouldn’t have any way to buy fake bees out in the Las Vegas wasteland. Would he? Furthermore, presumably the bees are breeding?
What then does this say about whether the dog is real?
Gah, I really need to see this a second time before trying to say definitive things about it. :)
-Tom
Ooh, never heard of it. Thanks for the heads-up, Rckay!
-Tom
That’s what I figured originally, and I thought it would tie in to the flower at the tree/grave, but then they never went there.
Presumably, but there’s no actual evidence.
My assumption is they’re real, but it’s only an assumption.
Also have to disagree with you guys on the question of mimicking. There were a bunch of moments where I felt the movie was screaming “Remember this? Do you? Isn’t it cool we’re doing it again?”. Not just the CG Rachel, but things like the reuse of the tears in rain music, the bar fight in the intermittent darkness calling back to the flickering light when Deckard fights Batty, the oblique Atari logo, Gaff’s origami (to be fair, I kind of like that one, as it references the book as much as the film).
Point taken, and at the risk of getting semantic, those seem like minor touches rather than issue of tone or substance. To me, 2049 felt like a unique approach to the world, more along the lines of Alien --> Aliens than Terminator --> Terminator 2. Does that make sense? Basically, one auteur using his own voice rather than trying to channel another auteur.
I missed the Atari logo! Where was it!
I love how awful the CG Rachel looked. Just really awkward.
Intentionally, I presume. “Take that, Rogue One!”
-Tom
I don’t disagree. It just felt really gratuitous, against the backdrop of a film that as you say was doing its own thing. It was all just totally unnecessary. But then, as I say in the other thread, I basically wish it had no connection to the original at all. Have Deckard/Rachel be some other Replicants and drop all that baggage.
As I recall, the Atari logo was in the first scene where you see a bunch of logos like Peugeot and Sony. It was filmed from above, so it wasn’t as overt as the others (which were presumably paid for), but it was definitely the logo. .
Atari logo is about 10 seconds into the official trailer, in the overhead shot of the car zipping through the city. I think it was fairly early in the movie, though I don’t remember exactly when.
Also, let’s talk about a new thing I hate: the split second montage of scenes and images in the first couple seconds of official uploads of movie trailers to YouTube. This isn’t some exploitative re-upload of the trailer by some other source trying to game for views, this is the straight up official trailer on Warner Bros’ channel. What kind of undeserving casual viewer needs an explosion two seconds in just to be motivated to watch a trailer? I hate the internet and everyone on it!
I gather that’s a response to ads on YouTube being skippable after the first few seconds. I think what this must mean is that the whole trailer is “promoted” as an ad to other users, and the editors try to pack a mini-trailer in that time before you can skip it.
Hadn’t thought of that, I’ll bet you’re right.
(I still hate the internet and everyone on it, but I’m willing to drop the exclamation point.)
If Deckard is a Replicant, they built in aging ?? Is he the only aging Replicant?
I don’t think either movie explicitly says the Replicants don’t age, do they? It’s just that you wouldn’t notice in the span of time we see any confirmed replicant on screen. Roy may have looked four years older when he died. We don’t know if K or Spanner have aged either.
Oh, jeeze, no wonder I missed it. It fills up the whole screen. In Imax, I had no idea I was looking at an Atari logo! Atari must be thriving to be able to afford that sort of ad buy. I was thinking you meant something like this:
http://dazedimg.dazedgroup.netdna-cdn.com/786/azure/dazed-prod/1180/4/1184517.jpg
Yeah, this came up on the podcast. What makes you think replicants wouldn’t age? They’re made of the same stuff we are, and powered by the same processes we are. Why wouldn’t they age the same way we do?
-Tom
ah, right, you wouldn’t need a Turing test, sorry, Voight-Kampff test to identify them if they were made out of silicon
I really enjoyed the podcast discussion. Tom, regarding the bees, that was the filmmaker’s intention. Denis Villeneuve took part in a scene commentary for the NYT, and offered these thoughts:
There are a lot of problems with bees in the world right now. They are disappearing, so the fact that here you can see those creatures still alive and still present, was for me like a little spark of hope in this dystopian universe.
Box Office Mojo updated the weekend gross numbers to $32.75M. Despite bombing domestically, the film met the studios expectations in international markets.
I wonder how it will perform off world.
LOL, apparently one of Ridley rules for Villeneuve taking on the sequel was that he wasn’t allowed to show anything off world, which is one of the best decisions he’s made in recent years.
Heh, as the finale was unfolding, I kind of assumed we were going off world. Psyche! No c-beams glittering off the Tannhauser gate for us.
-Tom
“I kept saying to Ryan, ‘Walk slower, walk slower…’”
:)
-Tom