Especially since Deckard had been his prisoner for a while by then, so presumably Wallace had ample opportunity to confirm he was a Nexus 8 or not. On the other hand, if Deckard was programmed to fall for Rachel, presumably he would have been more compelled to accept the revived Rachel - the fact that he didn’t isn’t just evidence of shoddy craftsmanship (wrong color eyes) -it is also some evidence that Deckard is human. Not that significant though, since we’ve seen replicants develop beyond their apparent programming.
That is not true - Scott filmed a unicorn scene for the original theatrical version. What has confused you is that fact that the unicorn scene he put into the 1992 directors cut is not the same unicorn scene as originally intended for the theatrical release (as stated in some of the coverage at the time) - Scott used a scene that he thought was better, rather than use his original unicorn scene.
Here’s an excerpt from the Wired interview with Scott where he confirms the unicorn was in the original theatrical cut:
Wired: You shot the unicorn dream sequence as part of the original production. Why didn’t you include it in either the work print or the initial release?
__Scott:__As I said, there was too much discussion in the room. I wanted it. They didn’t want it. I said, “Well, it’s a fundamental part of the story.” And they said, “Well, isn’t it obvious that he’s a replicant?” And I said, “No more obvious than that he’s not a replicant at the end.”
edit: Obviously just catching up on this thread and it seems like you’ve hashed this topic out as much as can be done constructively. Tom is largely right, but I do agree with one thing you said - that there is some suggestion that Deckard is a replicant in the theatrical release before the inclusion of the unicorn scene, but it comes across as more of a “there but for the grace of God, go I” tease that maybe none of us really can know for certain that we’re human.
I think your suggestion that Ridley Scott changed his mind post-release is nutty though. It’s not at all analogous to George Lucas telling us that he always wanted the droids to step in Bantha crap - it’s a fundamental plot point to the original story, and Scott would have to have repeatedly lied not just about his original intention, but about the existence of footage, the conversations he had, the role of the studio execs, the production debates, etc. He’s not a psychopath.
Just watched this movie. I loved it, and I absolutely love that I can immediately jump into this great conversation about it.
I usually haven’t seen the movie discussed by the time the podcast comes out. Then depending on whether I have any interest in the movie or not, I’ll either listen to the podcast in lieu of watching the movie or put it in on the shelf to eventually get to it after I eventually get to the movie.
Great to hear Dingus’s voice again, also.
Thanks guys.
rewatched it yesterday. I wish it would have been a little bit shorter, but on the other hand all scenes are really good, so I couldn’t decide where to cut.
What was Wallaces endgame? Gaining the knowledge how to get replicants fertile? And then what? Use replicants to breed, but what use would be of baby replicants, that need to be feeded and raised until they are strong enough to do a replicants job?
What am I missing? Looks like a big flaw in Wallaces plan. Maybe he just wanted to play god…
Also, I don’t get the bees? Who brought the wooden hive? It doesn’t look like there is anything that the bees can eat… no flowers or vegetation.
I read the complete thread and the discussion about Deckard. If replicants have glowy eyes in special lighting conditions, what do we need a Voight-Kampff test for? Even my granny could spot a replicant… In the original BR we have a couple of scenes with glowy eyes, even a scene with Pris (Final Cut).
Villeneuve:
huh, I just saw and remembered the square shaped be hives, and never saw the round bee feeders.
LOL if you can make a machine that generates bee food, just make a machine that generates human food
That’s exactly it. He wanted to engineer a superior race which was beholden to him as God. Using them, he could rule both the new humans and the originals.
There’s a bit of a clue, or perhaps just an Easter Egg, in the fact that his assistant replicant was named Luv, as in God’s Love.
also i just love the idea of Deckard toddling around his lair with a big jar labeled “HUNNY” like Winnie the Pooh wtf who wrote this thing
I’ll just go ahead and say it: as of right now, Blade Runner 2049 is my favorite of all time.
Favorite…Blade Runner? Or movie? Did you just now rewatch? Catch anything new?
I adore Blade Runner 2049. I’ve watched it maybe three times and I know I’ll be watching it many more. Enemy and Sicario are great, but starting with Blade Runner 2049, it feels almost like a new kind of filmmaking. It’s just that distinctive. If it weren’t for Dune being a work in progress, I would call this Villeneuve’s career-culminating masterpiece.
-Tom
You think it tops Arrival, Tom? That’s a tough call for me, and I’m curious about your thought process.
I’m afraid Arrival didn’t work for me, partly because of Amy Adams and partly because – snark forthcoming! – personal tragedy and first contact are sort of like oil and water for me: I can watch a movie about one or the other, but when you jam them both into the same movie, I’m going to care much more deeply about one of the two issues, possibly to the exclusion of the other. :)
So, basically, I didn’t like Arrival’s script or lead actor. But you say it’s a tough call for you, so I’m assuming you would rate it as among your favorite Villeneuve? How did you feel about Dune? How would you rank your Villeneuve?
-Tom
Now explain your love of Interstellar in the light of these statements. (Also, I given Arrival’s structure, it’s not really a tragedy is it?)
I liked Arrival quite a bit, yeah. I get where you’re coming from on the plot-line mixing being a bit odd and agree that’s not the strongest part of the film.
Arrival showcases what to me is Villeneuve’s signature talent. The scenes in the movie have room to breathe, without needing constant frenetic action to keep audience attention. Lots of very effective use of silence and non-vocal sound to build the mood, and tension, of a moment. Some of the scenes inside the alien ship, especially the first few, were particularly good in this regard. For me, it was very effective “show don’t tell” and pulled me into a strong empathy with Adams’ character in those moments. The mixed feelings of wonder, terror, intellectual exploration and exhilaration of discovery resonated powerfully with me. I had similar experiences multiple times during BR2049, such as Bautista’s farmer confronting the inevitable.
What Arrival and BR2049 both did very effectively for me was to tell very intimate personal stories within a much more epic plotline and context without losing the threads for any of them or feeling the need to completely tie up all the loose ends into a nice convenient bow at the end. In that regard, I felt Harrison Ford’s parts of BR2049 were some of the weaker scenes in the movie. I love Ford as an actor and Deckard is a great character, but IMO he was most effective as an off-screen myth K was exploring than an actual character appearing in the film. Dune, on the other hand, struggled a bit with this. As Paul’s journey always felt more epic than personal, even though the story is very much one of his struggle with his “destiny” and his ultimate rejection of it.
Sicario was also great, but didn’t pull me in like Arrival, BR2049, or Dune did. The common element which I did very much appreciate was the viewer sharing the mystery with the main character. No big exposition dumps pushing up against the fourth wall. That said, I saw Sicario after I’d seen Arrival and went looking up other movies from Villeneuve (I still need to watch more of his older films some time).
I suspect my rankings have a lot to do with my experience learning Villeneuve’s style and what about it works for me rather than something I can even really pretend to be objective. I saw the films I’m describing in the order of: Arrival, BR2049, Sicario, Dune. He has taken me on a wonderful journey via his filmmaking and I look forward to the next steps on that path.
If pushed to order those four, I’d probably go with:
- Arrival
- BR2049
- Dune
- Sicario
That said, I will likely re-watch Dune far more often than the other two. Partly because of how deeply I love Herbert’s novel and what a good fit it is for what I love so much about Villeneuve’s style.
And of course, my opinion of Dune is still open as we don’t yet know how he will tell the rest of the story. I suspect (maybe just hope?) my opinion of it will rise even further when I can see the whole of the creation together.
Sure, and that’s a great point! But do you think of Interstellar as a first contact movie? I mean, I guess it becomes that, but within the context of Nolan’s usual puzzle box plotting, but I would never include it with movies like ET, Arrival, Day the Earth Stood Still, and so forth.
Instead, I think of Interstellar as a story about exploration and how it interacts with human foibles like love, cowardice, and hope. I never felt like there was a bait-and-switch from a first contact movie to a melodrama about a woman’s dead child.
-Tom
I don’t say this to minimize your observation, but wouldn’t you say that’s also true of Dune and even Sicario? They’re very much personal stories threaded into larger situations. Since that’s also the angle for Arrival and Blade Runner 2049 – use a personal story as an entrance into a much larger narrative structure – I’d say you’ve identified another of Villeneuve’s trademarks.
If you say so. :) I’ve seen Maelstrom and Polytechnique. They’re interesting, but very film schooly and raw. I don’t think you can really see his style developing until Prisoners? Which I didn’t like. From what I recall, it’s weirdly small and petty compared to his more recent movies. I remember the Hardcore Jackman Acting more than anything else, really.
-Tom
Are you saying his Jackting was off?
As of right now, favorite movie of all time; I rewatched it for the first time since seeing it in the theatre. It’s like someone took Claude Debussy’s Clair de Lune and… changed it, saying ‘here is what he was really trying to say’ in a modern context, and they were right. Tears were sticky on my cheeks the entire time, in an AirBnB in front of the ubiquitous flat screen on the wall, surrounded by beautiful things I did not own.
edit: I also want K’s jacket
edit2: it has hints of Waking Life in tone (not philosophy), or maybe 2001: A Space Odyssey; among other notes it’s a movie about character, about being in fields with other people… a long string of vignettes with a central theme
edit3: the pacing in this movie is… understated. The real emotional hits don’t come until about an hour in… you just have to keep watching. But it wouldn’t have the same effect without that first hour; literally every shot in this movie is important, is saying something, as minute by minute the signal grows
Partly, yes. More a matter of degree rather than yes/no, but with some twists.
In Arrival, Louise’s personal struggles and engagement with the overarching non-linear time aspects of the story are exactly that, personal. They shape her character’s understanding of what’s happening, but are not, until the very end, central to the story. The character is struggling, with the audience, to understand what she is experiencing. Her POV is, in large part, the viewer’s POV as well.
In BR2049, K’s struggles of identity and self are how and why he engages with the broader story but not inextricably entangled with it, at least from his perspective, until the last act when it all comes together and some aspects of his identity are confirmed and others rejected, but his place in things has become clear to him. I particularly found interesting that the culmination of his personal story was partly “no, you’re not as special as you had come to believe/hope you were.” An explicit rejection of the centrality of the protagonist to the overall narrative of the world. This, to me, was an interesting growth and development of this element of Villeneuve’s style in this regard. The point of view character may or may not be the centerpiece of the story but may instead be the lens through which we see the story unfold. Some interesting meta-commentary on filmmaking there, perhaps? I’m curious if that’s intentional on his part.
On the other hand, in Dune, the large narrative structure dominates more than it does in BR2049 or Arrival. Part of this is the nature of the material and part of it is how Villeneuve engages with it. Paul is not a good viewer surrogate due to the inherent nature of who is is (Messiah figure) as a character within the world he inhabits. As a power fantasy of being an heir in a Great House, perhaps, but in lived experience there’s very little to hook onto as a viewer and say “I empathize with this” even in his emotional journey. His struggles with and against his nature and place in spacetime, while personal, are not relatable in the same way. The scope of his personal struggles are always part and parcel of the larger struggle for the spice and the future of the species. So this aspect of Villeneuve’s style takes a back seat in Dune and let’s the more visual parts come to the fore. The lingering greyed out blue water shots on Caladan, bringing feelings of a lush, but muted and suppressed world content with its place in the universe. Contrast with the color palates of Dune where the arid tans and browns are lit unrelentingly by bright gold and white sunlight, calling forth a sense of a different kind of suppression, where the world itself, along with its population, is on the verge of violent explosion at any moment. If anything, the “personal” story in Dune, is one of the planet itself rather than any of the human characters.
Interesting. The descriptions of some of those films implied a lot of that, which is why I haven’t watched them yet. Do you any of them more worthwhile than others as an exercise in understanding the development of Villeneuve as a director?
edit: Intended this to be a lot shorter than it ended up being. Please forgive the rambling nature. Lots of stream of thought commentary there.