Don't encourage them FFS
Blade Runner 2049
- Thread starter krtek a houby
- Start date
Reno
The In Kraut
Considering Blade Runner takes place in 2019, they’d better hurry !
DexterTCN
Troy and Abed in the morning
nuffsaid
But this goes up to 11
There is
Kinda. Soldier starring Kurt Russel. Check it out.
Whoa! that says sequel, I said prequel, a before plot following the Replicants escape from off-world and get to Earth.
DexterTCN
Troy and Abed in the morning
It's worth a watch. No-one's forcing you though
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
I watched the film for the first time last night and this was exactly what it might made feel. You've actually captured it beautifully and your point about the nostalgia for the 1950's didn't occur to me at the time but is spot on.
The endless rain/snow/winter, the grey murk, the empty commodification of sex and love, the sense of anomie was overwhelming and very very sad. It was like Mark Fisher's idea of an endless nostalgia for lost futures set to film and music. I thought it was absolutely breathtaking. I've never seen aything quite like it on the TV.
I'm not sure I understand loads of the film - is so and so a human etc - and I'm not too interested either because the post industrial city is haunting me and makes me want to the film again and again. The lingering shots of cars flying over LA are unforgettable. The broken rements of Las Vegas, the development of San Diego into a tip/wasteland superbly realised.
The Mockingbird in Brum shows this on the big screen periodically and I am going the next time becuase I want to see it in the dark on a massive screen.
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mx wcfc
Well-Known Member
I watched it first on the big screen then again on a flight last week. I think I'm beginning to understand it now. Possibly due to being focused on a tiny screen, listening with earplugs. I've probably got half of it wrong though.
Johnny Vodka
The Abominable Scotsman
Just watched tonight. Can't remember the last film I saw that was so overlong and uninvolving, but I always thought the original was overrated too.
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
Its is very long , dont know if it would stand by itself if it wasnt a sequel tbh. I half liked it half tolerated it but was glad i watched it otherwise it would have been on an endless to do list.
Johnny Vodka
The Abominable Scotsman
Despite my opinion of the original, I was looking forward to it. I tend to like slow, ponderous, arty films more than most, but not this one... Still, I guess in the age of non-stop superhero films, there is something reassuring in that a film as strange as this can make it to the multiplexes (not that I ever go to the cinema these days
).
Reno
The In Kraut
I liked it a lot better on a second watch. First time round my expectations may have been too high as I love the original. It’s not as good as Blade Runner. Unlike that film, which felt rooted in the central question of what makes us human, 2049 feels like it’s just telling another story in that universe. There are dystopian cliches which aren’t properly explored, like the replicant resistance. Rachael gets brought back only to immediately be discarded, no more than a callback. But with my expectations adjusted I found a lot to enjoy in what is an unusually ambitious film for a big, modern blockbuster. Certainly a more worthwhile extension of that universe than the mess Ridley Scott made with his return to the Alien universe.
krtek a houby
Anger is Hi-NRG
Yes, the replicant resistance felt tacked on - like setting up a 3rd instalment. I'm quite happy for the BR universe to remain with these 2 films.
May Kasahara
take me to the feeling
Watched it for the first time last night and yes, all of this. While the overt plottiness was disappointing (replicant resistance as above, plus the central concept reminded me a bit too much of BSG which was distracting) and some of the characterisation was poor (cardboard rambling bad guy was particularly pointless), it is a gorgeous and intriguing film that I would like to watch again.
sleaterkinney
Well-Known Member
I watched it just now. gutted I didn't see it on a big screen. It's a really good movie, great plot, good acting - they're meant to be stilted, they're robots. Proper sci-fi. It's a good exploration of virtualisation and the realities we construct. Re-makes or Re-boots are often shit, it's a relief to get one that's good.
DexterTCN
Troy and Abed in the morning
It's a relief to get a good Bladerunner one, that's for sure.
It gets better with multiple viewings, just like the original.
Colour is used better.
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
If they'd only cut all of Jared Leto's scenes this would have been a minor masterpiece.
stdP
One Swiss dinosaur in Polly Gosling's anorak hood
I've just finished watching it for the second time and also liked it much better on the second watch, but as you say I don't think it's got half the sense of narrative purpose the original did. For all of its philosophical pondering, the original has a much clearer sense of where it was going, lots of cryptic background and seemingly incongruous dialogue all building towards the same whole. 2049 by comparison felt a bit like it had been written by committee - to my understanding the plot seemed to be trying to do too many things at once and only succeeding at a few of them.
It was overly long and I felt they could have discarded with the whole "oh it's a replicant with a VR girlfriend!" subplot completely - I didn't feel like it added anything to the story at all other than as an excuse for some fancy CGI, whereas the replicant resistance (and anti-replicant speciesism) was a much richer vein to mine for stories and motivation IMHO, much more so than Ryan Gosling believing himself to be Pinnochio.
That said, the cinematography in combination with the production design was almost as jaw-dropping as I found it was in the first film and they utterly captured the look and feel of a future human race that is just fucked beyond all recognition or hope. Wallace's psychotic PA was brilliant (don't know who the actress was but I enjoyed her performance very much), similarly Dr. Stelline I also wanted to see much more of. The relentlessly oppressive pounding, grinding, growling soundtrack was a thing of perverse beauty and a worthy follow-up to Vangelis' masterwork.
krtek a houby
Anger is Hi-NRG
Second time watching it and some of the scenes don't feel as long as they did first time round. Also, finally got the implanted memories and who's they were this time (duh). The misogyny and commodification of women is still there but (along with the environmental ruin) it kind of fits into the world we live in right now.
stdP
One Swiss dinosaur in Polly Gosling's anorak hood
Surely the exploitation angle is completely conscious choice though...? Men, women, children, the entire biosphere it seems, have already been sold and fucked thrice over in this universe - I figured, just like the Vegas sex-scape, that wholesale capitalisation of absolutely anything and everything was just de rigeur here.. humans are drowning in the waste of their own excesses, and everyday misogyny was a very convenient and socially relevant short-cut to that.
In itself it just seems like a logical extrapolation of the first film to me, rather than merely a topical thing. But on a similar note I'd liked to have seen more on what made Mackenzie Davis' prostitute engage with the resistance than I would see Gosling's fake girlfriend not really engage with anything.
Reno
The In Kraut
I hated the resistance subplot, it’s the most routine aspect of the movie and that’s the last thing I wanted to see more of. It’s not even developed beyond the set up for a sequel, which now thankfully will never materialise because it all was heading towards Matrix Revolutions.
You are right that Joi (Gosling’s fake girlfriend) gets back to the questions of the original Blade Runner, as to where an A.I. becomes sentient and to what degree she has been programmed. The misogyny isn’t accidental, it’s a theme of the movie. I’d much rather ponder that than a replicant sex-worker on the path to liberating her people from the shackles of oppressive and bringing on the revolution. That’s the type of wish fulfillment fantasy which is the ruin of any dystopian fiction.
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krtek a houby
Anger is Hi-NRG
Yeah, the whole resistance thing worried me. In the sense that the next installment seemed to be signposted - Blade Runner Resistance...
Unlikely a third part will materialise now, though. That scene jarred with me the most, after both viewings.
Unlikely a third part will materialise now, though. That scene jarred with me the most, after both viewings.
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