Skip Navigation
movies @lemm.ee Blaze @reddthat.com

[IJustWatched] Blade Runner 2049. What do you think about it?

Second time I watched it, first time was during its theatrical release.

Still a very powerful movie. The slow rhythm and the cinematography create a very heavy atmosphere, fit for the universe and message the movie conveys.

Some of the shots give a Dune vibe, nice to see this so many years before the first Dune movie.

Definitely recommended if you like SF and dystopian universes

32
32 comments

  • I also saw it in the theater. So tragic that it did so poorly in theatres.

    Visually stunning. There are some amazing looking scenes, standout being the huge holographic woman.

    Tragic storytelling. These poor goddamn replicants who are so close to human.

    Fascinating characters both real and virtual.

    Instant classic. Different from the original and both better and worse.

    I own this on blue ray. Thanks for the reminder, I need to rewatch both of these awesome films.

  • I watched the original before the sequel just so I could follow the story after hearing so many people recommend the sequel. My thoughts on the original are it has an awesome vibe and cool music, but the story didn't capture me because I didn't know what characters I should be rooting for. Add that to the overall depressive nature of the directing, and it bored me.

    The sequel took all of what I thought was cool about the original - that unique vibe and music and art - and put it into a fresh story, with clearer characters that evolve throughout the story, a plot with heaps of important characters that makes you think about something besides only "Is the main character a replicant?" Plenty of small characters that are interesting and essential to the plot, and not throwaways. The original felt like it set up the entire fabric of the sequel, but man does the sequel create a beautiful final product.

  • The storyline with Jared Leto (also the weakest aspect) goes nowhere. I think it falls apart in the end. Visually great but pointless. It felt like a waste of time.

  • I really liked it, I thought it was a terrific sequel and brought a lot of interesting new ideas to the table - the girlfriend in particular. I still think the original is a better film, though, 2049 felt a little unfocused and Leto's character was nowhere near Roy Batty.

  • I thought it was good, but it wasn't great. Not even in the same neighborhood of quality or groundbreakishness as the original, which continues to be in my top 5 movies ever made.

  • Some of the shots give a Dune vibe, nice to see this so many years before the first Dune movie.

    It’s was only four years before Dune pt 1 and the film Villeneuve did just before Dune. I haven’t seen it since the release either but my memory has always been that there’s a good amount of vibe share between the films. In fact it’s probably reasonable to speculate that Dune wouldn’t be what it is without Villeneuve doing Blade Runner first.

    • Definitely, I forgot the two movies were that close!

      • More than that, Blade Runner’s lack of big commercial success is why Dune was done as a stand alone film at first that ends unfinished. The studios didn’t trust that Vilkeneuve could make a profitable film. So instead of doing it lord of the rings style, they’ve waited to see the success of each film separately.

        And I bet this lack of success influenced some of Villeneuve’s directorial decisions too. The differences in the general portrayal of women seems quite stark and I wouldn’t be surprised if that was somewhat conscious. I also feel like you can see Villeneuve trying not to make the Dune films too long and boring, which was a complaint of blade runner 2049.

  • A deep dive into the agency of objects protagony for anyone interested.

    • Great vid, thanks!

      When I saw the film I had some female friends tell me they felt uncomfortable with objectification and portrayal of women in the film. And I can’t disagree. But I always felt that there was an underlying truth to the dystopia of the film that explained that objectification, though perhaps does not justify it.

      This vid does a good job at demonstrating that. I’d never thought about how much of a protagonist Joi is, but you certainly remember her and definitely feel the general energy in the film of lost and desperate agency.

      Then, tying all of that back to older millennials and capitalism and how their feeling could ever be portrayed in film was great.

      • When I saw the film I had some female friends tell me they felt uncomfortable with objectification and portrayal of women in the film. And I can’t disagree. But I always felt that there was an underlying truth to the dystopia of the film that explained that objectification, though perhaps does not justify it.

        I think the film does justify the objectification, although it does still make me uncomfortable.

        Joi is sold as an object / product in the film. We see her advertised all over the place, and I think we are supposed to see her as an AI girlfriend and feel a little sorry for Joe, at least initially - he's replacing a real relationship with an object pretending/programmed to love him.

        And then we start to realise that that's not really the case. "Our" Joi has memories with him, and her personality with him is clearly different to the default personality we see in the advertisements. And so what if she's programmed anyway? - that doesn't make the feelings Joe has any less real.

        The main theme in the first Blade Runner, and still a major theme in 2049, is having the audience ask themselves "is a replicant really any different to a human, really?". The clearly have feelings and are defined by both those and their memories (implanted or real) in the same way "real" humans are, even if replicants were constructed. I can't help but feel that Joi, and AI in general, is the logical progression of that line of thinking - if an AI is bringing up memories, emulating feelings, etc, then should you treat them any differently to a human? And does the influence the AI has on humans' (or replicants', which I think we already established to essentially be the same as humans) feelings not mean that AI can have just as much value to humans?

        I think Joi being not just treated as an object in the story but objectified is kind of key to having people consider that. The first Blade Runner very much did the same thing but with replicants, and we've seen other media do similar with gender/race/sexuality/etc. It can be much more powerful to belittle/objectify/discriminate against a character and then tear that down and ask the audience to consider why it was wrong, than to just never bring it up in the first place.

        I also just think the dystopia is kind of the point and objectifying women is a part of that dystopia. The film doesn't revel in objectifying women but rather women being objectified is yet another thing about the film that highlights how dystopian it is. The film doesn't try to normalise it in real life or make you feel comfortable with it; it just presents it to you as something that's normal in the setting, similar to the huge amount of garbage, similar to the capitalist hellscape, similar to Las Vegas being an irradiated wasteland, similar to replicants being hunted down, similar to Joe being a replicant... Very little about the film is meant to be aspirational or comfortable - the opposite, in fact - and singling out the objectification and portrayal of women just feels a little odd to me.

      • What I absolutely loved about that protagony video, and to some extent the glimmers of this that I saw in the movie itself, was how DEEP it was. Like yeah, it makes some people feel uncomfortable - and that's the point, b/c it allows us to have these kinds of conversations where perhaps some men relate more to the robots, even if some women relate more to the men in that movie.

        Hollywood has historically done a piss-poor job at feminism - probably b/c of the constraints of capitalism where even women will not pay to see shows that stray too far from the usual - though more of late I think it has done a bit better, at least in offering a bit more choices (still horrible behind the scenes though, even in women-owned and primarily women-employed studios). And at first glance this show looks to be one of the worst, with the nude female hologram - except that she is us, here and now, and the CEOs in the movie are the CEOs irl, "above" us all.

        Therefore it is feminism turned on its side, to become all about remembering the human - as in: whenever we have a choice, however rarely that might occur, what will we do with it? Man vs. Woman no longer matters as much as the past, when we are all united in being not-billionaires.

    • Thanks!

  • I watched it in the cinema a few months back and what struck me was that this one of those few films that really must be seen on the biggest possible screen - the great Turner-esque swathes of colour, the swooping cityscapes, the soundtrack, etc all come together beautifully in that setting.

  • Loved it. Looked and sounded amazing.

  • Absolutely staggering film. I am constantly kicking myself for not watching it in cinemas at release, because my god... My god!!

You've viewed 32 comments.