Blade Runner 2049: My take

I'm back! A friend has been asking for my impressions of the movie, so I decided to write up my thoughts. I will avoid any major spoilers here, but I will discuss some of the context.

This weekend I went to see Blade Runner 2049.

I want to preface my comments by saying that I love the original (preferably the Final Cut). It's my favorite movie, hands down. It's more than just a great movie -- I believe that it is one humanity's crowning achievements. It's visually gorgeous and has a compelling narrative, but it's more than the sum of its parts. Blade Runner is an exploration on what it means to be human, particularly in a world of advanced machines, and whether that even matters. And it's the best at what it does, in any medium. Had Voyager left Earth in 1982 and not 1977, a reel of Blade Runner would have been an ideal addition to the Beethoven and Chuck Berry it carried out beyond our solar system.

I deliberately avoided most hype regarding Blade Runner 2049, because I wasn't really keen on the idea of a sequel. I wasn't sure if I'd even see it. But last week I saw that it was getting very high ratings on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, so I got a little excited and decided to go.

It's a pretty good sequel to a movie that never should have had one.

2049 is visually stunning. The exteriors return us to the neon noir of Los Angeles, trading the rain for snow this time. 2049 is the future, but it's not our future, it's the future extrapolated from Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. Long-dead brands like Atari and Pan Am appear prominently, despite the "Blade Runner curse" of our world. The interiors are equally marvelous, often contrasting modern, minimalist luxury with the grimey chaos of the megacity outside. In general, the pallette is a perfect match with the original -- this is a cold world, devoid of natural brilliance and punctuated only by the gaudy colors of intrusive advertising. The costumes are great and the art direction is perfect. I could watch this movie again for the picture alone.

The music is a fair match for Vangelis' iconic synths of the original, albeit less memorable and probably overpowering at times.

So suffice it to say that production-wise, this is a stellar complement to the original Blade Runner.

I wasn't as thrilled with the story. It wasn't bad. In fact, it was probably pretty good, but it didn't hit enough of the original notes for me. It's a good sci-fi action movie, but it isn't as thoughtful or layered as the original. It also had quite a few holes.

The story takes place about 30 years after the original. A new blade runner, "Joe", played by Ryan Gosling, now works for the LAPD "retiring" fugitive replicants. He stumbles onto evidence of a "miracle" -- a live replicant birth. (I guess "life, uh, finds a way"?) The possibility of replicants reproducing has dangerous implications, and Joe is tasked with finding the replicant offspring. The ability to breed replicants has eluded the corporation that produces them, and Joe has competition from the bounty hunters sent by this corporation. Joe's search eventually leads him to Deckard, who has long been in hiding but may have valuable information. I can't say much more without spoiling things.

I appreciated a couple of nods to the Philip K. Dick story that were absent from the original. We see Deckard living alone in an abandoned building, much like he did in the novel. We first see his dog standing in the shadows, looking very much like a black sheep, which was Deckard's pet in Dick's story.

But there are holes. And I've already watched three YouTube videos discussing many of them, so I know I'm not alone here. Perhaps the biggest one that remains for me is this: Why was Deckard taken, but Joe was left behind (alive, and ready to cause problems)?

I'm glad I watched the movie, and I may well watch it again, but I can't take it as canon. Blade Runner is a singular work of art.