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For me, the only weak spot of the original Blade Runner was Deckard and his relationship with Rachel. The Metropolis trope always rubs me the wrong way, and Blade Runner plays it to the hilt. (The problem is somewhat mitigated if Deckard is himself a replicant, but only somewhat.) 2049 also has a Metropolis love story with Joi, but I like that it seems to acknowledge the inherent misogyny of the trope. All of Joi's posters say stuff like "Made for you!" or "Everything you want to hear!", which is a little on the nose, but a far cry from the naive sincerity of the original. But there are layers to it beyond the posters. The first time we see Joi it's as a subservient housewife, and she has nothing but flattery for K. The sex scene is cool too. At first, it seems like a ham-fisted way to expand the theme of not recognizing reality. It's difficult to discern Joi's genuine affection for K from Mariette's professional detachment, even though they're doing pretty much the same thing. However, cutting to the Joi poster reminds us that Joi's love is just as artificial as Mariette's if not more so. I think the Joi subplot is one of the most genuinely dystopic aspects of the whole Blade Runner setting. It's pretty good, but I haven't seen Her, which probably covers similar territory. Ironically, whereas everything aside from the love story in Blade Runner is great, anything apart from the Joi plot in 2049 is lame from a writing and character perspective. The trouble is that there's no Roy Batty in 2049, a character with a clear moral stance and goal. K is on a mission of self-discovery, which is fine, but it's not a story that's going to produce something as captivating as Roy's encounters with Tyrell and Deckard, especially since it turns out that there's very little to actually discover. Speaking of Tyrell, Jared Leto pales in comparison to Joe Turkell, and Villenevue's insistence on shooting him like Dr. Claw is ridiculous. For all of Wallace's Biblical allusions and loquacious metaphors, he's really just a stock megalomaniac who wants more slaves to make more money so that he can achieve his vision of godhood. Tyrell, on the other hand, has this perverse love for his creations, wanting them to be as perfect as they can be even as he's condemned them to a life of servitude and despair. He has a grandiose vision that actually matters to the central characters of the movie, but despite his genius he's a venal creature. The differences between Tyrell and Wallace are a perfect microcosm of the 2049 script's preference for complexity over nuance. Both movies have lyrical (if sometimes awkward) dialogue and dense worldbuilding, but whereas Blade Runner tells an ultimately simple story with themes and characters that are difficult to grapple with, 2049 features a winding breadcrumb trail full of stock characters that ultimately doesn't make a whole lot of sense with themes that seem complicated at first, but that are easily resolved diegetically. 2049 is loving beautiful, though, I'll give it that. You might complain that the establishing shots go on forever, but the imagery is the good part of the movie. I'd rather have more of those shots or weird, dehumanizing sex scenes than hearing lines like "This breaks the world!" or "Sometimes, when you love someone, you have to be a stranger." As an aside, the bees in the desert were rather weird to me. I get what they were going for, (Deckard as John the Baptist, subsisting on honey in the desert and preparing the way for the replicant messiah), but there's no other imagery in the movie that is that overtly mystical. Rachel getting pregnant definitely has Biblical overtones, but it has a rather prosaic explanation: Tyrell created her that way. It's impossible for the bees to survive in the radioactive desert with no plants to feed on. It makes me wonder if that scene was from an earlier script before they decided on the movie's overall tone. Also also, good to see that Olmos is still doing origami all these years in the future. If he was in the movie and he didn't do the origami, people would be like, "Where's the origami?" They didn't neglect to leave out this important aspect of his character, which makes his inclusion really good and not lame.
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Oct 7, 2017 16:59
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pospysyl posted:It's impossible for the bees to survive in the radioactive desert with no plants to feed on. Almost as if it were a miracle.
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Oct 7, 2017 17:02
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Magic Hate Ball posted:Almost as if it were a miracle. You didn't read my post very carefully, did you. pospysyl posted:the bees in the desert were rather weird to me. I get what they were going for, (Deckard as John the Baptist, subsisting on honey in the desert and preparing the way for the replicant messiah), but there's no other imagery in the movie that is that overtly mystical. Rachel getting pregnant definitely has Biblical overtones, but it has a rather prosaic explanation: Tyrell created her that way. It's impossible for the bees to survive in the radioactive desert with no plants to feed on. It makes me wonder if that scene was from an earlier script before they decided on the movie's overall tone.
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Oct 7, 2017 17:04
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There's plenty of other overtly mystical imagery in the film, it's just all attached to characters who aren't literally from the past.
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Oct 7, 2017 17:06
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Such as?
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Oct 7, 2017 17:08
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Scarlett Johansson should have been JOI or Mariette. This would have fit in perfectly with her overarching career and it's theme.
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Oct 7, 2017 17:13
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The bees were feeding at man-made feeders hung right above the hives. Maybe deckard really likes honey but only had jars of marichno cherries.
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Oct 7, 2017 17:14
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LingcodKilla posted:The bees were feeding at man-made feeders hung right above the hives. Or bar syrup, that poo poo will be feeding the cockroaches after the apocalypse.
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Oct 7, 2017 17:16
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pospysyl posted:Such as? Almost everyone in the movie? Sapper has the tree, the flower, and the garlic, Joi has the scene in the rain, Wallace literally lives in a pyramid, the whole movie is boiling with biblical imagery. The climax even features a baptism.
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Oct 7, 2017 17:20
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Actually, when I saw the bees my first thought was that it was a reference to Sherlock Holmes, because Deckard is a retired detective too.Magic Hate Ball posted:Almost everyone in the movie? Sapper has the tree, the flower, and the garlic, Joi has the scene in the rain, Wallace literally lives in a pyramid, the whole movie is boiling with biblical imagery. The climax even features a baptism. But none of those are miraculous! I know it's meant to be Biblical imagery, but not everything in the Bible is a miracle. For me, the bees cross that line. I don't care how many maraschino cherries or simple syrup you have, it's not enough to sustain an entire bee colony for decades. It's not even a significant problem for me, I just thought it was funny. pospysyl fucked around with this message at 17:26 on Oct 7, 2017 |
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Oct 7, 2017 17:24
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It's funny because my first reaction was to feel bad for K for having only JOI, who isn't real, be his companion. But then he isn't "real" either. So it's just two AIs interacting, responding appropriately to the actions of the other due to their programming. Does that make it more or less "real?" Especially in light of what both of them ultimately end up doing (making what you would have to call severe programming deviations. I just love it all. Reminds me a bit of the HBO Westworld series regarding what is real/human/etc.
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Oct 7, 2017 17:24
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Bill Dungsroman posted:It's funny because my first reaction was to feel bad for K for having only JOI, who isn't real, be his companion. But then he isn't "real" either. So it's just two AIs interacting, responding appropriately to the actions of the other due to their programming. Does that make it more or less "real?" Especially in light of what both of them ultimately end up doing (making what you would have to call severe programming deviations. The first Blade Runner answers that, I thought. BTW I am firmly in the camp that JOI is not anything more than her programming. She literally just tells him what he wants to hear. His problem is he is programmed to be 'naive'. Always obey, not lie etc. So he seemingly takes it a bit too seriously until the brilliant scene where giant naked JOI finally tells him what he needs to hear and he realises his life has been a lie.
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Oct 7, 2017 17:35
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Mr. Flunchy posted:I was a bit disappointed to see no neon umbrellas in the crowd scenes. Did anyone spot them? They were in there. This movie was hours of slow burning scifi detective work and fog, which is exactly what I wanted out of a Blade Runner sequel.
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Oct 7, 2017 17:41
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pospysyl posted:But none of those are miraculous! I know it's meant to be Biblical imagery, but not everything in the Bible is a miracle. Also, pyramids aren't even in the Bible. Of course they're not miraculous, half the point of Blade Runner is that it's a confused, lost echo of the past - the bees are miraculous because Decker produced a miracle
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Oct 7, 2017 17:43
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DC Murderverse posted:Scarlett Johansson should have been JOI or Mariette. This would have fit in perfectly with her overarching career and it's theme. This is nothing against her as an actress, but I for one am relieved that she isn't in literally every cyberpunk robot movie of the last 7 years.
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Oct 7, 2017 17:53
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[quote="“Mr. Flunchy”" post="“477146374”"] I was a bit disappointed to see no neon umbrellas in the crowd scenes. Did anyone spot them?  For some reason I’ve always thought they were particularly cool. [/quote] Would they work irl or would the light blind you like when you hold an all-direction lantern
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Oct 7, 2017 17:54
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BarronsArtGallery posted:Actually gently caress it, if the run time was so horrible for you, start naming what you'd cut. Specifically. Two specific scenes that come to mind are the sex scene and the apiary-and-hand-covered-in-bees scenes. I understand that they are thematically on point and I really like that first scene, but c'mon, after your movie goes past the 2hm mark, you gotta start cutting your babies. Christ, the one thing keeping me from seeing the movie again (and I usually see movies twice if I can) is the practical amount of time. Nonspecifically, I'd pretty much cut out the Replicants building an army thing, making it a simpler Leto wants the Breedable Replicant, keep Breedable Replicant from being exposed as such thing.
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Oct 7, 2017 18:01
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The replicant revolution stuff could have been cut (though it seems like a pretty obvious sequel hook that the studio probably insisted on) but the first scene you mentioned is one of the more important scenes in the film imo.
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Oct 7, 2017 18:04
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I'm mixed on whether or not the sex scene should have been cut. It's visually compelling, but so is everything in the movie. It doesn't add a whole lot so I guess I agree it could have been axed. I think everything it presents is accomplished earlier in the scene in the rain. It doesn't help that it's incredibly similar to a more memorable and earned scene in Her.
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Oct 7, 2017 18:06
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Grizzled Patriarch posted:The replicant revolution stuff could have been cut (though it seems like a pretty obvious sequel hook that the studio probably insisted on) but the first scene you mentioned is one of the more important scenes in the film imo. Eh, it's not anything that isn't covered by JOI professing her love just as she's being killed, and if we're discussing cutting a film for runtime, you have to avoid being sentimental. I'm glad its in the film, but it's also a big chunk of scene that doesn't push the movie forward, and that makes it a prime candidate for cutting.
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Oct 7, 2017 18:10
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It's tied for best scene in the movie (along with the Elvis lounge scene, holy poo poo that lighting) and it will go down as an iconic scene. I don't think a lot of people ITT realize that this is the directors cut, as they announced like a month before release. That's why it's so long (and great). quote:Dennis Villanueve: Bottom Liner fucked around with this message at 18:21 on Oct 7, 2017 |
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Oct 7, 2017 18:15
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Some of the complaints being made about the run-time and things that could have been cut just don't jive with me. The sex scene, really? You'd cut that? It was an amazing sequence that was both disturbing and beautiful, and really interesting in its implications for society, along with a dozen other moments in the movie. And if you think there are things that weren't explained enough, I'm not sure you remember the original Blade Runner as well as you think you do, because that movie was filled to the brim with throwaway references to huge events and stuff happening off-screen that were never explored. Not condemning y'all for your opinions but I really just don't agree. This movie was long, but I wanted more. I think it speaks to the overall quality that we're just sitting here playing armchair director and nitpicking there being too MUCH awesome poo poo. This movie was huge, bold, and very imaginative and I'm telling everyone I know to go see it because it deserves to be recognized and we're lucky to get something like this in theaters instead of the endless spin offs and franchise films that just kind of plod through theaters most of the time. This is like a movie from another era when we were lucky to get enormous genre films with bold visions.
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Oct 7, 2017 18:17
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Bottom Liner posted:It's tied for best scene We're not talking about best or worst. We're talking about being given a nearly 3h movie and tasked with cutting it down to a more palatable length. There are plenty of movies with plenty of special features with plenty of deleted scenes that would've been so cool to have been in the movie proper, but would've bloated the movie, so one understands why they were cut. I don't think that scene would even be in the movie if the hooker-lady wasn't revealed to be part of the underground conspiracy. MisterBibs fucked around with this message at 18:32 on Oct 7, 2017 |
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Oct 7, 2017 18:28
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veni veni veni posted:I'm mixed on whether or not the sex scene should have been cut. It's visually compelling, but so is everything in the movie. It doesn't add a whole lot so I guess I agree it could have been axed. I think everything it presents is accomplished earlier in the scene in the rain. It doesn't help that it's incredibly similar to a more memorable and earned scene in Her. I think it's important enough to keep. It acts as the bridge from virtual to "real" - before that she was "just" a virtual being, and after that she had become something much more real, something that could be touched. It made the stakes much higher, both for the plot and for K I'm not sure if K dies at the end either. He is incredibly resilient the entire movie.
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Oct 7, 2017 18:29
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MisterBibs posted:We're not talking about best or worst. We're talking about being given a nearly 3h movie and tasked with cutting it down to a more palatable length. There are plenty of movies with plenty of special features with plenty of movies with plenty of deleted scenes that would've been so cool to have been in the movie proper, but would've bloated the movie, so one understands why they were cut.
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Oct 7, 2017 18:31
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Tumble posted:I think it's important enough to keep. It acts as the bridge from virtual to "real" - before that she was "just" a virtual being, and after that she had become something much more real, something that could be touched. It made the stakes much higher, both for the plot and for K I'm quite sure he does because it's suppose to be in homage to Batty's death (I heard someone whisper in the audience "Time to die" and smiled a little)
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Oct 7, 2017 18:35
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MisterBibs posted:Two specific scenes that come to mind are the sex scene and the apiary-and-hand-covered-in-bees scenes. I understand that they are thematically on point and I really like that first scene, but c'mon, after your movie goes past the 2hm mark, you gotta start cutting your babies. Christ, the one thing keeping me from seeing the movie again (and I usually see movies twice if I can) is the practical amount of time. Agree with the nonspecific suggestions, but hell no to the specific ones. Those scenes were awesome.
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Oct 7, 2017 18:39
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Yeah I don't fault the movie for leaving it in, because it was a good scene. I'm certainly not campaigning for it's removal. I can see why some people could view it as bloat though. RE: the revolution stuff. I didn't see it as sequel bait or gratuitous. I saw it as there to give some context as to why the events of the movie were important. Maybe it was a bit heavy handed, but I don't think it felt show horned in or anything.
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Oct 7, 2017 18:39
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I don't think there's a need to cut anything from the film. The gorgeousness of it all makes palatable even pointless stuff like the bee scene and the Elvis lounge scene. But it definitely needs rewriting. Everything involving Robin Wright and Jared Leto is so stilted, so on-the-nose, so unsubtle. And I don't think it's just the writing. I think they're two of the least inspired casting decisions in the film. And of course, I've said this already, but the memory girl twist is awful. When K says "go meet your daughter," it's the worst thing ever. For a while I genuinely had no idea what he was talking about. It comes out of nowhere, it makes no sense, there isn't even the subtlest build up to it, it's absolutely half-baked.
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Oct 7, 2017 18:43
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WMain00 posted:I'm quite sure he does because it's suppose to be in homage to Batty's death (I heard someone whisper in the audience "Time to die" and smiled a little) Yes but Batty dies because his body is designed to fail and that final fight is when it starts to happen, not because of any injuries he sustained; replicants seem to either die immediately at the hands of other replicants or keep on chugging until they run out of their pre-determined time. I'm not sure if they ever succumb to injuries later on Vegetable posted:I don't think there's a need to cut anything from the film. The gorgeousness of it all makes palatable even pointless stuff like the bee scene and the Elvis lounge scene. See, I like the "twist". I actually think that Deckard is not a replicant. It makes sense for memory girl to be the hybrid product of a replicant and a human, because that means that her immune system is non-existent because Rachel, the mother, never passed that on to her. It also makes sense that she would be the best possible candidate to know what makes memories "real" to a replicant because she is the product of both. Tumble fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Oct 7, 2017 |
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Oct 7, 2017 18:48
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MisterBibs posted:We're not talking about best or worst. We're talking about being given a nearly 3h movie and tasked with cutting it down to a more palatable length. There are plenty of movies with plenty of special features with plenty of deleted scenes that would've been so cool to have been in the movie proper, but would've bloated the movie, so one understands why they were cut. This. Was. The. Directors. Cut. Honestly no version of Blade Runner can be considered very "palatable" and if you wanted that from a sequel you should have known better.
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Oct 7, 2017 18:49
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2049 reminds me a lot of AI. Meandering plot, weak characters, lame dialogue, very gratuitous, seemingly unecessary scenes, but ultimately a very rewarding theatrical experience with great visuals and music and some inventive, compelling worldbuilding.
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Oct 7, 2017 18:51
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Vegetable posted:And of course, I've said this already, but the memory girl twist is awful. When K says "go meet your daughter," it's the worst thing ever. For a while I genuinely had no idea what he was talking about. It comes out of nowhere, it makes no sense, there isn't even the subtlest build up to it, it's absolutely half-baked. They explicitly spell it out for you earlier in the film though?
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Oct 7, 2017 19:13
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Bottom Liner posted:This. Was. The. Directors. Cut. Then you laugh in the director's face, say no, and tell him if he wants a Director's Cut, he can have it later. 2 hours and forty minutes, man.
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Oct 7, 2017 19:20
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MisterBibs posted:Then you laugh in the director's face, say no, and tell him if he wants a Director's Cut, he can have it later. This post in a Blade Runner thread. Lordy.
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Oct 7, 2017 19:25
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MisterBibs posted:Then you laugh in the director's face, say no, and tell him if he wants a Director's Cut, he can have it later. If only Emitter technology were here, then forums poster MisterBibs could summon a hologram of award-winning and well-respected director Denis Villeneuve and lecture him about how to edit his movie to a "palatable" length
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Oct 7, 2017 19:34
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Cacator posted:They explicitly spell it out for you earlier in the film though? I think we're arriving at the conclusion that going to see a film high on substances might be fun because of the sensory experience, but you probably won't understand a lot of poo poo presented in the film, even on a basic level. Gotta keep that frontal lobe working, folks.
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Oct 7, 2017 19:35
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MisterBibs posted:Then you laugh in the director's face, say no, and tell him if he wants a Director's Cut, he can have it later. maybe you should wait for the Netflix version where you can fast forward so all of us who want to experience a proper film can enjoy it at the theater.
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Oct 7, 2017 19:38
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Hi. Spoiling as little as possible, which cut of "Blade Runner" is the sequel to "Blade Runner" a sequel to, please?
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Oct 7, 2017 19:40
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All of them. And the movie was justified in its length.
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Oct 7, 2017 19:41
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