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The whole fear of a replicant revolution just seems very at odds with the tone established by the first film and even BR2049 itself. Blade Runner's Earth is an destitute, dying shithole full of invalids, nobody gives a gently caress about the humans or androids living there, so it makes no sense for Wright or Leto to constantly be talking in these apocalyptic tones about lines being crossed. Nobody has seen the sun in decades and you're living off grubs, who's paying the LAPD to maintain this crack team of android hunters? BR1982 already established that the lines between human and artificial were illusory in Deckard's slow arcing realization of how worthless his life really was. But then all that totally gets reset in the sequel, now Deckard's role in affairs is one of revolutionary importance and society is suddenly very concerned about the status of replicants again even though we already resolved this argument in the original. The whole grandiose tone of the script just felt very off compared to the setting established in Blade Runner, of scavengers trying to pick up the pieces of failed state. Society has already crumbled, don't sing La Marseillaise just grab whatever you can get.
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# ? Jan 20, 2018 12:25 |
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# ? May 21, 2024 13:49 |
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exquisite tea posted:The whole fear of a replicant revolution just seems very at odds with the tone established by the first film and even BR2049 itself. Blade Runner's Earth is an destitute, dying shithole full of invalids, nobody gives a gently caress about the humans or androids living there, so it makes no sense for Wright or Leto to constantly be talking in these apocalyptic tones about lines being crossed. Nobody has seen the sun in decades and you're living off grubs, who's paying the LAPD to maintain this crack team of android hunters? BR1982 already established that the lines between human and artificial were illusory in Deckard's slow arcing realization of how worthless his life really was. But then all that totally gets reset in the sequel, now Deckard's role in affairs is one of revolutionary importance and society is suddenly very concerned about the status of replicants again even though we already resolved this argument in the original. The whole grandiose tone of the script just felt very off compared to the setting established in Blade Runner, of scavengers trying to pick up the pieces of failed state. Society has already crumbled, don't sing La Marseillaise just grab whatever you can get.
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# ? Jan 20, 2018 15:53 |
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I just don't find myself very convinced by the arguments the movie would like us to believe, namely that interbreeding between humans and replicants if discovered would lead to all-out rebellion. I'm not convinced by this because we never see what the off-world is actually like, all we get are glimpses told by advertisements and Roy Batty in his dying monologue, and what happens off-world isn't significant to the story of Blade Runner, anyway. I don't believe that in overcrowded, lawless, chaotic 2049 LA, some underground replicant resistance force would even give a poo poo about waiting on their messianic figurehead. This framing invokes some grandiose overtones about the chosen one who will unite the Protoss and Zerg that in my mind is way too operatic for the tone of the series, which was originally just about people struggling to live within an increasingly isolated world that robs them of their humanity. The Nexus-6 reps didn't board a shuttle to Earth to start a revolt, they just wanted to find a way to live longer, and THAT was the most threatening thing about their existence in the eyes of Tyrell Corp. Deckard wasn't the long-lost father of jesu cristo Sarah Kerrigan, he was just some glorified contract killer who ran bullshit personality tests on people before gunning them down in cold blood. The original Blade Runner told a very simple story of defining authenticity against a largely artificial society, not whether replicants were actually "human" but if humans themselves had any definable human traits left. The whole stuff about battle lines being crossed just feels like it is from a totally different movie, written to sound good for a trailer.
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# ? Jan 20, 2018 16:27 |
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precision posted:Probably Ford. Yup, lol.
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# ? Jan 20, 2018 16:31 |
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david_a posted:I think you’re leaving out the Colonies... I imagine that Earth is still very important culturally and politically even if it’s almost dead - humans are probably a bit sentimental about the ol’ blue marble. We don’t see this at all, but I would guess Earth’s economy is highly tied to resources/capital flowing in from Off World. Who pays for the Blade Runners? Indirectly, probably Wallace. Why do they care about keeping a wall between humans and replicants? Because replicants might outnumber people in the Colonies, and if a revolution started on Earth it would probably spread. Might be why Luv and K' s final fight is in the area outside the lifeless city, on the spaceport side of the seawall. They're fighting over the future.
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# ? Jan 20, 2018 18:22 |
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Yup, lol. By process of elimination I think I have to agree with the other poster who said it's Wood Harris, because he's just kinda there in the background of a scene and then we found out that another scene of his was cut. And there aren't really that many actors in the film.
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# ? Jan 20, 2018 18:28 |
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This was much better than the first Blade Runner
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# ? Jan 20, 2018 18:35 |
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sponges posted:This was much better than the first Blade Runner Not even remotely close to touching the original, pretty much across the board: cinematography, music, world building, emotional impact. If you pretend Blade Runner doesn't exist, and look at 2049 as just another sci-fi blockbuster made in 2017 (with all the baggage that entails: sequel setups, a world altering plot, too many characters), it's pretty drat good, among the best of the last few years. To me, the difference between the two is indicative of a lot of the problems with mainstream genre movies today, which is they're way more interested in plot instead of character and atmosphere. Blade Runner is good because it's an extremely simple "plot", but all the edges of that plot are filled in with world detail, characterization, themes. Even the gimmicky stuff, like the Deckard unicorn stuff, gets maybe 2 minutes of screen-time devoted to it. 2049 spends all its time on setting up this elaborate backstory to setup a twist that isn't super interesting. It's very telling that it doesn't even finish its 1st Act until an hour and 40 minutes into the movie, by which point the original was already in its 3rd act. And I still think it's a mistake to make Deckard powerless for the climax, given he's easily the character you relate to and root for the most. There's a lot of great stuff in the movie though, so it's more just frustrating that it isn't better on the whole.
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# ? Jan 20, 2018 23:34 |
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bullet3 posted:Not even remotely close to touching the original, pretty much across the board: cinematography, music, world building, emotional impact. This is where I think 2049 surpasses the original. In particular the emotional impact. Ford is just sleepwalking throughout the whole thing. It’s a drat fine film but for my money 2049 was what I always wanted Blade Runner to be.
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# ? Jan 20, 2018 23:44 |
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Emotional impact is a a bad way to measure art. Emotional insight is where it's really at. The original was incisive with its portrayal of apathy and alienation in the face of a "largely artificial society". ´Forty-Niner's apocalyptic conspiracies are just naively paranoid, compared to the reality of the age of Trump.
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# ? Jan 21, 2018 00:30 |
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I don't think it's "better" than the first, more like a parallel evolution of the same themes while also being a direct sequel, which is no mean feat.
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# ? Jan 21, 2018 01:39 |
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For anyone who hasn't bought the Blu, it has this sad, sad testimonial featured as the most prominent element on the back:quote:This stunningly elegant follow-up doesn't depend on having seen the original. Like, there's nothing wrong with that in vacuum, but it's so transparently marketed as a failure it's a bit depressing.
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# ? Jan 21, 2018 01:47 |
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feedmyleg posted:For anyone who hasn't bought the Blu, it has this sad, sad testimonial featured as the most prominent element on the back: Sbout two months before the game came out, EA sent a Mass Effect 3 press kit out to every GameStop store, and it was all about how everyone had to make absolutely sure to inform customers that one would not have to be familiar with the last two games to enjoy and understand the story in this one. Like it was mentioned over and over again throughout and was to be the primary selling point of the game.
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# ? Jan 21, 2018 01:51 |
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Neo Rasa posted:Sbout two months before the game came out, EA sent a Mass Effect 3 press kit out to every GameStop store, and it was all about how everyone had to make absolutely sure to inform customers that one would not have to be familiar with the last two games to enjoy and understand the story in this one. Like it was mentioned over and over again throughout and was to be the primary selling point of the game. That's very different though, because ME3 was expected to be massive, EA just wanted to make sure they weren't losing any sales to "the curse of having a number in your video game name"
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# ? Jan 21, 2018 01:58 |
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precision posted:That's very different though, because ME3 was expected to be massive, EA just wanted to make sure they weren't losing any sales to "the curse of having a number in your video game name" As a counterpoint, the adverts for Devil May Cry 2 said no less than three times that it was the sequel to Devil May Cry. Apparently the target audience were not able to figure this out for themselves.
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# ? Jan 21, 2018 02:45 |
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precision posted:That's very different though, because ME3 was expected to be massive, EA just wanted to make sure they weren't losing any sales to "the curse of having a number in your video game name" It was also because Mass Effect 2 was objectively a poorer experience for the (many) people who never played the original. They were addressing a legitimate concern.
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# ? Jan 21, 2018 04:51 |
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Mass Effect 2 is the best whole game experience in the series, in my opinion. I could argue that ME2 had the most difficult/fun combat of the series and that ME3/MEA both improved the combat greatly but severely lacked the good story.
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# ? Jan 21, 2018 09:23 |
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I've seen this movie many times. The detail of the world, the lighting, the tangibility of what was on screen, the questions it poses, and yes, even the acting, I find to be mesmerizing. The first time I saw it, I didn't want to leave that world. When I think about the movie and try to nitpick it, I usually find that the answer was mentioned or is hinted at in the world. But I can't find good answers to these:
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# ? Jan 22, 2018 03:33 |
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tvgm2 posted:Why is the sea water crystal clear? I assume it was just for artistic reasons at this point. tvgm2 posted:Why did the resistance replicants stop in the desert and what are they burning?
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# ? Jan 22, 2018 03:43 |
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tvgm2 posted:[*]Why is the sea water crystal clear? I assume it was just for artistic reasons at this point. There's no real reason for it to be in the movie but IIRC in the book (and the video game) most of the ocean on the other side is a sea of radioactive sewage sludge while what's on the city side is processed in some way or otherwise at a point where it can be collected and made potable.
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# ? Jan 22, 2018 04:20 |
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Tenzarin posted:Mass Effect 2 is the best whole game experience in the series, in my opinion. I could argue that ME2 had the most difficult/fun combat of the series and that ME3/MEA both improved the combat greatly but severely lacked the good story. This is accurate. ME2 is definitely the peak of the series by a long margin.
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# ? Jan 22, 2018 05:40 |
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AlternateAccount posted:This is accurate. ME2 is definitely the peak of the series by a long margin. It's also aged incredibly well due to having an almost criminally streamlined gameplay loop and controls
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# ? Jan 22, 2018 06:04 |
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AlternateAccount posted:This is accurate. ME2 is definitely the peak of the series by a long margin. You know I know it had faults but after Inquisition was such a huge improvement over Dragon Age 2, I was really excited for Andromeda to be great. After all like DA2, Mass Effect 3 was rushed and bad in a lot of the same ways, but like Inquisition it didn't seem like this was being rushed out. But instead it was so half-assed it killed the franchise. One of the gaming websites did a good postmortem of what happened with its production and it had a lot of parallels to Alien 3 regarding it having zero focus as to what it was going to be about even while it was being made. Though unlike Alien 3 there wasn't anything extra that could salvage it into something great later. I played through Mass Effect 3 once and it had a lot of stupid stuff in it and I did finish it but I'm never going to play it again. Andromeda was so bad I literally didn't even finish the demo. But I played through Mass Effect 2 like two or three times almost back to back, that game is basically the peak of what you can accomplish in that engine and with a game built the way Mass Effect is. There are certain quirks in Mass Effect 1 some folks prefer but overall ME2 is the best by a huge margin like you say. Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 06:08 on Jan 22, 2018 |
# ? Jan 22, 2018 06:05 |
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Andromeda spent all their budget in the wrong places. It wasn't really "half-assed" because they did put an assload of work into it (and yes, a lot of bugs/mistakes were made). It's just they spent time/money making big open world planets instead of using that time/money on the writing/pacing/encounter design/etc etc etc That said I loved Andromeda and I think it's an unfortunate case of super internet backlash.
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# ? Jan 22, 2018 06:12 |
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Joe's end being among snowflakes has to be an intentional parallel to tears in the rain. Each snowfake is perfect in its unique beauty, but also lost in drifts and their infinite variation. It's an extension of the established metaphor.
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# ? Jan 22, 2018 06:14 |
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the hologram was hot
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# ? Jan 22, 2018 06:19 |
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Not to ruin the metaphor but the snow is also a visual motif Denis Villeneuve likes as a Montrealer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zooQSyenyE Especially rain/snow mix.
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# ? Jan 22, 2018 06:20 |
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precision posted:Andromeda spent all their budget in the wrong places. It wasn't really "half-assed" because they did put an assload of work into it (and yes, a lot of bugs/mistakes were made). It's just they spent time/money making big open world planets instead of using that time/money on the writing/pacing/encounter design/etc etc etc It was really half-assed. I don't mean that to say that no one worked hard or that the game was cheap to make, I mean that the entire production of the game was half-assed and not well thought out. If you look at this article a few folks who worked on the game talk about it. A lot of not really smart decisions were made like switching to different animation software after work had already begun on it which cost them a ton of time. A lot of stupid decisions and omissions of what would be going on in the game's story were made during the game's pre-production and that completely screwed the game up. They half-assed the actual important stuff about Mass Effect during pre-production which is why so much time was wasted creating stuff that they'd keep scrapping because it wasn't actually fun to play. That's not a mark against anyone coding the game, but the higher ups at Bioware and EA dropped the ball in a huge way. I think we're kind of saying the same thing though. BrutalistMcDonalds posted:Not to ruin the metaphor but the snow is also a visual motif Denis Villeneuve likes as a Montrealer: I think it still works just because they talk about the snowstorm happening but you don't really see it until that final scene anyway. So in the movie itself comes off as something that's supposed to stand out in the moment.
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# ? Jan 22, 2018 06:54 |
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BrutalistMcDonalds posted:Not to ruin the metaphor but the snow is also a visual motif Denis Villeneuve likes as a Montrealer: I love Hugh Jackman and his revenge beard.
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# ? Jan 22, 2018 08:00 |
AlternateAccount posted:Joe's end being among snowflakes has to be an intentional parallel to tears in the rain. Each snowfake is perfect in its unique beauty, but also lost in drifts and their infinite variation. It's an extension of the established metaphor. Tears in Rain, or at least a variation of it, was playing during that scene.
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# ? Jan 22, 2018 11:06 |
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BrutalistMcDonalds posted:Not to ruin the metaphor but the snow is also a visual motif Denis Villeneuve likes as a Montrealer: I am not really that familiar with Villenueve. Probably need to catch up. GrandpaPants posted:Tears in Rain, or at least a variation of it, was playing during that scene. Ah, yeah derp I forgot to mention. That's what triggered the thought in the first place.
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# ? Jan 22, 2018 17:22 |
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Neo Rasa posted:There's no real reason for it to be in the movie but IIRC in the book (and the video game) most of the ocean on the other side is a sea of radioactive sewage sludge while what's on the city side is processed in some way or otherwise at a point where it can be collected and made potable. I assumed the water would at least be discolored, if not outright thick milky (it's raining and they're getting hit by waves on a "beach"), and both times K takes a shower it announces that the water is 99.9% detoxified.
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# ? Jan 22, 2018 20:00 |
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Definitely want to get this on BluRay because the compression Amazon uses for their digital distribution makes the grays look like pixelated garbage and this movie has a very dark palette. I'm normally not too much of a stickler on picture quality but it's noticeably bad in several scenes.
RobotDogPolice fucked around with this message at 06:14 on Jan 27, 2018 |
# ? Jan 27, 2018 05:53 |
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Apple is quite great. Don’t watch from Amazon.
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# ? Jan 27, 2018 06:08 |
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exquisite tea posted:I just don't find myself very convinced by the arguments the movie would like us to believe, namely that interbreeding between humans and replicants if discovered would lead to all-out rebellion. I'm not convinced by this because we never see what the off-world is actually like, all we get are glimpses told by advertisements and Roy Batty in his dying monologue, and what happens off-world isn't significant to the story of Blade Runner, anyway. I don't believe that in overcrowded, lawless, chaotic 2049 LA, some underground replicant resistance force would even give a poo poo about waiting on their messianic figurehead. This framing invokes some grandiose overtones about the chosen one who will unite the Protoss and Zerg that in my mind is way too operatic for the tone of the series, which was originally just about people struggling to live within an increasingly isolated world that robs them of their humanity. The Nexus-6 reps didn't board a shuttle to Earth to start a revolt, they just wanted to find a way to live longer, and THAT was the most threatening thing about their existence in the eyes of Tyrell Corp. Deckard wasn't the long-lost father of jesu cristo Sarah Kerrigan, he was just some glorified contract killer who ran bullshit personality tests on people before gunning them down in cold blood. The original Blade Runner told a very simple story of defining authenticity against a largely artificial society, not whether replicants were actually "human" but if humans themselves had any definable human traits left. The whole stuff about battle lines being crossed just feels like it is from a totally different movie, written to sound good for a trailer. Deckard is a replicant. Leto wants to have replicants gently caress because that's faster than manufacturing them. Movie still isn't good but I thought this was pretty clear.
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# ? Jan 27, 2018 09:26 |
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Did this movie answer the Deckard replicant question officially? Watched last night, loved it, but couldn't pick up some dialog.
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# ? Jan 27, 2018 15:58 |
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androo posted:Did this movie answer the Deckard replicant question officially? Watched last night, loved it, but couldn't pick up some dialog. Wallace tells Deckard that he is a replicant, and that he and Rachel were manufactured for the purpose of breeding with each other. Wallace could have been lying.
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# ? Jan 27, 2018 16:19 |
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Ersatz posted:Not really. I am pretty sure that after Wallace tells Deckard this, he then says something along the lines of "or maybe you weren't manufactured", making it clear that even if he knows one way or the other he is just trying to gently caress with Deckard.
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# ? Jan 27, 2018 16:39 |
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GoldStandardConure posted:I am pretty sure that after Wallace tells Deckard this, he then says something along the lines of "or maybe you weren't manufactured", making it clear that even if he knows one way or the other he is just trying to gently caress with Deckard.
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# ? Jan 27, 2018 16:57 |
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# ? May 21, 2024 13:49 |
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androo posted:Did this movie answer the Deckard replicant question officially? Watched last night, loved it, but couldn't pick up some dialog. Deckard is human.
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# ? Jan 27, 2018 23:57 |