Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017)

Discussions of specific films and franchises.
Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017)

#376 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Aug 11, 2020 10:55 am

It's definitely a great frame of an existential crisis, as you refer to, because no matter what is objectively going on to drive these experiences, they are real to the beholder (one of the most interesting concepts unpacked in science fiction that has been talked about a lot lately through various threads here, even pre-project in the Inception thread). And yet, it's a fair question to wonder how "real" our experiences are, even to ourselves. The film takes the concept of 'memory' in particular, which is an inherently fabricated tool (and still, our primary one) to make meaning in our lives, and dissects its value in relationship or distinct from objective truths.

Great reading, and welcome to the blasphemous club who vastly prefer this to the original!

RIP Film
Joined: Tue Oct 10, 2017 3:53 pm

Re: Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017)

#377 Post by RIP Film » Tue Aug 11, 2020 1:26 pm

I'll chime in since I just watched this last night, for the fourth time. While I definitely don't prefer it to the original, I do find it rewards with repeat viewings. Some of the harder edges that bothered me at first, like that fight scene, don't seem as obnoxious; and there's a lot of detail to unpack. For instance, how the ending mirrors the original with Deckard being granted an act of mercy. When K is saved by the squad of replicants, they say he must kill Deckard-- and I sort of saw him saving Deckard as an act of rebellion, a single, solitary act of freewill, in his whole life of taking orders.

While many of my criticisms have faded, I do find myself actually agreeing with Ridley Scott who said it was too long. Originally this was one aspect I liked about it, but at nearly 3 hours they could have trimmed a bit to make the narrative beats more steady. The original Blade Runner is a brisk 2 hours and is no worse for it. 2049 feels like a director's cut, imho.

And file this under pedantic, but was anyone else thrown off by the Vegas parts-- with the relics of Elvis and Sinatra? I just always figured BR was a different branch than our timeline, one where ATARI became a successful entertainment business. It's just strange to see two performers, very much of their time, be transposed onto this timeline where technology advanced at a much faster rate than our own. It's not really a criticism just one of those world-building things that make me scratch my head for a second.

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017)

#378 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Aug 11, 2020 1:51 pm

I like the connections to our world, but only because they hit on the themes of nostalgia evoking meaning. The holograms aren't objectively 'real' but they are reminiscent of iconography's connotative power. Even if they only exist in the primarily-deserted vacuum of Vegas in this dystopian future, they still exist and persist for us to see by the sheer will of K and Deckard stepping outside of their normative structures and premeditated paths to search beyond.

I appreciate that K and Deckard don't have relationships to these figures and so their meaning is objectively apparent for us as signifiers, to construct a world beyond just these two characters' subjective senses of what is meaningful; painting a milieu full of opportunities for existential space to occupy. All personal significances exist, always will exist, and various tangible ideas will trigger those interpretive meanings, even after these characters no longer exist. Basically I think they're silly window dressing that also serve as powerful reminders of how special we each are in defining our lives by our personal meaning during our current time with our own unique perspective.

RIP Film
Joined: Tue Oct 10, 2017 3:53 pm

Re: Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017)

#379 Post by RIP Film » Tue Aug 11, 2020 3:02 pm

therewillbeblus wrote:
Tue Aug 11, 2020 1:51 pm
I appreciate that K and Deckard don't have relationships to these figures and so their meaning is objectively apparent for us as signifiers...
I'm not sure this is the case; Deckard seems to speak about Vegas with a personal connection, saying it was a place to see a show, win some money, etc. And in the hologram room while fighting K, he gets tired and makes an excuse to stop, "I like this song". Not to say there is a definite familiarity there, it is inconclusive at best.

Granted it serves the purpose of giving us an update on Deckard in short order; he lives in isolation clinging to the past, our nostalgia transfers onto him. It's effective cinematically, I'll give you that.

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017)

#380 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Aug 11, 2020 3:44 pm

Well I wouldn't say that's the purpose, but you're getting at exactly what I see Ford's function to be. While I did get that detail wrong, I think that Deckard having a relationship to the music and artists only makes the point stronger, since his character's inclusion in the story serves as that objective reminder of variances in significances through time as well as the timelessness of the power of significance, as opposed to just the relics to us independently. Regardless, the juxtaposition of K and Deckard's differences (including the reminder of these icons for Deckard's own, removing our subjectivity away from K briefly) in what is meaningful is what makes their collision powerful in the first place, and a large part of why I like this film more. The two characters become further defined by the presence of the other, and their comprehensions and motivations to embrace their own meanings develop as a result of their meeting.

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017)

#381 Post by therewillbeblus » Sun Aug 16, 2020 4:41 pm

Never Cursed wrote:
Tue Aug 11, 2020 2:45 am
Maybe I'm biased, given that I recently went through one myself, but I was most taken by the complex and life-affirming nature of K's existential crisis, and how it gives him a vital sense of purpose
SpoilerShow
(even after the cause for crisis is revealed to be a technological fabrication)
while destroying his place of subservience in the world. Where I felt the older film was pessimistic to the point of negative overindulgence, this film uses its wealth of imagination and special-effects shots to give its central characters moments of quite lovely understanding and catharsis. The sex scene is probably the best instance of this in the film (and, well, is the best scene in the film), and it makes perfect sense to have read upthread that the assembly cut was structured around it.
SpoilerShow
Although Joi initiates it in the form of a very understanding sort of a "gift" of physical contact that she can't provide, the act affects both of them equally, and is one of the most important steps on the way of their understanding of their own "realness." More than just representing their becoming "real" in an internally or externally defined way, the sex scene is where both characters reach a greater understanding of what this existence is like (which of course is itself an important ontological question) and realize its value, even though the "sex" was only a verisimilitudinous simulation of such. This is all very interesting even before you factor in that this is communicated to the viewer through hauntingly convincing visual effects, themselves a compelling simulation of something both meaningful and impossible, and which produced a similar feeling in my mind as the one I thought Joi and K took away from their intimacy.
I just revisited this again for the third or fourth time, and your post caused me to attempt to form a distinction between K's moments with Joi and his personal existential journey through finding his way to Deckard, with the former being an honest emotional intimacy that feeds his 'soul' and the latter an attempt to look beyond for meaning in the voids of history, that also may uncover other facets of said soul.
SpoilerShow
The complex sides of each shine through in different ways. Joi and the findings of K's journey are both objectively artificial but their tangible significance (experience of a connection, or memory) carry incontestable personal meaning. The loss K feels when Joi is destroyed is as crushing as the loss of discovering his own perceptions were false, yet these are operating on two different plains. What matters most: the emotional responses we get from our surroundings in everyday life, or the philosophical growth we conjure as we move beyond those comfortabilities into unknown territory?

I see Joi as representative of the emotional meaning, and K's journey and meeting with Deckard for contrast as his philosophical one; two equally important areas of any one's focus. Joi's emotional connectivity feels the most authentic, but this also reinforces K's static complacency in a role half-blinded by comfort. On the other hand, his removal of the self from that complacency into the greater world yields less gratification for his existence, but does exert his own agency toward fulfilling the needs of others, participating in the world through its moral realm, and engaging in self-sacrifice with empathy, which is about as 'human' as it gets.

The film finds interest in the age-old question of whether one's own emotional security or empathic offering of the self is going to lead to optimal self-discovery. K's reaction of supreme dysregulation in finding evidence of his humanness destroys his secure worldview and identity; which helps to emphasize how even in real life, we enter into robotic routines that, when disrupted, shatter our ability to cope. Meaning exists both in the confines of one's own sheltered safe place and through the drive to participate in the greater milieu. The call to engage with something greater than that self-fulfilling routine is just as 'human' a component -an organic consequence of thinking, feeling, and looking for truth- that allows neither of these areas (stay at home in emotional comfort or turn towards the unknowns for further knowledge and growth) to be invalid.

The sex scene is great, but the aftermath when Joe sacrifices her own security to accompany K on the adventure he needs to take.. so that he can have his emotional support while embarking on an independent process related to his identity, is so powerful in permitting us to have both ingredients that feed our souls. Joi gives him a name in addition to being present with him, literally and compassionately playing a part in forming his identity. And in the areas that he needs to venture into alone, she understands and lets that happen too. What a beautiful full exploration of what makes life meaningful.

Also perhaps the best and simplest summation of the common existentialist question at play, here and elsewhere in the genre, comes when K asks if the dog is real, and Deckard replies, "I don't know, ask him."

User avatar
Never Cursed
Such is life on board the Redoutable
Joined: Sun Aug 14, 2016 12:22 am

Re: Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017)

#382 Post by Never Cursed » Mon Aug 17, 2020 1:32 am

SpoilerShow
That's a compelling reading and I largely agree with it, though I think the two sides of that dichotomy are a bit more porous (or, specifically, that Joi's side/the emotional side of K's journey stretches over into the other, more philosophical side). Joi initially reinforces K's preordained place in the world (there's a reason that we first see her in the "garb" of a stereotypical 1950's housewife), but I thought that the type of support and comfort each provided for the other evolved as their understandings of themselves did the same. If anything, I thought the two halves of this dichotomy that you so intelligently describe fed off each other: K's emotional discoveries made him better able to process the information of the film's "case," which in turn opened him to further emotional understandings. Joi provides a safe place for K, but she also grows as he grows (even travelling with him in a manner atypical to the normal "detective's lover" role) - the sexual doubling is conceived of by Joi as a response to K's feelings of security and certainty being blown apart, and serves to further welcome K (and Joi) into his new understanding of himself. Maybe it's an odd comparison, but the bifurcated concern of this film with both the destruction of K's place in the world and the possibility for positive growth following that reminded me of Angels In America's two-part structure around those same ideas, but where that play/film discussed the process of destroying complacency in terms of deep pain and trauma (with growth only happening through wince-inducing suffering), the shattering of K's normalcy here is part of a life-affirmingly cathartic process of self-understanding.

I took the dog line to also be a cute and slightly barbed response to the question of Deckard's existence - he's the only one who can determine the truth of his existence, and it doesn't matter to him, so it doesn't have to matter to us.

(And this will not be the last time I invoke Angels in defense of a film I am voting for on the Sci-Fi list, though I would be amazed if anyone could guess the film.)

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017)

#383 Post by therewillbeblus » Mon Aug 17, 2020 8:07 am

I completely agree with that reframe of the two areas blending, and it’s where I was attempting to go with the mention of Joi joining him. To rephrase I think the film offers both separately as a dichotomy only to highlight each’s function in eliciting significance, and then allows them to intermingle on natural terms (and of course an isolated existential quest is almost always a heavily emotional experience as well!)

User avatar
R0lf
Joined: Tue May 19, 2009 7:25 am

Re: Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017)

#384 Post by R0lf » Tue Aug 18, 2020 10:37 pm

After reading these comments re. Joi I’ll need to do a rewatch to see if I misunderstood the movie. As I saw it
SpoilerShow
Joi was 100% a program and the humanoid comfort/growth being provided to K is because Luv is using the program to spy on and manipulate him. At each point in the movie where we see Joi’s growth it actually represents the way that Luv has completely evolved as a replicant. After the Joi program is destroyed K fails to see this and then destroys the instigator of his own growth.

User avatar
Never Cursed
Such is life on board the Redoutable
Joined: Sun Aug 14, 2016 12:22 am

Re: Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017)

#385 Post by Never Cursed » Tue Aug 18, 2020 10:56 pm

R0lf wrote:
Tue Aug 18, 2020 10:37 pm
As I saw it
SpoilerShow
Joi was 100% a program and the humanoid comfort/growth being provided to K is because Luv is using the program to spy on and manipulate him. At each point in the movie where we see Joi’s growth it actually represents the way that Luv has completely evolved as a replicant. After the Joi program is destroyed K fails to see this and then destroys the instigator of his own growth.
SpoilerShow
I took it that Luv was using K's iteration of Joi as a method of tracking K (which is why the fact that the Joi product is made by Wallace is important - it lets Luv find K's exact location during his visits to the scrapyard and Vegas), but I didn't think it extended into anything beyond that. I took Luv's destruction of Joi as an opportunistic method of hurting K. And of all the replicants and synthetic beings in the film, I thought that Luv was the one of them who was the least "evolved," at least in the philosophical/emotional terms in which the film was interested - her emotional responses to events are either monotone or wildly uncontrolled, and the thing that the film keeps emphasizing about her is her mastery of weaponry and similar forms of technology (along with her troubling willingness to use said weaponry). As I saw it, the final battle was a philosophical confrontation of sorts between two separate schools of thought towards technology, and that it ended with the more moral/human side of the conflict defeating the more scientifically adept but amoral side (through the use of no weapon at all, natch) can hardly be read as an endorsement of Luv or as a sign that she was the more "evolved" of the two

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017)

#386 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Aug 18, 2020 11:34 pm

Exactly, very well said Never Cursed, and great reading of the final battle!
SpoilerShow
It's a case where a being with a "soul," despite all its 'weaknesses' in imperfections, Achilles' heels, emotional distractions, etc. can conversely become empowered by the recognition of the strength of emotional capacity, love, inspiration, and existential drive for meaning, and overcome the purely logical-minded soulless machine. The ending takes everything that's confused K and caused his pain throughout the film and channels it into the power it can be, solely due to the significant emotional component that stimulates our capacity to realize full potential beyond what a machine would read as "full."

I'm reminded of all the scientific lectures on will power, and how human beings have a finite amount in each instance, but we can strengthen said will power through pragmatic and abstract practices. We can exercise, sit with good posture, meditate.. all things that Luv could do, but that's only one small category. Connecting with another human being and believing in a higher power enhance that capacity even more... which are experiences Luv cannot authentically engage in in a meaningful way. So that's a really roundabout way of saying that K, who does have a soul, may be subject to fallibility but can also overpower the Luvs of the world if he exercises his will power optimally. Movies like this make me grateful I'm not a logic-heavy rigid personality type.

User avatar
R0lf
Joined: Tue May 19, 2009 7:25 am

Re: Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017)

#387 Post by R0lf » Wed Aug 19, 2020 12:15 pm

Yet Luv’s introductory scene
SpoilerShow
is her watching Wallace kill the new born replicant with regret - which is then later contrasted in the scene where she completely outgrows her programming by murdering a human. This in turn reflecting the murder of her own kind in entirely the same justification of preserving the species that the humans have. Luv’s role is not only about expanding the humanity of K but also that in becoming more human and in the hopes of propagating replicants she has become human in the worst aspects.

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017)

#388 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed Aug 19, 2020 1:59 pm

SpoilerShow
I don't think any of us are contesting that she has emotional responses, and I took Never Cursed's comment as acknowledging that initial scene of crying but as a shallow undeveloped mechanism. I see it as a strong leap to make in assuming that Luv's tear is signifying "regret," let alone that she's outgrowing her programming in a way that expand's K's humanity or has a goal aside from servicing Wallace's aims. I don't think Luv is a complete sociopath or robotic force of logic, to the point where she can't feel sadness or other emotions, but that's also a misconception of all people who experience that antisocial personality disorder, or who are logic-heavy. The best way I can describe how I interpret her character is someone who is programmed to feel human emotions, but whose functionality of loyalty and servitude to Wallace's missions trumps that programatic feature, or any authenticity possible to take it a step further and unlock true agency to contemplate her existence and form an identity divorced from her purpose. Her blank face as the tear rolls down her cheek in that scene read the complete opposite to me: she's crying because she's programmed to cry when watching innocent people experience pain outside of a mission where it can be justified expectedly, but the ability to transform that automated response into a complex reflection of "regret" would signal that she possessed a soul.

Luv killing human beings to complete her mission definitely serves as some commentary on the ability of AI to unlock powers beyond subservience, though her master's mission necessitates carte blanche towards achieving that aim, and I highly doubt Wallace would expect anything else of her than to do whatever it takes (I mean, he's planning on torturing Deckard at the end clearly with her help, so it's not like Wallace would be shocked by her ability to do this; rather, it's an expectation of her role, but a logic-bound one that keeps her compartmentalized in a fixed state of subjugation). We see her actions in killing humans as horrific because of the possibilities of what AI are capable of in the wrong hands, but her behaviors are predictable, rooted in the perpetrator of her bondage, while K's AWOL-status from a contained state into developing his own agency is what marks him as dangerous. I honestly don't know how to see the movie differently, as this reading of Luv vs. K is not only the plot of the movie as I see it but critical to unlocking its themes.

flyonthewall2983
Joined: Mon Jun 27, 2005 3:31 pm
Location: Indiana
Contact:

Re: Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017)

#389 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Tue Sep 01, 2020 11:15 pm

RIP Film wrote:
Tue Aug 11, 2020 1:26 pm
And file this under pedantic, but was anyone else thrown off by the Vegas parts-- with the relics of Elvis and Sinatra? I just always figured BR was a different branch than our timeline, one where ATARI became a successful entertainment business. It's just strange to see two performers, very much of their time, be transposed onto this timeline where technology advanced at a much faster rate than our own. It's not really a criticism just one of those world-building things that make me scratch my head for a second.
When the film came out ATARI was still a big deal. It was only shortly after when the ET game failed spectacularly that they went by the wayside. It was probably easy to get permission to use the logo since they were owned by Warner Communications (now WarnerMedia) at the time.

criterionforum2049AS
Joined: Fri Oct 30, 2020 3:58 pm

Re: Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017)

#390 Post by criterionforum2049AS » Sat Oct 31, 2020 4:24 pm

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pupil
(edited)
Etymology 1
From Middle English pupille, from Anglo-Norman pupille (“orphan”), from Latin pūpillus (“orphan, minor”), variant of pūpulus (“little boy”), from pūpus (“child, boy”).

-(law, obsolete) An orphan who is a minor and under the protection of the state.
Etymology 2
From Middle English pupille, from Old French pupille, from Latin pūpilla (“pupil; little girl, doll”), named because of the small reflected image seen when looking into someone's eye.

-(anatomy) The hole in the middle of the iris of the eye, through which light passes to be focused on the retina.
SpoilerShow
Image


beamish14
Joined: Fri May 18, 2018 3:07 pm

Re: Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017)

#392 Post by beamish14 » Thu Sep 15, 2022 4:52 pm

No Hampton Fancher, no significant interest

User avatar
Quote Perf Unquote
Joined: Tue Jul 19, 2022 2:57 pm

Re: Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017)

#393 Post by Quote Perf Unquote » Thu Sep 15, 2022 6:21 pm

We're at five hours of film, and now what might be an unlimited number of hours for TV, and still only 1/10th of the source novel has been adapted, and poorly at that.

Obviously "intellectual properties" are now nothing more than skeletal supports upon which to hang the filmmakers' own flimsy ghosts of ideas. That may be the one societal idea that Dick didn't predict in his extraordinary body of work.

Post Reply