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 Manchu wrote:
The script speaks to this very question:

Deckard: You don't have any children, do you?

Wallace: I have millions.

I wasn't so clear on Wallace's motivation for wanting live born replicants when he's no problem churning them out in millions. Did I miss something?

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
I wasn't so clear on Wallace's motivation for wanting live born replicants when he's no problem churning them out in millions. Did I miss something?

He wants replicants to fundamentally change humanity by taking it beyond the solar system, and for that he seemed to indicate he needed a LOT more than he can produce one by one.

Yeah, he explained how in all this time settling a mere nine systems was pathetic. In one of the shorts, he explains how he believes the current capacity of the colonies is gravely inadequate if humanity is to survive.

 Manchu wrote:

Spoiler:

have to deal with the fact that his leap of faith resulted in smacking hard into concrete reality. This is the scene where he encounters the Joi advertisement. I believe this scene is about him realizing that Joi was not real; like his irrational hope that he was the special child, K had merely allowed himself to childishly believe that Joi was more than a projection of his own desires, his own warmth.

This is when K "grows up" emotionally, and decides to feel this for himself rather sublimate it onto an object.

Whether or not Joi is 'real' is perhaps an open question, whether K saw her as such not so much. That scene, and K's choice afterwards make sense only in his understanding that he saw Joi as real. Whether or not she is 'real', he understood her as such.


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 yakface wrote:
Yeah, I thought it was a truly transcendent movie. At least as good as the original, if not better.

Its a shame that it didn't do better at the box office, but I'm not surprised. Audiences today just don't want big budget movies that force them to sit and think about what they're seeing onscreen.

It isn't just audiences today. The original tanked as well, far worse than BR49.

It's just an unfortunate reality that really huge productions need to be kept broad. Every so often a studio pours a pile of money in to a challenging film, and it rarely works out well.

But I have no doubt over time this will be looked at as an absolute classic.

For me personally, this would be an easy vote for best picture, best director and best cinematography (at least), and I don't even need to worry about what other movies are coming out the rest of the year, cause none will top it.

I definitely agree.


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 Howard A Treesong wrote:
I wasn't so clear on Wallace's motivation for wanting live born replicants when he's no problem churning them out in millions. Did I miss something?

He called them his children. Sooner or later people stop wanting to have children, and instead desire their children to have children of their own.

 yakface wrote:
For me personally, this would be an easy vote for best picture, best director and best cinematography (at least), and I don't even need to worry about what other movies are coming out the rest of the year, cause none will top it.

Perhaps you were unaware, sir, but there is a little movie called Geostorm out, starring *the* Gerard Butler.

 Ouze wrote:

 yakface wrote:
For me personally, this would be an easy vote for best picture, best director and best cinematography (at least), and I don't even need to worry about what other movies are coming out the rest of the year, cause none will top it.

Perhaps you were unaware, sir, but there is a little movie called Geostorm out, starring *the* Gerard Butler.

Thread win.

 Frazzled wrote:
She thought it was loud. As she's partially deaf...

It was just really really slow. About 45 minutes too long.


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 Thargrim wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Thargrim wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Wow that was...boring. the wife fell asleep three times. How do you make a 50 foot tall hit naked chick boring? That movie thats how.

Shouldn't go to the movies tired, i've seen some pretty lousy movies in the theaters and i've never fallen asleep.

She wasn't tired when she went in.

The moment when K encounters the giant hologram is when he decided to take control of his own life.

Spoiler:

He basically sacrifices himself to reunite Deckard with his daughter, thus making his apparently meaningless and very normal existence mean something

This isn't a marvel or DC movie, it's not a space opera either. It has a lot more in common with noir/neo noirs than it does Star Wars/Star Trek etc. It's not for everyone and requires more thought and reflection from the viewer. All I know is I couldn't sleep until 2 AM after seeing this, I had a lot of things floating around in my head.

I am familiar with film noir. You liked it, great. I thought it was dull as dishwater.

While I enjoyed the movie, I agree with you Frazzled that is was likely close to 45 minutes to long. And honestly it was almost entirely due to individual scene length, no the actual number of scenes, a good editor could have cut out 30 minutes without a problem and vastly improved the movie. I mean really how long do we need to watch K stand around while a guy frantically turns to *EVERY* page in a book other than the ones he is trying to find? 30 seconds right there that could easily have been cut that added *nothing* to the movie, not atmosphere, suspense, exposition, nothing and there were a lot of periods like that in the movie.

 sebster wrote:
Whether or not Joi is 'real' is perhaps an open question, whether K saw her as such not so much. That scene, and K's choice afterwards make sense only in his understanding that he saw Joi as real. Whether or not she is 'real', he understood her as such.

When K first meets Luv, he observes that she must be special because Wallace gave her a name. Later on, Joi insists on naming K because he is special. "Special," in these instances, points toward "real." But note that K never names Joi. If truly believing she was real was just a choice (as he comes to think mid-way through the film), he would gladly make it. But it isn't a choice.

I think we're getting into the heart of the film's theme here. K's foil Luv also wants to "choose" to be real inasmuch as she works to merit it: to be strong, competent, successful - "the best one." Luv's choice is not purely psychological; it is also a matter of physical action. But everything she does is as Wallace's instrument (God's angel). In this way, Luv still relies on Wallace to validate her reality, and he is unaware of/indifferent to that yearning. Similarly, K projects his own yearning to be real onto Joi assuring him that he is. In turn, he needs her to be real.

 vonjankmon wrote:
While I enjoyed the movie, I agree with you Frazzled that is was likely close to 45 minutes to long.

I don't know where you're going to find 45 minutes to cut. The example you give doesn't have thirty seconds to shave. I guess you could take 2-3 seconds. But interpolate that to the whole film and think about the actual consequences: you still aren't cutting anywhere near 30-45 minutes and now you have destroyed the director's and editor's artistic choice regarding pacing. Frankly, this kind fo thinking is exactly how trash gets made.

My wife was a photography/videography major in college and the scene length stuck out to her so badly that about half way through the movie she started counting how long each scene was to get an idea of what could have been edited out to save some time.

I left the theater after that book scene and used the restroom, washed my hands, checked my phone, spun a Pokestop in PokemonGo and still got back into my seat before the reveal in the next scene. My wife joked that she thought she was going to have to tell me what happened so I wouldn't miss out on the important conclusion to that scene but it dragged on for so long it didn't turn out to be necessary.

Now scene length is a totally subjective thing. Some people obviously enjoyed the movie exactly as is, but I think a lot of people who saw it would disagree.

After the orphan slaver cannot find the relevant recordsIt's probably worthwhile spending some time thinking about the scene before suggesting it should have been done differently.

 vonjankmon wrote:
My wife was a photography/videography major in college and the scene length stuck out to her so badly that about half way through the movie she started counting how long each scene was to get an idea of what could have been edited out to save some time.

I left the theater after that book scene and used the restroom, washed my hands, checked my phone, spun a Pokestop in PokemonGo and still got back into my seat before the reveal in the next scene. My wife joked that she thought she was going to have to tell me what happened so I wouldn't miss out on the important conclusion to that scene but it dragged on for so long it didn't turn out to be necessary.

Now scene length is a totally subjective thing. Some people obviously enjoyed the movie exactly as is, but I think a lot of people who saw it would disagree.

Exactly.
Some liked the length great. Others didn't. Thats fine too. the argument those that didn't somehow don't like good science fiction is a bit snobbish, and frankly infantile. I loved his previous work: Arrival, but I didn't fault those who didn't by arguing they somehow just aren't up to snuff.

Everyone can have differing opinions and tastes and thats ok. Unless of course you don't like African Queen, in which case die in a fire you piece of gak!



To the movie itself. Wouldn't the manufacturer know if their model is capable of reproduction? This isn't Jurassic Park-nature finding a way. You either have the machinery or you don't.


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 Manchu wrote:
After the orphan slaver cannot find the relevant records

Spoiler:

K reluctantly faces the possibility that he has memories of the place. By this point, Ana has already told him that the memories in question are not artificial. So no matter how short or long the scene is, the point of the scene is clearly not a reveal precisely because whether the memories are real has already been established. Saying the scene could have made that point in less time is a non sequitur since that is not the point the scene was acted and shot and edited to make. The point was K's extreme reluctance to face it - hence why it needed to be slow and why, in its conclusion, the soundscape had grown so overpowering.

The scene is about a character who gets by in his gakky life by not having to blame himself for anything he does or feels - that character is inexorably but painfully drawn down a path of realization that he's been living some kind of terrible lie and in fact all the blood is on his hands.

It's probably worthwhile spending some time thinking about the scene before suggesting it should have been done differently.

OK this brings up a real problem I had with the film. Certain moments the "soundscape" (good word!) became physically painful. This iss a high end-pay $20 per ticket so the sound equipment functions perfectly (as does the bar!).

 Frazzled wrote:
the argument those that didn't somehow don't like good science fiction is a bit snobbish, and frankly infantile.

The trouble is, confusing [what is good] with [what I like]. A great example for me is Game of Thrones. I read about half of the first book and I have seen an episode of the show, plus bits and pieces. The parts of the book I read were extremely well written and the characters seemed to be drawn with an engaging amount of dimension. Similarly, the television show is beautifully produced and acted, so far as I can tell. I just don't like it. Can't get into it, for whatever reason. But the reason isn't that it's bad. No doubt BR2049 is not a film that everyone is going to like. I mean, it's a flop. But it is a very, very good movie.

 Frazzled wrote:
Wouldn't the manufacturer know if their model is capable of reproduction?

What something appears to be depends on how one looks at it. It's easy to imagine that replicants aren't people if you look at them as the product of science and industry. But the truth is in the name. Cut into a replicant and you will find some serial numbers - but the serial numbers are emblazoned on tissues that were not the invention of a human mind. The achievements of Wallace and Tyrell aren't acts of creation in the divine sense. They tinkered with the work of the true Creator. They looked into the mysteries of His work and saw some of what was there, and missed other things.

 Frazzled wrote:
Certain moments the "soundscape" (good word!) became physically painful.

You saw Arrival so you probably know Villeneuve likes to vibrate the theater during important moments. It's part of how he creates tension. When I was watching the scene described above, I asked myself

In reverse;
1. Yea, but it needs to dial back a bit. My complaint about the painful level is not the only one. Again. I liked Arrival so am familiar, this was..over the top.
2. Replicant reproduction. I don't mean aetherially. It seemed in the movie that it was a major deal to the manufacturer that they could reproduce. However, it had to be designed into the product for it to occur. He didn't know that, or what was his deal? After all, once they can self replicate its pretty much the end of his manufacturing (that whole Slavery is Unconstitutional and frankly fethed up thing). Moving them from machines to life kills his company. The stockholders will not be pleased.

What do you mean, "aetherially"?

The issue is, human beings are not products. Tyrell and Wallace figured out how to copy what already existed in nature. It was an achievement but they didn't invent humans. Replicants, as the name conveys, are replicated humans. Sure, the scientists tinker with them to make them X degrees stronger or quicker. But that is negligible stuff compared to the existence of sentient life.

As mentioned ITT, what is the only actual difference between a person and a replicant? The answer is the latter is manufactured rather than born. But if a replicant is born then the distinction vanishes and the truth, which was always there, becomes apparent - replicants are just people. They always have been people.

AFAIK Wallace studied Tyrell's records and determined a replicant could bear a child. He could not figure out how to make a replicant that could do so.

His goal is not to make money. He's well beyond that, as a megalomaniac with a god complex. He wants to "save humanity," which apparently means "replacing" the human population with replicants - or, once you realize there is no difference, ushering in the next era of human evolution, which he believes will parallel mankind's conquest of the stars.

As to the sound being painfully loud: it's meant to be. The length of the movie is a close analog. I really badly needed to use the restroom with about 45 minutes to go. It was also a painful experience but I could not tear myself away from the screen. It wasn't that the movie was too long. The movie is as long as it needs to be. I just shouldn't have gotten a soda.

But he's not replacing humans with replicants. They are human too, and thus his company is now bankrupt and he committed felony murder.

As to the sound, if its meant to cause me pain, then I have a legal action against him for failure to warn.

Yeah he is effectively replacing humans because the implication is that humans are too weak to be fruitful and multiply among the stars. Whereas normal humans have only managed to colonize nine systems, Wallace believes that replicants can colonize many times more if only there can be some order of magnitude more of them.

Good luck with your case.

 Manchu wrote:
Yeah he is effectively replacing humans because the implication is that humans are too weak to be fruitful and multiply among the stars. Whereas normal humans have only managed to colonize nine systems, Wallace believes that replicants can colonize many times more if only there can be some order of magnitude more of them.

I'm still on the fence about exactly what his plan is/was.

He mentioned that all the great accomplishments in human civilization were made on the backs of slave populace. The way he said that made me think that he was still planning on trying to sell replicants as a product/slave even after he was able to get them to reproduce, not necessarily to completely replace the human population (although that could also be his intention).

His willingness to inflict needless pain on replicants (slashing the stomach of one that was newly born, shooting the 'Rachel' replicant in the head to punish Deckard) shows that he doesn't have reverence for them as a replacement for humanity. Instead, I imagine that he would have a giant breeding facility (and then likely 'fix' those replicants being sold out into the world).

But like much of the movie, it is pretty nebulous (in a good way), so there are multiple possibilities all of which are both right/wrong until (if) they come out with more info in more sequels.

Wallace's speech (and actions) indicates he has no interest in being humane. He cares about the species, not about individual persons. My takeaway is, Wallace believes people have gotten too precious about individual lives and the dignity of those lives, that this attitude is holding back human development, and that the rate at which humanity is branching out to the stars is slow-unto-extinction.

Consider that in the past humans did not need a replicant/human distinction to justify mass exploitation. In the conquest of the New World, for example, something as biologically insignificant as skin color was enough to distinguish true humans from less-than-true-humans for the purpose of cruelly but profitably enslaving one another. So it's not necessarily the case that replicants will be the slaves of naturally evolved humans. Rather, someone will have to be slaves. It's a historical certainty, given the scope of human ambition.

Replacement of naturally evolved humans is a logical necessity. Replicants are engineered to be more suited to the hardships of harsh environments. A genepool more suited to its environment will naturally outbreed one that is less fit. Naturally evolved humans, even using manufactured replicant slave labor, have only managed to colonize nine worlds because of their physical and moral fragility. Wallace expects biologically reproducing replicants to make exponentially better progress.

Manchu you obviously liked the directing and editing decisions made in the movie and that's great, you are by no means alone on that front. A lot of people really loved the movie, including a few people in the group I saw it with.

However you seem to be under the impression that anyone that doesn't agree with you didn't understand the movie, or understand what they were trying to do in each scene. I assure you that between my wife and myself, we understood what was being attempted in each scene and in the movie over all. We just felt that it could have been handled in a shorter fashion while still achieving the goal.

In my opinion K standing around looking bored for a minute didn't show any reluctance on his part, just how panicky and oddly incompetent the orphanage owner was.

I am a bit sad that the movie is not doing better though, while I do think it could have used some more editing it was not shallow, which is a common complaint I have about a lot of movies now and it being a bit longer than I thought it should have been is much better in my opinion that having to sit through a BayFormers movie.

Hold up, you not understanding the scene has nothing to do with us disagreeing about its length. You complained that the scene should be cut down to get to "the reveal." There is no reveal in the scene. The scene is not about what K will find - the audience already knows that. Whether the scene is too long or long enough is a separate issue from the more basic question of what the scene is about.

Alright, I'm done. Manchu you have decided that I did not understand the movie so it's not possible to have a discussion with you about it because you're working from the assumption that I'm wrong from the very beginning.

Glad you enjoyed it though and I wish it had done better at the box office because good Sci-Fi is so hard to come by when it does show up I'm always sad when it doesn't do well.

 vonjankmon wrote:
While I enjoyed the movie, I agree with you Frazzled that is was likely close to 45 minutes to long. And honestly it was almost entirely due to individual scene length, no the actual number of scenes, a good editor could have cut out 30 minutes without a problem and vastly improved the movie. I mean really how long do we need to watch K stand around while a guy frantically turns to *EVERY* page in a book other than the ones he is trying to find? 30 seconds right there that could easily have been cut that added *nothing* to the movie, not atmosphere, suspense, exposition, nothing and there were a lot of periods like that in the movie.

When your wife did video in college she likely would have been asked to do an exercise where they clap with each edit. They will do this for older movies, where the claps are spaced out but holding to a slow rhythm, and they would do this to more recent films, where the claps will be much faster, but often with little or no rhythm. The purpose of this isn't just to show that editing has changed over time, but to get the class to think about editing and how it impacts the feel of a scene. Long single shots can build tension, quick back and forths between two characters in a dialogue can give the feel of a debate, a battle of wits. That kind of thing.

Bladerunner 2049 held a rhythm similar to older movies, longer cuts, longer scenes. Your later point about the scene with the book indicates you seem to think once a scene has delivered all the information it needs to it should move on. That couldn't be further from what good editing is all about, to be honest. Whether cuts and scenes are fast or slow is an artistic choice for the movie, a technique the director and editor use to impact the viewer. It absolutely isn't about ending a scene when the plot point has been delivered.


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 Frazzled wrote:
2. Replicant reproduction. I don't mean aetherially. It seemed in the movie that it was a major deal to the manufacturer that they could reproduce. However, it had to be designed into the product for it to occur. He didn't know that, or what was his deal? After all, once they can self replicate its pretty much the end of his manufacturing (that whole Slavery is Unconstitutional and frankly fethed up thing). Moving them from machines to life kills his company. The stockholders will not be pleased.

Like every mega-rich super genius in a dystopian future, he didn't seem that bothered about money any more. He had dreams that had nothing to do with maximising shareholder value.

I used to have a problem with this, in stuff like the Aliens movies where Weyland Yutani clearly should have stopped pouring good money after bad in their various xenomorph programs. But now watching real world mega-rich people like Bill Gates. Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg hit a point where they actually don't care about money and instead on global impact special interest projects, its probably one of the more believable parts of all these sci-fi stories.

vonjankmon, if you think the scene was about the reveal you could explain why rather than blatantly mischaracterizing my point as an assumption. Of course it's perfectly valid to declare you didn't enjoy how long certain scenes are. It's quite another thing to say you know how the scene should have been edited, especially considering you misidentified the point of the scene. I definitely agree with you, however, that BR2049 bombing is hard blow to sci fi - especially considering Villeneuve is set to direct Dune. That budget will be cut, at the very least.

sebster, the clapping exercise thing (Mark Kermode?) is so helpful - I love it when people like me in the general audience get little bits of film school like that from critics. I wish more people, both the critics and us regular "folks at home" would use these references to talk about movies because it illuminates how artistic choice is not just a matter of taste but also skill. Great point about IRL billionaires, too. In an episode of Star Trek Discovery, Elon Musk is name dropped as one of the great heroic innovators. TBH he strikes me more like ... a Bond villain.

W-Y (from the first two movies anyway) is still scarier to me than a guy like Wallace precisely because W-Y isn't driven by a single personality. Instead, it is this lumbering, insensate colossus that indifferently crushes whatever gets in its way. And this enormous beast is infested with scheming parasites, like Burke. Burke is scarier, to me, than Wallace.

 Manchu wrote:
When I was watching the scene described above, I asked myself

Spoiler:

I already know he will find the horse so why am I so invested in seeing this? The answer, of course, is because it's not about finding the horse, it's about how K is going to deal with that overwhelming moment. And so the sound (not music) there is also overwhelming as the realness of reality bears down on K.

That was such a powerful moment, and I'm sure I was holding my breath (probably for too long) as it built up to it.



The music was worked similarly well in Sicario, which again is an extremely arresting film (if you can stomach parts of it).

That is an excellent point about feeling what K feels. I was chatting about the film with my buddy who saw it with me and he made a similar point. Another scene along those lines is when

The sequel retroactively establishes that Rachel was part of a short-lived prototype line of replicants designated "Nexus-7", which was not only intended as a test to make replicants more mentally stable with implanted memories, but to develop replicants capable of naturally conceiving children on their own (all other models before or since are sterile). Rachel died in childbirth in 2021, and the child was hidden by the replicant underground.

In 2020, Tyrell Corporation introduced the Nexus-8 replicant, built with open lifespans not limited to only four years. Tyrell himself had been killed during the events of the first movie in November 2019, and the secret of producing replicants that can procreate died with him. The Nexus-8 went into mass production, but a new wave of replicant rebellions occurred, culminating in rogue Nexus-8's detonating a nuclear weapon in orbit over the western United States, to create an EMP pulse that wiped out all of the electronic records. "The Blackout" destroyed most records about replicants, making it difficult for humans to track them down on Earth, but the terrorist attack led to mass purge and complete shutdown of Nexus-8 production (though many existing units were able to go into hiding in the chaos).

In 2036, however, genetic engineer Niander Wallace designed a new line of "Nexus-9" replicants. They also have an open lifespan, but were designed to be unable to resist orders given by a human, even if that order is to commit suicide. Wallace Corporation had solved a global food crisis with genetically modified crops, which combined with the demonstrated effectiveness of Nexus-9 programming, allowed him to successfully push for the ban on replicant production to be lifted.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replicant

I was looking done stuff up and, well, was any of the middle section here stated in the film? They mentioned the blackout several times but while this explanation sorts out many details of which generations of replicant were made when and what became of them, where's this coming from?

Not in the film, no - but it was all on the "Road to 2049" website that was put up as part of the promotion for the movie.

Including the timeline stuff.

 chromedog wrote:
Not in the film, no - but it was all on the "Road to 2049" website that was put up as part of the promotion for the movie.

Including the timeline stuff.

Well, the movie did mention that there were replicant rebellions that led to them being banned in the introductory text. But it didn't mention that the whole EMP/blackout thing was caused by those rebellions.

But yeah, anyone who hasn't watched the short films associated with BR2049, totally should.

Blade Runner is my favorite film so I had a lot of interest in this one. I think they pulled it off fairly well, but I don't think it quite matches the original. It is beautifully shot, acted and scored. However, it doesn't quite have the intimacy and brutality that the first one did. Blade Runner made a point of showing you the minds and idiosyncrasies of each character through their attachment to objects of sentimental value, their memories, and their relationships. Whether any of it was real or imagined didn't quite matter; all those little things still added up to make each individual who they were, and indeed, to make them each human in spite of any indications to the contrary. It gave you a sense of urgency for what was at stake, especially for Batty and his crew.


That minor difference in tone and the perceived lack of intimacy when compared to the original are the only things I can really complain about in this movie, though. Other than that I found it to be a very good film; honestly much better than I dared to hope.

 Manchu wrote:
sebster, the clapping exercise thing (Mark Kermode?) is so helpful - I love it when people like me in the general audience get little bits of film school like that from critics. I wish more people, both the critics and us regular "folks at home" would use these references to talk about movies because it illuminates how artistic choice is not just a matter of taste but also skill.

I like Kermode but I haven't watched him for a while. I don't remember him mentioning the clapping test. I know from friends who've done film at one level or another who explained it to me.. I even went to do it once, but I got distracted and forgot about within by like the second scene.

Great point about IRL billionaires, too. In an episode of Star Trek Discovery, Elon Musk is name dropped as one of the great heroic innovators. TBH he strikes me more like ... a Bond villain.

I have to get around to watching Discovery. I guess maybe the point here is that in movies these characters tend to get placed in either the Bond villain or the genius inventory role, but in real life these are complex people with many good and bad features.

W-Y (from the first two movies anyway) is still scarier to me than a guy like Wallace precisely because W-Y isn't driven by a single personality. Instead, it is this lumbering, insensate colossus that indifferently crushes whatever gets in its way. And this enormous beast is infested with scheming parasites, like Burke. Burke is scarier, to me, than Wallace.

That's a good point, and I feel the same.