Re: Blade Runner 2049 (October 6th, 2017)
BR 2049 is great as a standalone but I thought it played even better after watching it immediately after BR The Final Cut.
Caught it a second time on the big screen last night, this time in a Showcase ICON Theatre with a brand new laser projector and Dolby Atmos sound system. WOW. I missed the extra 26% of IMAX footage that was lost (particularly when the giant Joi hologram was walking toward K) but it was still a mind blowing audio/visual treat.
Even watching BR 2049 Rachael immediately after BR Rachael she still felt seamless to me.
I like that Deckard's origins
are still open to interpretation, even in BR 2049.
Wallace says "Has it ever occurred to you that you might have been designed for the exact purpose of falling for Rachael? That is if you were designed at all...." You can take it as him just messing with Deckard's head. Personally I still prefer to imagine Deckard as human. I just don't think that Ford ever played him as anything but (in both films) and he never seems to have any of the physical prowess of the Replicants he's fighting. If you assume that Deckard was a Nexus 6 then it seems like he should have at least matched Zhora's strength (since Batty was specifically called out as a combat model) which he clearly didn't when she got the best of him before fleeing.
In BR 2049 Deckard was powerless against the shackles pinning him inside the submerged spinner which K ripped apart with ease. Anyway, I might be in the minority on that theory but I like to see it as Rachael being designed to conceive a child with human sperm which Deckard supplied. If Deckard was a "fertile replicant" then Wallace assumedly would have made a bigger deal about that and should have considered Deckard to be just a big a prize as the child herself.
I'm guessing that the ash that would occasionally fall in the city was a nod to the toxic dust that killed almost all the animals in the novel and that contaminated humans who didn't flee off-world. I thought that was a cool touch to see on screen. I also picked up the Art book that revealed that the opening scene on Sapper Morton's farm was actually a discarded opening from the original BR that was originally intended to show Deckard taking out a burly Nexus 4 or 5 prior to being called in to hunt Batty's crew.
I absolutely love that the entire movie was a continuation of the alternate "80's future" envisioned by the first film, complete with 4:3 monitors everywhere, vintage advertisements (Atari, etc.) and a cityscape constructed largely with practical miniatures. I do wish that the film incorporated more of the backstory from the original novel like references to "World War Terminus" but the post-dirty bomb Vegas was a nice allusion nonetheless.
I can't really say enough about this film. Epic and sublime and there's no doubt in my mind that it will absolutely be as timeless as the first. Watching them both back to back makes it hard to pick a favorite because they're both so uniquely great but it's nice that I also don't have to. Can't wait for the 4K/blu-ray set.