some of the characters appeared to be superfluous (K's "girlfriend")
I think you missed a huge component as to what this film is really about. Her role is huge in terms of exploring the notion of what it means to be a real person; she's the film narative version of a Turing Test and as such takes the theme of what it means to be human to a whole new level.
Spoiler Alert
she's the film narrative version of a Turing Test
Then she failed, by calling him Joe again, from the billboard
Spoiler Alert!
Then she failed, by calling him Joe again, from the billboard
Well 'she' didn't call him Joe, that was someone else. 'She' passed, by sacrificing herself for him. That made her real.
But you make a really good point about this plot device; it suggests that her involvement and her brinigng in the prostitute to engage K was not a chance event.
For me the message of the film would have been the same without her. Anyway the question of AI being human has been done better in other films like Bicentennial Man.
The replicant prostitute could have done what was required for the plot when she met K in the market.
Then she failed, by calling him Joe again, from the billboard
You weren't paying attention, then.
She was a bit exposition-y, but (spoiler) the film explores what it means to have "emotions" and "humanity" and asks is that restricted to just humans. K and Joi (an off the shelf product) are clearly not human and yet are demonstrably in love with each other.
She was a bit exposition-y, but (spoiler) the film explores what it means to have "emotions" and "humanity" and asks is that restricted to just humans. K and Joi (an off the shelf product) are clearly not human and yet are demonstrably in love with each other.
Not convinced... if Joi's a virtual AI companion, then this behaviour is what customers would expect - in effect this is what customers would be paying for. I think they missed a trick, *possible spoiler* I kept expecting her to be reporting back on what K was up to, since she was ultimately a Wallace product.
Roy and chums in the first film did the whole 'what is it to be human?' thing much better. I'd rather they explored the 'big data, where is it going?' question with Joi - bit of a missed opportunity.
I kept expecting her to be reporting back on what K was up to, since she was ultimately a Wallace product
She/it was being monitored by Luv.
Not convinced... if Joi's a virtual AI companion, then this behaviour is what customers would expect - in effect this is what customers would be paying for.
There is a point in the film where the replicant rebel leader (the lady with the one eye) says there is nothing more human than dying for a cause you believe in.
When Joi asks to be put into the handheld device and K highlights the risk of doing this, she says it's a risk she wants to take; by doing this she is putting herself out there to die for her cause, which is K and is the narrative's way of showing her humanity.
Did no one else think there was deliberate similarities between the prostitute and the pleasure model from the first film.
Yes she was deliberately styled to look similar to Priss in the original film.
Also when K was looking at the microfilm of the DNA sequences and Joi was looking over his shoulder she was dressed in a transparent raincoat similar to the one the snake dancer replicant wore in the first film
SPOILER ALERT****
I saw it last night. Confused by the Officer K meeting with Dr Dreams.
I thought that Dr Dreams was a posh french bird who was going to live off-world (where only the privileged can travel). Then it turns out she's from a rubbish dump in San Diego and the wooden horse memory is hers.
Why doesn't she say "oi that's mine" when she reviews K's memory? She can see him going mental thinking that it actually happened to him, why not set him straight?
Why did she implant the memory in K in the first place?
How did K come to realise that she's "the one"? He didn't have a clue and then for some reason which eludes me, it dawned on him with absolute certainty.
Is Dr Dreams actually suffering from an immunity condition or is that just a ruse to keep her isolated and safe?
PS loved the origami double meaning. The layers are almost Shakespearean
Why did she implant the memory in K in the first place?
we don't know that she hasn't implanted that memory (or versions of it) in many Replicants, after all, she tells K that the best ones are based on reality.
How did K come to realise that she's "the one"?
because he realises that 1. the DNA records are mixed to hide that the replicant child is in fact a girl. 2. he realises that when he has the horse examined that it was in San Diego (radiation) and when he gives it to Dekard, (who he still thinks might be his father) Deckard recognises it as his own handiwork, and finally 3. putting together the memory of the horse with the person who created it, after the one eyed replicant tells him that the offspring is a girl...
I thought that Dr Dreams was a posh french bird who was going to live off-world (where only the privileged can travel). Then it turns out she's from a rubbish dump in San Diego and the wooden horse memory is hers.
Confused me as well. Either she's lying or someone has been frigging with her memory. Maybe the horse memory isn't hers. Also how does someone with a compromised immune system survive in an orphanage on a rubbish tip? Maybe someone has somehow convinced her she needs to stay in the bubble when she really doesn't.
I thought the horse was carved from wood taken from Las Vegas not San Diego because that's how K knew to look in Las Vegas for Deckard.
JOI s****s
JOI s****s
That didn't escape my notice either!
Yes she was deliberately styled to look similar to Priss in the original film.
And did anyone notice the startling similarities between large sections of this film and 'The Shinning'?
Plenty of people have delved deep into the film already. For me it’s enough that it looks, sounds and feels like the original Blade Runner. It’s got an interesting plot, doesn’t try and answer all the questions left by the original and doesn’t try too hard. It just worked.
OMG just watching the original again.
The bit just after Bryant calls Deckard (in his car) to tell him that Tyrell and Sebastian have been killed. The Jawa scrotes are clambering on his car and trying to pull it to bits. Deckard drives off, but the Jawas have torn the drone off the roof of his car! The drone that you don't notice in the first film but plays such a big part of the second!
Just in from watching it. It looked great. It was clearly meant to be sparse in tone and pacing. The nerds will be filling the gaps for [i]years[/i].
Joi was more than an exploration of humanity. Together they were an artificial relationship, and the question is 'does that make it have less value because they are not human'.
At the same time, Joi is effectively K's version of a replicant. A replicant's replicant if you will. He realises both that she is a product and wonders himself on their uniqueness and reality of their relationship when he encounters blue haired advertising Joi and she calls him Joe.
Layers and layers and layers. If you're a binary thinker you're really going to struggle with this movie, or utterly miss the point and think it's slow, overlong with a basic, thread bare plot, but it's not about the linear events of the plot. It's about what the characters are thinking and changes in their state of mind a they as they go through the story.
@uponthedowns & nickc
Yes I thought Las Vegas not San Diego was the irradiated zone (which was why Deckard has the place to himself).
Also, regardless of which place is irradiated, struggling to see how K identified Dr Dreams as Deckard's daughter.
May have to watch again.
I still think the fact that Deckard's car has a drone in the first film is an internet shattering sensation.
Saw it yesterday at the iMax in 3D - given that I haven't been to a cinema for a few years, it was visually stunning.
San Diego was the waste recycling zone and Deckard was living in Las Vegas as it was clearly shown as being east of LA, plus the Elvis and casino references. Somewhat ironic given recent events...
K discovering that there were dual-DNA matches for boy and girl, but quite how that led to Dr Dreams? Didn't quite get the significance of Dr D's tears at K's dream sequence at the time, simply the aesthetics of it being real, not synthetic.
Not quite 5*, but certainly 4* as a visual feast
Also, regardless of which place is irradiated, struggling to see how K identified Dr Dreams as Deckard's daughter.
All I can think of is that when she told him the memory was real he thought it was his own memory then when he found out he wasn't a "real boy" he assumed that it must be her memory that she had sold to Wallace for implanting in replicants.
I'm trying to decide if these gaps, inconsistencies and ambiguities in the story are deliberate and are intended to be explained in further sequels or if it is just sloppy writing
Just seen it. Absolutely loved it was superb in imax.
More to add my food is here. Oh and Drac has been to the cinema many times in the last 20 years I think my name got mixed up.
Also, regardless of which place is irradiated, struggling to see how K identified Dr Dreams as Deckard's daughter.
Wasn't it a case of putting the pieces together? He was told that a small number of replicants had been designed to reproduce, and that Rachel was one such replicant. He also discovered that only one child who was born as a result had survived. He also knew that Deckard and Rachel got together, so it wouldn't take a great leap to decide she was Deckards daughter.
This, coupled with the horse, his meeting with the girl, and what the one-eyed rebellion-leading replicant said, all pointed in that direction.
They also refer to the meeting between Rachel and Deckard not being a "chance" meeting, suggesting it was set up so they could produce a child who they could manipulate to produce the memories for future replicants.
I'm also not convinced he knew Deckard was the father until he went to LV: He had an idea, but it wasn't until he saw Deckard's wooden figures that it was confirmed.
I saw it after a couple of beers, so I may be mis-remembering some things and may have got it completely wrong 😀
The Deckard/Rachel relationship thing was left nicely ambiguous - was it engineered or was it chance? Is he or isn't he? In some ways I'm wondering if they could have left K's replicant status a bit more hidden during the early part of the film, a lot of the early references to 'Your kind'/'you people' could be construed as meaning Blade Runners rather than replicants. Then his relationship with Joi would have been seen from a different perspective and then re-evaluated. But that's just nit picking, the rest of it was a fine sequel to the orginal.
They laid it out of how K realised who the child was, they gave loads of flashbacks.
Sorry no, they don't at all set out how of all the 28y/o women on earth Dr Dreams is Deckard's daughter.
The only thing I can think is that on reflection, K decides that the Dr was excessively weepy when viewing the bullying/rubbish dump memory. Maybe he then thought she reacted like this because the memory originated with her. Fair enough, but far from conclusive. I'd have thought it more likely that she'd just had one too many gins at lunchtime and was feeling a bit emotional.
They do drink a lot don't they.
I still think the fact that Deckard's car has a drone in the first film is an internet shattering sensation.
Did I miss something in the original then? I don't think it's clear what is taken off the top of his car in the original film; having watched it many times, I always figured it was some sort of energy source or something.
The fact that they chose to portray the car in the modern film as having a drone doesn't suggest prescience on the part of the original but it is a clever piece of retrospective story telling.
Oh yes, all we know is that the original car had a loose roof panel. It might as well have been his Mr Fusion reactor cover.
I watched the final cut on Blu-ray last night and it definitely looked like a drone from the new one.
Sorry no, they don't at all set out how of all the 28y/o women on earth Dr Dreams is Deckard's daughter.
There was a huge hint event given by her of how it was going to reveal it was her. She announced that it’s illegal to use your own dreams but dream creators of leave traits of their own dreams in there. That’s why she cried as she seen her own memory in there just changed to a male as that as hiding the part that the female hand’t died. K thought he was still the child then as it was a real dream just not his, later on when they told him the child was female the penny dropped.
Ah right ok that's making more sense now. I had assumed (always dangerous) that the Dr would have been one of hundreds of dream weavers. If that's not the case and she's cornered the market then yes that narrows it down.
I had also thought that this specific memory was so deliberately placed (not as an emotional bolster, but to precipite just the events we see in this film) that a dream weaver could have taken it from Deckard/Rachel's child and planted it in one or more Replicants. Hence my misapprehension that the originator could have been any woman on earth of the appropriate age.
Your explanation does make sense though so thanks for that!
Ah right ok that's making more sense now. I had assumed (always dangerous) that the Dr would have been one of hundreds of dream weavers. If that's not the case and she's cornered the market then yes that narrows it down.
If I recall she mentioned there was more than one but he was aware of where one of them was so headed there. It would seem he was being guided all along to this hunt out the child hence why he has that dream implanted. Also the corporation was watching and listening thanks to his holographic girlfriend, it was her who pointed him to Dr Dream.
Hmm, if K is directed/guided to the Dr deliberately by Joi (who is herself programmed/monitored by Wallace), then that suggests Wallace knows the Dr is "the one". Which he doesn't.
I thought I had it, but I'm beginning to lose it again!
Saw it last night in Oslo. A great film - and best sequel I have seen - but the Norwegian subtitles were a bit off putting 🙂
I'm still waiting for it to sink in and will probably go to see it again but my immediate thoughts are that in these big sequels I wish that the director would stop slipping in references to the earlier / first movies in the franchise. For example the Priss look a like or the zooming in image technology stuff. There were also a couple of points where I thought it was a bit too 80s pop video
I watched the final cut on Blu-ray last night and it definitely looked like a drone from the new one.
Nah the new drone is quite flat with a bit of a keel, the thing they rip off the roof in the original (just freeze framed my way through that bit) is a rectangular box with a tube out the side. Though who knows how drone technology evolves 😉
Though who knows how drone technology evolves
Whatever it was originally in the first film, it now IS a drone. That's brilliantly clever. The new film changes the reading of the first film. I'm not sure I've seen that done before.
Joi knew about the horse dream so that’s why she said to find if it was real or not, Dr Dream is the one who makes the best dreams so did the one implanted in K that seemed so reall, probably why he suffers AI PTSD. As he knew she was the best he went to see her to get the dream checked.
Don’t over think films as they only have so long to tell a story they can’t possible cover everything and over explaining things in the film makes them look like a disaster movie.
Don’t over think films as they only have so long to tell a story they can’t possible cover everything and over explaining things in the film makes them look like a disaster movie.
Yep. I'm quite glad they didn't wrap everything up in a nice pink bow and hand to us on a plate. it makes for a better film experience IMO.
Okay I went for a second go...
I found a few more details, like the little Oriental bike gang, still pedalling road from the first film and the Pan Am and Atari advertising and again back to the original and the music seemed to work a little better
How many sequels will be made, will it get bled to death?
I don’t think there will be any more sequels, this one hasn’t done too well at the box office it seems.
I don’t think there will be any more sequels, this one hasn’t done too well at the box office it seems.
After the huge success of the first one at the box office you’re probably right. That and it’s done Ok just in comparison to some of the huge takings of the big blockbusters this year it hasn’t. They left the end very open and a few other unanswered questions but yes I don’t want to see it bled to death either.
After all the hype I thought I'd watch the original for the first time. It's an OK film with very nice visuals, it's not aged too well and sorry but over hyped. Harrison and Hauer were very good as was Sanderson, the rest of the cast were wooden enough to play robots well even if they weren't cast as a replicant.
I think I'll wait for Blade Runner 2049 to come out on the TV
Watched it on imax* last night.
I can't honestly see how they could have done a better job to be honest.
Jaw-dropping cinematography.
Pacing was superb - giving it time to really envelop you.
Captured the grime and mood perfectly. His apartment was a highlight.
Perhaps not quite enough street scenes.
Nods to the characters/clothing/cars etc all well done. Unnecessary probably, but well done.
I thought that Hollywood had forgotten how to make films like this.
Might be something about the fact I was 12 or so when I saw the original, but it feels like nobody has ever done the mega-city grime as well since.
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* I was told it was filmed open-matte, so therefore the imax pic would be full resolution and uncropped, but I noticed quite a few scenes where this wasn't the case and they had done a pan&scan. Jaggies were noticeable in these. Still was fine at imax, but I will watch the 2.35:1 version next.
It was interesting to see that in the future Peugeot still have electrical problems with their cars.
