Ford, Gosling, Leto in New Blade Runner: Counting Down the Days!

[BillTre]

My IMAX wasn't 3D.
It wasn't maximal IMAX.

 

[Bandersnatch]

I will first watch the old Blade Runner later in video to be familiar with the story

FYI, there is a bazillion of cuts out there. Well, ok, maybe three main cuts. There's the theatrical cut with the intentionally hammy voiceover (avoid!), the one without it (preferred version in my opinion), and the one with the unicorn (one extra scene alters the whole film - arguably more in line with the short story it was based on, but less coherent as a purely cinematic experience).

 

[Noisy Rhysling]

FYI, there is a bazillion of cuts out there. Well, ok, maybe three main cuts. There's the theatrical cut with the intentionally hammy voiceover (avoid!), the one without it (preferred version in my opinion), and the one with the unicorn (one extra scene alters the whole film - arguably more in line with the short story it was based on, but less coherent as a purely cinematic experience).

Blade Runner (30th Anniversary Collector's Edition) [Blu-ray] by Warner Home Video
1982
R
DVD30th Anniversary Collector's Edition - Blu-ray
$235.78(1 used & new offers)

 

[Blue Scallop]

I watched Blade Runner 2049 but the sound system in the cinema is not good that I couldn't completely understand the English spoken. Maybe I should have watched it in Imax. But the overall tone of the movie is quite depressing (at least for me). We will fail miserably if we will have similar future where gross materiality rules. Where humans are treated as mere things. When it's available in Blu-ray. I'll watch it again with subtitles. I wonder if those native English speakers amongst you can totally understand every word utter in the movie (?)

 

[Noisy Rhysling]

What was the name of the lady with one eye? Anybody remember other roles she has done?

 

[phinds]

What was the name of the lady with one eye? Anybody remember other roles she has done?

Daryl Hanna. She was in Kill Bill and other films. Look her up. Her mermaid in Splash was a lot of fun

 

[Blue Scallop]

There are also Blade Runner Animation series like:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt7428594/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt7326248/?ref_=tt_rec_tt
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt7387408/?ref_=tt_rec_tt

I got the first and will watch tonight. But I feel the entire Blade Runner series is based on some assumptions. They will be great if it can be proven our brains and sentience are just mere circuitry. Is it? Can I add a math module in my brain to have the math ability of Neumaier or add emotion Module to feel like Trump? Of course it would be great if it's possible...

 

[Noisy Rhysling]

Daryl Hanna. She was in Kill Bill and other films. Look her up. Her mermaid in Splash was a lot of fun

Not the one in first movie, the replicant leader in the new one.

 

[OmCheeto]

Not the one in first movie, the replicant leader in the new one.

Spoiler filled source; "...one-eyed robo-rebel Freysa..."

Cast [wiki]; Hiam Abbass as Freysa

ps. I saw the movie yesterday. I may be getting too old, cranky, and sore to sit through 3 hour movies in a theater. And I'm pretty sure I could tell the entire story in less than 3 minutes.

 

[jez_h]

I watched the movie Saturday night.

I can't say my review is favourable.

First things first though, the visuals were phenomenal. I mean, the CGI wasn't superhero film quality (I saw the trailer to Justice League that was put on before the film, it looks terrible), it was really next tier stuff. A lot of the time I couldn't tell if the props were CG or real. Very immersing there.

However, the film was unnecessarily long. It did not need to be nearly 3 hours long. Leto's character was pointless insanity who added nothing to the film. Just tell us "he's crazy" and you would have only lost the time spent watching him ramble aimlessly. Don't get me wrong, Leto did very well with the material he was given, but are you telling me we can get skinjobs but this rich guy can't get his eyes fixed? No not a spoiler, he's clearly blind from the moment you first see him.

The main female antagonist is pretty good at being mean, but the protagonists "girlfriend" makes things awkward in a way that Her avoided. I don't know if it was making up for that terrible rapey scene in the first Blade Runner, Director's Cut (if you haven't seen it you're a bit late) but it just shouldn't have happened in my opinion.

The last two "scenes" should have happened about an hour before they did.

I'm not disappointed because it was an all round bad film, it wasn't, I'm disappointed because the plot quality (aside from one part in particular which was really good) did not match the visuals.

 

[Rubidium_71]

It was lengthy, but I liked it. Even my wife liked it and she's a tougher critic than I am on sci fi movies. Spectacular cinematography, good music. I even liked Jared Leto's performance and I am not normally a fan of his.

 

[Noisy Rhysling]

Spoiler filled source; "...one-eyed robo-rebel Freysa..."

Cast [wiki]; Hiam Abbass as Freysa

ps. I saw the movie yesterday. I may be getting too old, cranky, and sore to sit through 3 hour movies in a theater. And I'm pretty sure I could tell the entire story in less than 3 minutes.

Dang, I was sure I'd seen her in something else.

 

[mheslep]

but are you telling me we can get skinjobs but this rich guy can't get his eyes fixed?

Yes in this plot. Fixing eyes is Minority Report sci fi. Recall the plot of the original Blade Runner: the goal of the rogue replicants was to have their short lives lengthened. The assumed genetic technology of the day is powerful so that extra human abilities are easy to create, but impossible to change once built. The eye, the optic nerve, the visual centers or the brain are not add-ons. Roy doesn't take no very well.

 

[Noisy Rhysling]

I'm afraid I didn't follow that very well. Why can't he get his eyes fixed? I've had five operations on my right eye. One more coming when it heals up from the last procedure. Not a replicant yet.

 

[jez_h]

I'm afraid I didn't follow that very well. Why can't he get his eyes fixed? I've had five operations on my right eye. One more coming when it heals up from the last procedure. Not a replicant yet.

This is my thought. We can already 3d print vital organs and fire lasers into our eyes to fix them, but they cannot replace eyes despite making androids that bleed? Sorry, don't buy that.

 

[Noisy Rhysling]

This is my thought. We can already 3d print vital organs and fire lasers into our eyes to fix them, but they cannot replace eyes despite making androids that bleed? Sorry, don't buy that.

I hope Ridley's got a good whooper made up for that one. I love the Big Lie.

 

[mheslep]

Nobody fixes optic nerves yet.

 

[Noisy Rhysling]

Nobody fixes optic nerves yet.

Good catch on "yet".

However, cataracts are in the front of the eye.

 

[Blue Scallop]

Nobody fixes optic nerves yet.

We already have initial researches about optic nerves regeneration. See:

https://nei.nih.gov/audacious/optic_nerve

Maybe in 2049.. there won't still be much progress on this.. Or did global catastrophe stopped it? For those who haven't watched the movie yet.. Don't read the following spoiler (is it a spoiler)?

What kind of global catastrophe occurred in the movie? Is it all out nuclear war? Why are most of the sceneries all orange? My cinema sound system was so bad I couldn't hear them speak well so couldn't understand the conversations.

 

[DavidSnider]

The people who complain about stuff like "They can do X but they can't do Y?!" seem to lack imagination as to why they might NOT be able to do something.

 

[Blue Scallop]

What are Replicants brain made of? Are they composed of neurons, dendrites, axons, neurochemicals or are they composed of integrated circuits, transistors and processors? How come they can't process emotion? What kind of emotions can't they feel?

 

[Noisy Rhysling]

We already have initial researches about optic nerves regeneration. See:

https://nei.nih.gov/audacious/optic_nerve

Maybe in 2049.. there won't still be much progress on this.. Or did global catastrophe stopped it? For those who haven't watched the movie yet.. Don't read the following spoiler (is it a spoiler)?

What kind of global catastrophe occurred in the movie? Is it all out nuclear war? Why are most of the sceneries all orange? My cinema sound system was so bad I couldn't hear them speak well so couldn't understand the conversations.

The opening blurb said "the ecosystems failed".

 

[jez_h]

Don't worry, that's not a spoiler, in fact I think it's made clear in the trailer that that city was ruined. As Rhysling pointed out, they're cataracts and cataract surgery is already a thing.

The people who complain that "it's just a work of fiction" as if I should suspend my disbelief without limits. This is still set on Earth with just humans and what they've made. Not even any aliens. I'm willing to suspend my disbelief that magic is real for Harry Potter's version of Earth but if he couldn't cast a spell to make light but could cast a spell to turn humans into gods then I would see that as absurd *in context*.

No I don't have an xkcd comic to hand to justify my dismissal of a silly argument.

 

[Noisy Rhysling]

The people who complain about stuff like "They can do X but they can't do Y?!" seem to lack imagination as to why they might NOT be able to do something.

Or there are awkward holes in the movie's version of reality that didn't need to be there. One, the other, both.

 

[Blue Scallop]

The opening blurb said "the ecosystems failed".

I just watched the 15 minute cartoon prequel to the Blade Runner 2049 and it's beginning to make sense: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner_Black_Out_2022
Many of you may not be able to watch the cartoon so the following is the plot (don't read it in case you have accessed to the cartoon)

"Set three years after the events of Blade Runner,[3], the Tyrell Corporation has developed the new Nexus-8 line of replicants, who now possesses lifespans equivalent to that of a regular human. This causes a massive backlash among the human populace, who begin hunting down and killing replicants. One of these replicants, Trixie, is attacked by a group of thugs but is rescued by Iggy. Iggy reveals to her that he used to be a soldier but deserted when he realized the enemy soldiers he had been fighting and killing were also replicants.

Iggy hatches a plan with Trixie to destroy the Tyrell Corporation's database of registered replicants, so that replicants can no longer be hunted. Trixie befriends Ren, who is a technician in charge of launching nuclear missiles. Ren agrees to redirect a test missile to detonate over Los Angeles, blacking out the city and wiping out all electronic data. At the same time, Ren and Iggy hijack a fuel truck to physically destroy the Tyrell Corporation's servers. The operation is a success, with the servers destroyed and power to Los Angeles disabled. However, Trixie is killed by security forces in the process. Iggy manages to escape and removes his right eye, the only thing that can identify him as a replicant.

The ending narration states that in the aftermath of the Black Out, all replicant production was banned and the Tyrell Corporation went bankrupt, only for the Wallace Corporation to restart production of a new model a decade later."

 

[Noisy Rhysling]

So why did they find a serial number on Rachel's bones?

ETA: Unless they mean "by casual inspection"?

 

[Blue Scallop]

The opening blurb said "the ecosystems failed".

They need to explode nukes in the atmosphere to destroy the data centers in the city where the humans used the registry to hunt them. Maybe the ozone got damaged or something?

Whatever. Hitler had experimented with a million people mutilating them so it's warning that it's a probable future.. a dark future creating slave race to do our or their bidding.. this is the path we will take if physicists stay on the present course...

 

[BillTre]

The things that seemed to strain my science sense were:

1) Wallace's cataracts: Like other said these are easily fixed at the present time. They would also be in the future depicted in the movie. On the other hand they were more obvious that real cataracts and seemed to me to be a visual shortcut for saying he is blind. This removes a lot of probably verbal explanation which movie makers don't like.
An associated question would be why was he supposed to be blind anyway? What does it add to the plot? Is it that he is a blind (messed up) guy making, using, and destroying physically (and mentally) better "humans" than he is himself?

2)

So why did they find a serial number on Rachel's bones?

It seemed clear that plot-wise the number was there as a clue for K to find.
I would ask what is the number doing there since my interpretation of their replicant generating procedure was to grow them not to manufacture them. You wouldn't have physical serial numbers on something that is grown. Instead you would have some kind of DNA sequence code unique to an individual. This would be trivial to do since they are genetically engineering the replicants.
Perhaps the Tyrell Corp (which made Rachel) was doing some parts assembly and put a number on her bone. Not clear.
Another question along these lines would be where is the police DNA analysis. This should be pervasive in the future, and useful.

My previous post had links to what I call background videos for the movie. They cover the black-out and loss of replicant information, the nature of the new replicants, and the origin of Sopper Morton.

Overall I liked the movie. Although it was long and slow, for me it was absorbing.
The biggest difference for from the original movie was that the first one had a lot of non-obvious things going on which required the audience to think things out to understand. The world in which they the film existed was complex and different which required thought. The most obvious example is whether Deckard was a replicant or not. A similar issue in this one seems to be who is related to whom.

The general theme is the same (to me anyway): "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" or what's going on inside the head of a replicant, should they be treated as humans.

 

[Noisy Rhysling]

"It seemed clear that plot-wise the number was there as a clue for K to find."

Eh? He just happens to find a flower, then just happens to do a scan, and that just happens to show a box...

Murtagh: "Thin."

Riggs: "Yeah, very thin."

 

[mheslep]

What kind of global catastrophe occurred in the movie

Many dystopian future Sci fi films adopt a vague or mysterious description about the earlier catastrophe. The Road. Mad Max. Book of Eli. The Matrix ("We don't know who struck first, us or them"). Planet of the Apes. The Time Machine.

The approach has several advantages IMO, i)drawing attention immediately to character development instead of backstory, and thus audience connection to the characters; ii) frees up the plot from unecessary constraints, iii) allows a possible whodunnit line to the plot, ie who wrecked the world: