Coyote Cinema: Bladerunner 2049

[cyrano]

This is, no argument, a beautifully shot movie. It's dustier/hazier than the original, but of course they spend a lot of time heading out to the desert. There were lots of reflections from the original, but I couldn't tell if they had any thematic consequence or if they were just easter eggs. ("Nice dog. Is it real?" "Why don't you ask him?") And at the end of the film, nothing seems to really have changed. The viewer has caught up on the secret, but aside from the people (and AIs) who died, everybody seems pretty much in the same place they started from.

I expect to get some push back on this view, and am looking forward to it. I'd love for this movie to be more than bioluminescent sea foam frothily floating across the screen for three hours.

Comments

[missroserose]

Something that Brian and I were discussing - the Big Plot Points and Themes (on the nature of sentience, the arguable necessity of revolution, the politicizing of human rights, the commodification and marketing of humanity) almost read like red herrings by the time the film's over. I don't think you're entirely correct about everyone being in the same place, however - Deckard is in a very different place from where he started, and a more hopeful one, at that. I'm not entirely sure what my takeaway is; I could see arguments for the film's primary theme being "revolution and politics are always ultimately background to our more human-level stories", "human-level experiences are what ultimately spark revolution", or even "the path forward that maximizes individual happiness is to refuse to join revolutionary/political causes and focus on the questions of one's own experiences". I'm not certain if the ambiguity was intentional or a result of muddled screenwriting; I'm leaning toward the latter, although I found the film's emotional arc satisfying anyway.