Post by SnoBorderZero on Oct 10, 2017 1:53:56 GMT -5
When it was released in 1982, Ridley Scott's science fiction masterpiece Blade Runner was met with decent critical reception and an underwhelming performance at the box office despite Harrison Ford, arguably the most bankable star at the time. Since then, the appreciation for Blade Runner has grown and grown, and you'll find the film highly ranked on any legitimate movie list ranking the best films of all time. Blade Runner is my favorite film of all time. Not because I believe that it's the best film ever made, but because it's a staggering achievement in world building, genre blending (as well as deconstructing both film noir and science fiction all in one), visual effects, production design, and also is in my opinion one of the top ten greatest examples of cinematography in film. I also seem to gain more appreciation for the film whenever I view it. I've showed the film to many cinephiles and casual movie going friends over the years, and while it's mostly received with immense adoration, for some they appreciate its strengths but are turned off by its distant attitude. The narrative is confusing at times and doesn't follow a conventional narrative flow. Harrison Ford's Rick Deckard is a far cry from the flamboyant heroes of Han Solo and Indiana Jones. The film is not the "Harrison Ford hunts down androids" extravaganza people initially envision in their minds when hearing of the plot. And listen, I get it. I don't decry anyone's opinions regarding those points, because they're correct. Blade Runner is like many cinematic masterpieces in that as much as I can point out its brilliance, its monumental impact on every science fiction film since 1982, and the daring philosophical questions that it raises, it's not the conventional film that people want it to be, and thus it won't be for everyone. Having said all of this, I've championed that the long awaited sequel, Blade Runner 2049, would be one of the rare sequels, like The Godfather: Part II, that reaches the lofty heights of its predecessor thanks in large part to being lensed by arguably the best cinematographer in the game, Roger Deakins, and one of the top contemporary directors in Denis Villeneuve. Does it succeed in reaching those heights? Not exactly, no. Blade Runner is still a definitively superior film in my mind for multiple reasons I'll get into, but while I'm still processing my thoughts and will assuredly see this film in theaters again, Blade Runner 2049 dazzles with jaw dropping visuals and production design, a mentality more focused on story and mystery than mood, and a welcome dip into the world Blade Runner fans have hungered for while expanding on it. Like Blade Runner in 1982, Blade Runner 2049 didn't achieve box office success and is sure to sour even the most astute of filmgoers. For me, Blade Runner 2049 is a brilliant piece of science fiction cinema that belongs up there with Blade Runner and 2001: A Space Odyssey among the pantheons of the thinking man's genre.
Thirty years have passed since Rick Deckard retired the Nexus-6 replicants led by Roy Batty in their quest to prolong their lives. As the prologue states, a new breed of replicants, Nexus-8s, were created without life spans and have subsequently been hunted down. Deckard has disappeared entirely, along with most of the secrets regarding Dr. Tyrell's work. Replacing Tyrell in Blade Runner 2049 is Niander Wallace (Jared Leto) who has restored the life of this dystopian society by developing organic crops and also infusing new replicants under his control. Meanwhile, our main focus rests on blade runner Officer K (Ryan Gosling), who is revealed early on in the film to be a replicant himself hunting down his own kind, similar to Deckard in the first film. When K investigates a routine replicant to retire, he uncovers the possibility that a replicant gave birth, a seemingly impossible outcome. K is tasked with tracking down Deckard and uncovering the secrets behind all of this, while also attempting to reconcile with his own struggle being a replicant in a world that despises them. K begins to suspect that his memories aren't implants and are actually a key to unlocking the secrets that he searches for, perhaps hinting that he's far more than another replicant after all.
I'm going to get through the technical aspects of the film first because these are all likely to be universally praised even by the film's detractors. For starters, Roger Deakins has basically just sealed up his first Oscar victory. When the untrained eye examines a Deakins shot, they might shrug and say big deal. His works lacks the showiness in camera fluidity and lighting that Emmanuel Lubezki's films contain. He strives for naturalistic lighting and refuses to make shots beautiful for the sake of doing so. He lights for the narrative, and his work is among the most subtly beautiful shots ever composed. Jordan Cronenweth's work on Blade Runner is nothing short of astounding. Many of the shots feature massive backlights from roving advertisements and spinners passing by that provided incredible silhouettes, all while filling the shots with rain, smoke, mass amounts of people, and grime. Deakins does not light this film like that, not really anyways. The images have a clean look to them with even amounts of lighting on his subject's faces and favor expansive wides with plenty of clarity and detail. That's not to mistake Deakins' work for not having its own special flair. He's done an incredible job recapturing the feeling of Los Angeles as we follow K under neon signs, through crowded streets, and later into the expansive orange-laden Las Vegas. This, like the original but for different reasons, is a film that any prospective cinematographer can examine frame after frame in pure awe. Deakins is undoubtedly a true master of his craft, a contemporary legend, and Blade Runner 2049 is certainly up there as one of his greatest achievements. The production design is equally as impressive, as the world feels incredibly detailed and alive. While I'd argue that this film feels slightly less claustrophobic in its portrayal of Los Angeles compared to its predecessor, the brilliant decay of the city is on full display and is expanded upon to show us more of the class struggles that permeates within Los Angeles as well as the nightmares that exist outside of it. Some dazzling highlights include the flickering holograms in the Vegas lounge, K walking out onto a bridge and being consumed by a large hologram Joi, and a spectacular set piece of a struggle on a spinner that's being engulfed in water. Like the original, it's an astounding mix of practical and expertly crafted visual effects that will help Blade Runner 2049 stand the test of time. Both films have nailed the most crucial aspect of science fiction and fantasy: world building. Craft the world and define its limitations, and you can sell me anything narratively. While most science fiction films feature half-baked ideas and effects work that is only for show, Blade Runner 2049 is infused with immense details and craftsmanship that alone command additional viewings in order to absorb it all. Los Angeles is very much alive in Blade Runner 2049, and its technical achievements are its definite highlights.
Blade Runner's greatest weakness in my opinion was its screenplay. Hampton Fancher is not a writer I consider to be very good, as evidenced by the fact that he's basically written two substantial films in his career: Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049. If the film didn't channel the intense mood and visual wonder that it did, the narrative construct really wasn't much to fall back on, and the dialogue even less so. Blade Runner 2049 bears a much larger devotion to storytelling than its older brother, and the mystery here is much more than simply who are the replicants and where are they hiding. Not all of Blade Runner 2049's narrative worked for me and its payoff is only good when it should have been more, but while the film may not look more the part of a noir than the original it certainly embodies the style more so in its detective story. We don't get a lot of insight into Deckard in the original; he's kind of just distant and seems to be killing these replicants for no real reason. He doesn't even question anything until watching Roy die at the end of the film. K is much different. We can tell that he's deeply plagued by his work and longs to be accepted as a person, not a dutiful replicant. Some of the best scenes in the film are with K interacting with his hologram girlfriend, Joi (Ana de Armas), who views K as real even though he himself does not. Their relationship beckons to Spike Jonze's brilliant 2013 work Her, but with the added element that both K and Joi are not viewed as "real" in society's sense yet have a very real connection with one another and strive to be viewed as more than they are. Also beckoning Her is one of the best scenes in the film where Joi invites a female replicant over and syncs with her to have sex with K. It's a visually stunning sequence, and one that bears a lot of fascinating philosophical ideas in regards to acceptance and what qualifies as real and what doesn't. In this world, as we saw with Roy Batty in the original, humans have led to its destruction and yet continue to devalue their own lives and view replicants as inferior, toxic beings. Replicants are the ones that want to change the world and live meaningful lives, beautifully emphasized in Roy Batty's monologue in the original that culminates with the famous "lost in time, like tears in the rain" quote. If Blade Runner 2049 doesn't quite succeed in observing moral ambiguity like the original, it makes up for it in examining the constant class struggle in every society, and how even in a dystopian society like the one here, people need someone to be on the bottom in order to elevate their own place in the world.
It's a shame, though a necessary one, that Harrison Ford had to be spoiled in the trailers and on posters from the beginning. Sure, we expected this as much as we expected Han Solo to die the moment he foolishly stepped on the bridge in The Force Awakens, but when you realize that Deckard doesn't come into the film until about two thirds of the way in. It doesn't disappoint, as Ford is hilariously gruff in returning to a role he once despised thanks to his rocky relationship with Ridley Scott, but in a movie so hinged on mystery and uncovering secrets, it does feel like the initial intention was for this to be a surprise reveal. It's nice to see Deckard hold his own though and not just be utilized as a glorified cameo, and his scenes with Gosling are certainly among the highlights of the film. They have a great chemistry together, and other than the scenes with K and Joi, it's probably the most when Blade Runner 2049 feels at its easiest to embrace emotionally. K's narrative arc might not unfold in the most astounding of ways, but Deckard's storyline is packed with intrigue and angst over the lost time. It's a great send off for Ford's character while not impeding on the journey that K finds himself in. Surprisingly short of screen time in the film is Leto's Niander Wallace. While the original Blade Runner featured limited scenes of Dr. Tyrell, Wallace seems to be a bit of a throwaway despite providing a lot of interesting exposition in his scenes. It's clear that he's the typical mad genius, God character that's intent on amassing as many replicants as he can in order to control the world and its off world colonies, but beyond that little is developed. It's unfortunate because Wallace's righthand companion Luv (Sylvia Hoeks) is one-dimensional compared with Roy Batty and would have benefitted from a more complicated relationship with Wallace. In the end, Wallace doesn't fit into the grand scheme of the narrative all that much, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't end up feeling like a missed opportunity. I'm sorry to be constantly comparing this film to the original, but it's hard not to. Roy Batty confronted his creator and subsequently kills Tyrell. Wallace clearly outlines that replicants for him are just slaves to his vision, and yet Luv appears to be hellbent on only serving him despite hinting that replicants are the future. It's minor nitpicking, but Luv and Wallace are simply no Roy and Tyrell in stature and impact. I can also understand why people would be disappointed in the film's reveal, but I personally really liked that they set everything up that K was this special replicant when really that whole plot was a red herring the entire time. It's a crippling blow for him, having the one thing in his life propelling him towards rebelling against the system only to have it taken away and know that he is simply another replicant. It's yet another burning philosophical idea that the film brings to the forefront, and I hope that people focus more on that element than the plot reveal itself when reflecting on what Blade Runner 2049 is ultimately trying to say.
So there you have it if you've read this far (I'm sure Neverending has only skimmed this and will pick apart certain sentences), what a shock that this Blade Runner fanboy that's been eagerly hyping up this film thinks it's the best film of the year so far. But I hope that my lengthy write up will inspire discussion in this thread and perhaps more appreciation for what this film has accomplished. No, it's not the groundbreaking masterpiece that the 1982 original was. No, it doesn't match up in terms of philosophical weight. But that's a high bar to reach for any film, and so many imitators have come and gone without coming close to achieving what Blade Runner 2049 has. It's a technical marvel in cinematography, effects, and production design. It's a film more interested in story than spectacle. It's a rare big budget Hollywood film that dazzles both the senses and mind with entertainment, mystery, and scope. While Blade Runner 2049 has been mostly praised by critics, I feel like in a sense it's underrated and the appreciation for it, like the original, will only grow with time as more lackluster science fiction and neo-noirs flood theaters. This is a towering achievement, even if it attempts to take on more than it can adequately chew, and Blade Runner 2049 will go down as not only one of the best films of 2017 but of the decade, and its impact will only go from there
9/10
Thirty years have passed since Rick Deckard retired the Nexus-6 replicants led by Roy Batty in their quest to prolong their lives. As the prologue states, a new breed of replicants, Nexus-8s, were created without life spans and have subsequently been hunted down. Deckard has disappeared entirely, along with most of the secrets regarding Dr. Tyrell's work. Replacing Tyrell in Blade Runner 2049 is Niander Wallace (Jared Leto) who has restored the life of this dystopian society by developing organic crops and also infusing new replicants under his control. Meanwhile, our main focus rests on blade runner Officer K (Ryan Gosling), who is revealed early on in the film to be a replicant himself hunting down his own kind, similar to Deckard in the first film. When K investigates a routine replicant to retire, he uncovers the possibility that a replicant gave birth, a seemingly impossible outcome. K is tasked with tracking down Deckard and uncovering the secrets behind all of this, while also attempting to reconcile with his own struggle being a replicant in a world that despises them. K begins to suspect that his memories aren't implants and are actually a key to unlocking the secrets that he searches for, perhaps hinting that he's far more than another replicant after all.
I'm going to get through the technical aspects of the film first because these are all likely to be universally praised even by the film's detractors. For starters, Roger Deakins has basically just sealed up his first Oscar victory. When the untrained eye examines a Deakins shot, they might shrug and say big deal. His works lacks the showiness in camera fluidity and lighting that Emmanuel Lubezki's films contain. He strives for naturalistic lighting and refuses to make shots beautiful for the sake of doing so. He lights for the narrative, and his work is among the most subtly beautiful shots ever composed. Jordan Cronenweth's work on Blade Runner is nothing short of astounding. Many of the shots feature massive backlights from roving advertisements and spinners passing by that provided incredible silhouettes, all while filling the shots with rain, smoke, mass amounts of people, and grime. Deakins does not light this film like that, not really anyways. The images have a clean look to them with even amounts of lighting on his subject's faces and favor expansive wides with plenty of clarity and detail. That's not to mistake Deakins' work for not having its own special flair. He's done an incredible job recapturing the feeling of Los Angeles as we follow K under neon signs, through crowded streets, and later into the expansive orange-laden Las Vegas. This, like the original but for different reasons, is a film that any prospective cinematographer can examine frame after frame in pure awe. Deakins is undoubtedly a true master of his craft, a contemporary legend, and Blade Runner 2049 is certainly up there as one of his greatest achievements. The production design is equally as impressive, as the world feels incredibly detailed and alive. While I'd argue that this film feels slightly less claustrophobic in its portrayal of Los Angeles compared to its predecessor, the brilliant decay of the city is on full display and is expanded upon to show us more of the class struggles that permeates within Los Angeles as well as the nightmares that exist outside of it. Some dazzling highlights include the flickering holograms in the Vegas lounge, K walking out onto a bridge and being consumed by a large hologram Joi, and a spectacular set piece of a struggle on a spinner that's being engulfed in water. Like the original, it's an astounding mix of practical and expertly crafted visual effects that will help Blade Runner 2049 stand the test of time. Both films have nailed the most crucial aspect of science fiction and fantasy: world building. Craft the world and define its limitations, and you can sell me anything narratively. While most science fiction films feature half-baked ideas and effects work that is only for show, Blade Runner 2049 is infused with immense details and craftsmanship that alone command additional viewings in order to absorb it all. Los Angeles is very much alive in Blade Runner 2049, and its technical achievements are its definite highlights.
Blade Runner's greatest weakness in my opinion was its screenplay. Hampton Fancher is not a writer I consider to be very good, as evidenced by the fact that he's basically written two substantial films in his career: Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049. If the film didn't channel the intense mood and visual wonder that it did, the narrative construct really wasn't much to fall back on, and the dialogue even less so. Blade Runner 2049 bears a much larger devotion to storytelling than its older brother, and the mystery here is much more than simply who are the replicants and where are they hiding. Not all of Blade Runner 2049's narrative worked for me and its payoff is only good when it should have been more, but while the film may not look more the part of a noir than the original it certainly embodies the style more so in its detective story. We don't get a lot of insight into Deckard in the original; he's kind of just distant and seems to be killing these replicants for no real reason. He doesn't even question anything until watching Roy die at the end of the film. K is much different. We can tell that he's deeply plagued by his work and longs to be accepted as a person, not a dutiful replicant. Some of the best scenes in the film are with K interacting with his hologram girlfriend, Joi (Ana de Armas), who views K as real even though he himself does not. Their relationship beckons to Spike Jonze's brilliant 2013 work Her, but with the added element that both K and Joi are not viewed as "real" in society's sense yet have a very real connection with one another and strive to be viewed as more than they are. Also beckoning Her is one of the best scenes in the film where Joi invites a female replicant over and syncs with her to have sex with K. It's a visually stunning sequence, and one that bears a lot of fascinating philosophical ideas in regards to acceptance and what qualifies as real and what doesn't. In this world, as we saw with Roy Batty in the original, humans have led to its destruction and yet continue to devalue their own lives and view replicants as inferior, toxic beings. Replicants are the ones that want to change the world and live meaningful lives, beautifully emphasized in Roy Batty's monologue in the original that culminates with the famous "lost in time, like tears in the rain" quote. If Blade Runner 2049 doesn't quite succeed in observing moral ambiguity like the original, it makes up for it in examining the constant class struggle in every society, and how even in a dystopian society like the one here, people need someone to be on the bottom in order to elevate their own place in the world.
It's a shame, though a necessary one, that Harrison Ford had to be spoiled in the trailers and on posters from the beginning. Sure, we expected this as much as we expected Han Solo to die the moment he foolishly stepped on the bridge in The Force Awakens, but when you realize that Deckard doesn't come into the film until about two thirds of the way in. It doesn't disappoint, as Ford is hilariously gruff in returning to a role he once despised thanks to his rocky relationship with Ridley Scott, but in a movie so hinged on mystery and uncovering secrets, it does feel like the initial intention was for this to be a surprise reveal. It's nice to see Deckard hold his own though and not just be utilized as a glorified cameo, and his scenes with Gosling are certainly among the highlights of the film. They have a great chemistry together, and other than the scenes with K and Joi, it's probably the most when Blade Runner 2049 feels at its easiest to embrace emotionally. K's narrative arc might not unfold in the most astounding of ways, but Deckard's storyline is packed with intrigue and angst over the lost time. It's a great send off for Ford's character while not impeding on the journey that K finds himself in. Surprisingly short of screen time in the film is Leto's Niander Wallace. While the original Blade Runner featured limited scenes of Dr. Tyrell, Wallace seems to be a bit of a throwaway despite providing a lot of interesting exposition in his scenes. It's clear that he's the typical mad genius, God character that's intent on amassing as many replicants as he can in order to control the world and its off world colonies, but beyond that little is developed. It's unfortunate because Wallace's righthand companion Luv (Sylvia Hoeks) is one-dimensional compared with Roy Batty and would have benefitted from a more complicated relationship with Wallace. In the end, Wallace doesn't fit into the grand scheme of the narrative all that much, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't end up feeling like a missed opportunity. I'm sorry to be constantly comparing this film to the original, but it's hard not to. Roy Batty confronted his creator and subsequently kills Tyrell. Wallace clearly outlines that replicants for him are just slaves to his vision, and yet Luv appears to be hellbent on only serving him despite hinting that replicants are the future. It's minor nitpicking, but Luv and Wallace are simply no Roy and Tyrell in stature and impact. I can also understand why people would be disappointed in the film's reveal, but I personally really liked that they set everything up that K was this special replicant when really that whole plot was a red herring the entire time. It's a crippling blow for him, having the one thing in his life propelling him towards rebelling against the system only to have it taken away and know that he is simply another replicant. It's yet another burning philosophical idea that the film brings to the forefront, and I hope that people focus more on that element than the plot reveal itself when reflecting on what Blade Runner 2049 is ultimately trying to say.
So there you have it if you've read this far (I'm sure Neverending has only skimmed this and will pick apart certain sentences), what a shock that this Blade Runner fanboy that's been eagerly hyping up this film thinks it's the best film of the year so far. But I hope that my lengthy write up will inspire discussion in this thread and perhaps more appreciation for what this film has accomplished. No, it's not the groundbreaking masterpiece that the 1982 original was. No, it doesn't match up in terms of philosophical weight. But that's a high bar to reach for any film, and so many imitators have come and gone without coming close to achieving what Blade Runner 2049 has. It's a technical marvel in cinematography, effects, and production design. It's a film more interested in story than spectacle. It's a rare big budget Hollywood film that dazzles both the senses and mind with entertainment, mystery, and scope. While Blade Runner 2049 has been mostly praised by critics, I feel like in a sense it's underrated and the appreciation for it, like the original, will only grow with time as more lackluster science fiction and neo-noirs flood theaters. This is a towering achievement, even if it attempts to take on more than it can adequately chew, and Blade Runner 2049 will go down as not only one of the best films of 2017 but of the decade, and its impact will only go from there
9/10
