Blade Runner 2049 (2017) (No Spoilers Thread)

[Brian G Turner]

As confirmed in our other thread, Blade Runner 2 is definitely coming, with Harrison Ford reprising the role of Deckard. What wasn't mentioned is that it's currently scheduled to be released in 2017 as Blade Runner 2049.

More details on the Wiki page: Blade Runner 2 coming?

 

[Dave]

That's the page here, not Wiki. But it is more informative and doesn't ask you for any money.

The Wiki page would be: Blade Runner 2049 - Wikipedia
And IMdb: Blade Runner 2049 (2017) - IMDb

 

[TWErvin2]

Not that far off from release, instead of still years in the future

 

[Paul_C]

 

[Brian G Turner]

Great trailer.

 

[HanaBi]

I'm all of a quiver!

I realise it is only a trailer, and these days trailers are far more entertaining than the film itself. Nevertheless I will be looking forward to it's release next year!

Obviously it won't be rivaling the current Star Wars sagas, but then this is a completely different kind of SF experience, and with Scott and Ford involved, it should be a cerebral moment.

 

[Paul_C]

My only fear is that it will expand on the Deckard is a replicant nonsense, in which case I shall avoid it.

 

[Dave]

My only fear is that it will expand on the Deckard is a replicant nonsense, in which case I shall avoid it.

The existing Replicant models can only live for a maximum of four years and don't age, that is the reason why they were rebelling in the first place. As I said before in the other thread, if Deckard appears in this and has aged, then he can't be a Replicant. Quod erat demonstrandum.

Which pretty much ruins the "is he/isn't he" in BladeRunner and trashes one of the features that made it so noteable in the first place.

 

[Paul_C]

The existing Replicant models can only live for a maximum of four years and don't age, that is the reason why they were rebelling in the first place. As I said before in the other thread, if Deckard appears in this and has aged, then he can't be a Replicant. Quod erat demonstrandum.

Which pretty much ruins the "is he/isn't he" in BladeRunner and trashes one of the features that made it so noteable in the first place.

I never bothered with "is he/isn't he", as I have always viewed him as human. As the likelihood of me taking a drink anytime soon is very small I shall leave it at that

 

[The Crawling Chaos]

The existing Replicant models can only live for a maximum of four years and don't age, that is the reason why they were rebelling in the first place. As I said before in the other thread, if Deckard appears in this and has aged, then he can't be a Replicant. Quod erat demonstrandum.

Which pretty much ruins the "is he/isn't he" in BladeRunner and trashes one of the features that made it so noteable in the first place.

I have no preference regarding the replicant debate, although the signs were there that Blade Runner's Deckard was indeed a replicant, and the way it is revealed (unicorn dream/origami) is certainly very poetic and one of my favourite features in any movie ever made.

Ridley Scott, who is involved in the sequel in an exec producer capacity, also strikes me as a pretty stubborn guy, who knows what he wants and will not deviate from it. I don't see Villeneuve, who admitted he revered the first film and Scott's vision, or anyone else for that matter, convincing Good Old Ridley that his take on 'RepDeck' was a mistake and needed to be replaced with a new canon.

Something tells me that the Deckard Ford will be playing in Blade Runner 2049 will not be the Replicant we saw in Blade Runner. He might instead be 'The' Deckard, a human template used to build RepDeck. Or he might be an even more advanced model of replicant, who can now age and shares a regular human's life expectancy.

I would also like to point out that the shot of Ryan Gosling's hand toying with the piano in the exact same way Deckard had in Blade Runner is certainly anything but an innocent coincidence, especially in a teaser that only contains a handful of shots. Also note the similar taste in fashion and haircuts. All this might hint at shared traits (memories, tastes, personalities?) between the two characters. Maybe both characters are extensions of a single identity or entity who will be at the centre of the film's plot.

Just speculating, of course...

 

[ctg]

So are we supposed to think that Deckard isn't a replicant and that unicorn dream didn't happen? Or that it's complicated and Deckard was an advanced model, designed to hunt down "lost" replicants?

 

[The Crawling Chaos]

I just read the official synopsis:

Thirty years after the events of the first film, a new blade runner, LAPD Officer K (Ryan Gosling), unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what’s left of society into chaos. K’s discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), a former LAPD blade runner who has been missing for 30 years.

It confirms that Gosling is indeed a Blade Runner, meaning that his job is to hunt down replicants. So the long-buried secret with the potential to upset the established order has to have a connection with replicants, their nature, or maybe how much of the population are actually replicants...

It could be that there are no real humans anymore. Synthetic beings took over the world when humanity could no longer survive the toxic rain and lack of sunlight. These near perfect human replicants remain unaware of their true nature and the short-lived, Nexus-series replicants are nothing more than a lower caste destined to serve the privileged as manual workers or sex slaves. This could certainly explain how Ford can both be a replicant and age like a normal human being.

However Villeneuve also stated that the film would not confirm or deny the true nature of Harrison Ford's character... So who knows, really? We know so little about the film at this stage.

 

[HanaBi]

I'm hoping that this follow-up leaves a lot of unanswered questions, as well as exercising the brain with a good workout!

I don't want a film dominated by action-bites and sfx. Keep everything in moderation and keep us guessing so as to keep the legend that is Blade Runner continuing for another 30 or 40 years.

 

[WilliamDavey627]

I'm hoping that this follow-up leaves a lot of unanswered questions, as well as exercising the brain with a good workout!

I don't want a film dominated by action-bites and sfx. Keep everything in moderation and keep us guessing so as to keep the legend that is Blade Runner continuing for another 30 or 40 years.

It would actually kill me if this tured into an sfx driven film.

 

[The Crawling Chaos]

I'm hoping that this follow-up leaves a lot of unanswered questions, as well as exercising the brain with a good workout!

Denis Villeneuve has an excellent track record of doing just that. Have you seen Enemy?

 

[RX-79G]

My only fear is that it will expand on the Deckard is a replicant nonsense, in which case I shall avoid it.

Yeah, he's just a regular dude that loves unicorns and has the same mannerisms of his coworker, Holden.

The existing Replicant models can only live for a maximum of four years and don't age, that is the reason why they were rebelling in the first place. As I said before in the other thread, if Deckard appears in this and has aged, then he can't be a Replicant. Quod erat demonstrandum.

If a replicant has memories, then it wouldn't need to have the imposed short lifespan. Given that they are biological, why wouldn't they age?

I would also like to point out that the shot of Ryan Gosling's hand toying with the piano in the exact same way Deckard had in Blade Runner is certainly anything but an innocent coincidence, especially in a teaser that only contains a handful of shots. Also note the similar taste in fashion and haircuts. All this might hint at shared traits (memories, tastes, personalities?) between the two characters.

And Holden, too.

All of which makes me hope that they will stick with the Deckard = replicant thing, but Riddley Scott chose not to connect Prometheus to Alien, so I don't know if he really cares about continuity.

I'm hoping that this follow-up leaves a lot of unanswered questions, as well as exercising the brain with a good workout!

That would be fantastic if they were able to preserve the mystery of the original and layer more on top, while still giving us something new to think about, like that fun theory that maybe no one is human anymore.

 

[BAYLOR]

It looks promising.

 

[WilliamDavey627]

I didn't realise the director of Sicario is doing this film. I honestly can't wait now, he's great.

 

[Brian G Turner]

New trailer!

 

[HanaBi]

Looking at the latest trailer, I have a worry that this may end up as a Blade Runner Lite - much in the mould of the Alien franchise trying to be all things to all men, but without any of the mystery. I hope it can distinguish itself from the recent tranche of SF films.