BLADE RUNNER 2049... (spoilers)...

…exceeded expectations. There’s fan service and a small handful of easter eggs, but novel in character development, pacing, cinematography, and technological wizardry of the future.
The city dump was appalling and hilarious.
Plenty of very refreshing ID/UI candy not cliche’d or intended to draw attention to itself, just very cool.
Saw it in AMC Dolby Cinema which was packed and worth the $18 admission.

I sorta want to see it, but then I feel like a bit of a poser since…

… I didn’t really like the original.

(dives for cover)

I was hostile to the idea of Ryan Gosling being connected in any way/shape/form to Blade Runner but his character and performance changed my mind.

Maybe this new one will change yours too!

due to travel, I haven’t had a chance to see it, so I have not read anything above, but I thought I’d leave this hilarious Gosling / Ford interview right here:

My girlfriend and I saw it and had the same general thoughts. Thought it was good, liked many aspects of it, questioning various aspects since seeing it, weak third act and I.

FWIW, think the first one was good when it came out and have watched it a couple times since. I certainly haven’t watched it with the same ‘eye’ or expectations as 2049.

This is a movie I want to see again, to see how it washes over me, now that the hyped, super expectation 1st viewing is out of the way.

A couple random thoughts:
-Slippyfish: When I saw the city dump, I half expected to see Wall-E zip by in the background.

-So was Burning Man, or Mardi Gras happening when the ‘Great Catastrophic’ happened? Is that why there’s all those large human forms in the desert? Did I miss an explanation?

Saw parts of that interview. Fantastic.

I forced myself to watch the original film so that I could watch this one. Having heard from the generation older than me that it is amazing. I was very disappointed because the story was cliche and over used, but I understand how at the time this might have been original at the time. What a shame I was not born 20 years+ earlier.

The original film has its ups and downs but overall it’s a classic because it’s one of the first if not the first film to give such a complete picture of a future world and all its implications. I heard the new film is much overhyped but am still going to see it for the cinema-factor.

Blade Runner is by far my favorite movie. Saw it in '85 and dozens of times since and will likely watch it more. I was wary about the new one, but I think the overall story, characters, futuristic setting/environment held up and I truly enjoyed it. Nearly a 3 hr movie, though.

Even without the context I think a designer would appreciate the sparsity of the plot, dialog, and compositions.

With context, understanding that it was one of the first SciFi movies with this kind of design and production budget, and the first to pioneer the concept of “what is human” across AI/Robots (the first time that Robots are shown as not being mechanical, but biological, they are in essence clones) and as a metaphor to what was going on when it was written in regards to race, segregation and the civil rights movement (The book was written in the 60’s). Some people credit it with being one of the first dystopian SciFi movies, which isn’t true at all. Metropolis, which is one of the the first SciFi movies period (from 1927!) was dystopian. And of course Logan’s Run, THX, yada yada yada. It was however one of the first SciFi movies were the future looked a lot like the past and the present. The future isn’t made in a day, it is layered. The new things are layered onto of the old, and the old stuff tends to decay all around. Look around any modern city and you can see that.

That said, not everyone is equipped to (or needs to) appreciate films that are so atmospheric, ethereal, and metaphorical that speak to the existential crisis that all of us face. It isn’t a shoot 'em up filled with one liners and space fighters. Nothing wrong with that. I love Star Wars just as much as the next guy, but talk about a cliche plot. It is straight out of a greek tragedy. Still love it.

If you couldn’t tell, I love Blade Runner. Saw it for the first time as a kid on VHS in the 80’s and didn’t understand half of it (or see half of it, those VHS tapes couldn’t replicate the tonal range). I’ve probably seen it dozens of times in all of its versions and I’ve read the book (along with every other Philipp K Dick book) a couple of times. I highly recommend reading the book. The plot is a lot more dense and doesn’t run totally parallel to the movie, but it gives you a lot more detail as to why things are the way they are that they could never cover in a movie. It is a quick read.

Side note, Philipp K Dick dies before the movie was released, but Ridley Scott showed him a rough cut of the movie just before he passed and he loved it. Must have been a huge relief of Scott since they had to change the script so much to get it into a movie form. But Dick appreciated that they captured the oppressively layered atmosphere he was trying to describe.

I am a big fan of Metropolis and other dystopian films (which I agree Blade Runner isn’t). Talking from a movie perspective and not being old enough for this to have been unique to me though, it does not hold the same value.

yo - knowing your passion for dystopia, 2049 takes it to a heartbreakingly extreme level. SoCal of the future utterly sucks.

Can’t wait, I’ve got tickets for 5pm tonight! Trying to not read this topic too closely to avoid spoilers but I’m sure I’ll have a cornucopia of opinions tomorrow. Rewatched the original last night. I hadn’t seen it in a long time and it was nice to see it on a 4k TV with a great home theater system. First time for that. It really brought the soundtrack to life!

Yo, I still have the VHS if you are just dying to watch it again :slight_smile: Don’t have a VHS player anymore.

I was a Sr in design school when I saw Blade Runner the first time at the free campus movie and was hooked. Syd Mead spoke at the Southeastern IDSA Conference in '85 or '86 and it was interesting to meet him and hear his take on how he approaches his futuristic environments. Very entertaining presentation. All this contributes to it being my favorite movie.

I’ve stepped up to blue ray, so I’m good… thanks though. :slight_smile:

I saw Syd speak in school as well. It was interesting hearing him say he struggled with it because he is such an optimistic person and the idea of making everything so dystopian and run down was difficult for him.

So, I really liked it. I loved the original, but I did really like this one. Not an easy task to accomplish.

I think in a lot of ways this new one is more true to the book. The hugely expansive, more hugely messed up world was something very present in the book, as was the much larger cast of characters. Interestingly, Rachel was actually a villain in the original book, much closer to the Luv character. The replicant underground is present in the original book as are replicant police officers. Int he book the replicants had built a completely counter society that paralleled humans and was indistinguishable with the goal of mixing everybody up. VR simulations and getting lost in them, also in the book (pretty good for something written in the 60’s)

What I did like about the original was the more intimate story. It is in essence a love story between a human (or maybe human, we don’t know) and a replicant and asks a big simple question, what does it mean to be human and does it even matter? All these barriers we create are fictional.

I also liked the original sound track MUCH better. I know a lot of people are going goo goo over this new soundtrack, but it feels like a dozen other movie soundtracks that all of have the big distorted BWAAA! sounds. The original soundtrack was so delicate and spontaneous and was a nice counterpoint to the visuals. Vangelis (the original soundtrack composer) improvised most of the soundtrack with a few synthesizers riffing over a rough cut of the movie. Vangelis also did the soundtrack for Chariots of Fire. Probably one of the most iconic movie melodies ever.

In the end, I thought it was very very good. The acting was excellent. Amazing that they kept so much of the story under wraps. The world building was awesome. I felt like it just din’t have quit the same emotional punch or cliff hanger of the original.Unfortunately it didn’t do well in the box office so we might have to wait another 25 years for the next one.

Also, I love that the new one was as beautifully shot as the original. The left a lot of hang time on scenes to just show off the world. The original had tons shots were they didn’t explain things but just let you feel them, like the shot of all the cyclists or the shot of all the people with light up umbrellas. I liked when the new one did that too. they didn’t explain the world, they just shoed it to you as fact. Some great cinematography.

Just went and saw it again. Some of my favorite ID aspects:

  • Dr Stelline’s ‘CAD mouse’ for building memories - like two big camera lenses mated together with buttons where the fingers rest
  • the ‘raw data’ DNA viewer, with audio feedback in American accented Japanese. Seriously what is it about dystopia movies where design and ergonomics are as bad as they can be?!? Or is it because they are not off-world, where everything is like Wall-E Axiom easy.
  • The wearied sequence of handles and buttons K uses to start up his v.2 Spinner
  • seeing Deckard’s original Spinner
  • the absolute negation of anything ‘technological’ in the Wallace HQ…they have surpassed tech so far that its completely serene
  • gestural interfaces to control autonomous surveillance drones
  • interior of the Wallace spinner-transport, kind of 2001 or James Bond villain retro

I like the way he spoke to the drone as well. Re watching the original there some some pretty good voice activation and control and they continued that.

Harrison Ford just made my day !

I watched the original only this week. I could see the cultural impact the movie had but it felt weak in some aspects. The visuals were amazing, I actually had listened to the soundtrack a dozen times while working and its great. I felt like the big issue for me was that the pacing and plot didn’t age too well. 35 years later, we’ve been exposed to a lot of sci-fi, possibility of cloning, androids, advanced AI which makes the slow pacing of the original movie to let the viewer digest and form an opinion wasn’t really required. This may be a tribute to the impact the film had more than anything…

Where I think the original failed me with its plot and pacing, the new one nailed it. The plot messes with you in so many great ways. It takes your expectation of how the plot is going to unfold and makes you think you were clever for having figured it out and then just spins, several times. The reflective pacing was also quite welcome. As the actors are figuring things out, so are you.

The visuals were great, having different locations made the world feel much more real. I’m a bit disappointed there weren’t more street level urban scenes, I loved those in the original and gave you a sense of the relation of the different characters with their world. They also looked really cool.

I liked the inclusion of snow in the movie. It may just be a Canadian thing but there’s something much more relatable to the heavy and silent yet serene atmosphere of a light snow fall than baking in the California sun.

Like Michael, I was let down by the score. The original is so expressive and melodic. It actually works as a great counterpoint to the desolate landscape. It also puts you a bit in the mind of the characters. This universe is what they know, there’s no shock to riding a flying car above a 30 story concrete maze of people in a super rough situation. Deckard is feeling love and wonder much more than he is feeling oppressed. The new soundtrack while it uses the same synth and has the right textures in some places, it completely misses the mark in terms of melody and moving you. Hans Zimmer seems like an odd fit as he’s one of the least melodic composers out there. Someone like the band Air could have been like a good fit. It seems like they had to change who was doing the score midway through, so maybe Zimmer was a choice more because he’d get something ok in little time more than because he was the best fit.

On the design front. I really liked the brand integration (as there was in the original) and I’d be curious how they happened. The Peugeot spinner, the John Walker bottles, the Sony entertainment system. Its interesting how having those recognizable brands in the movie make the feel much more immersive. While there’s an aesthetic to Blade Runner, its not uniform and seeing the interpretation of the visual language of those brands through the lens of that universe made for some really cool props.

This could also make for an interesting exercise of just running what if scenarios on products and brands. Playing with the history and purpose of products to get new ideas in the process.

Anyhow, it’s cool seeing everyone’s reaction and interpretation is quite different for this movie.