My blog posts wouldn't be lengthy if I could write about Blade Runner 2049 by writing, "I thought it was very good. It was better than the first one." But that's the short answer.
Publisher Random House does a clever thing with paperback editions of Philip K. Dick's Do Android's Dream of Electric Sheep?: they offer an edition with the Blade Runner movie title and the true title in parentheses. For a long time, this edition's cover featured artwork patterned after the film adaptation, even a later edition with art by Star Wars poster artist Drew Stuzan, to coincide with the DVD release of the last and "official" re-release of the film. The joke here is that the book is...and I might be generous...30% of the movie. The film noir tropes and atmosphere is nowhere to be found in the book; the Rick Deckard of the book is more like George Jetson than Philip Marlowe. And the cover has been revised to coincide with the release of the sequel...I don't like what they came up with. I would've preferred they used the movie poster, instead...or commission Struzan to whip up something. For my money, the best cover art I saw was a fanmade mockup I found online (see the second photo layout below) with Scrappy the robot owl (yes, his name is 'Scrappy' in the book) and the pyramid.
Apparently, it took a month for 2049 to break even, likely because they were so secretive about the plot that nobody could talk about it in interviews leading up to the release...that usually means it's a turkey, so that was a serious mistake. Who is Deckard's kid? That mystery could've been good-enough bait, since Ryan Gosling and Sylvia Hoeks seemed like red herrings for mostof the film. Ana de Armas' prominent presence on the movie poster seems like another red herring clue; it's only by watching the film that you learn she's not going to be Deckard's daughter...although I thought she was fantastic as Joi, Gosling's sentient hologram virtual assistant/girlfriend; Gosling and Armas have a nice chemistry that's more convincing than Harrison Ford and Sean Young in the original..there's more of a heart in this one...the fact that people debate online the nature Joi's extistince means that both actors deserve credit making believe in them as complete characters. Complete is a good word for this movie. The original always seemed improvised; this sequel has more focus on what it wants to do. Whereas it's much longer than the first, 2049 seems much simpler. I was more intrigued/interested in what was happening. I get that the original film is pretty iconic, but thestory of how it got made is more interesting than what they produced..And Rick Deckard is only interesting within that film..in my humble opinion..in that early scene where he's at the sushi bar.
The Replicants aren't robots/androids in the traditional sense; they're more like genetically modified organisms. These GMO-bots are flesh and blood, with internal organs and are man-made, yet they can be snobbish towards holograms (it's lightly hinted Joi might represent a potential evolution in a subset of artificial intelligence that hints at a class system among all forms of manufactured life...this, and a rebellion among Replicants against their manufacturer, the Wallace Corporation, seem like ideas for possible sequels).
So how was Harrison Ford in this? There's a reference to Ben Gunn from Treasure Island with 2049's take on Deckard. He's become this grumpy hermit, living in a deserted Las Vegas resort/hotel, keeping bees (perhaps a nod to Sherlock Holmes' retirement - becoming a beekeeper on a farm in English countryside). And he has a dog - possibly a replicant, since the future of Blade Runner is in a world where all animals are extinct and are either GMO replicants or nuts & bolts androids...that would include the bees. I kinda wish the Vegas had lasted longer, since there's a kind of peace to it. Does this sequel answer Blade Runner's oldest mystery? Well...this franchise isn't flexible enough to allow for the existence of cyborgs, or entertain the idea that Deckard is an older-model Replicant...one that probably has a lower threshold of endurance..he's just there, like an Easter Egg, really. An extended Easter Egg. Actually, Edward James Olmos' cameo was like a standard Easter Egg..he even does an origami sheep!
I imagine if this film had done better in the box office, we would've had another origami paper sculpture, but I'm trying to guess what it could be...a tortoise? A wolf (there's a recurring reference to 'Peter and The Wolf' whenever Joi makes her entrances and exits)? How about an owl?
