Lels interlinked within lels interlinked

Blade Runner 2049 was a nice way to end the story. My hope at first was that they would carve out a new story out of whole cloth within the same universe, but that was dashed early on when I saw promo photos featuring Harrison Ford standing around in a grease-stained t-shirt and holding a rectangular bottle of Johnnie Walker Black.

It’s 2049.

Rick Deckard has let himself go.

Instead we get a story that overlays onto the original’s and interlinks with it in a subtle enough way that it doesn’t feel like a direct, slavish sequel. The premise here could have easily followed the mold of The Hangover Part 2, i.e. “OH SHIT, IT HAPPENED AGAIN”. In fact, it teases this idea early on when K, the main character played by Ryan Gosling, meets with his LAPD boss and she flips through the profiles of several Nexus 6 replicants still on the loose, a la Bryant’s briefing of Deckard in the original. Thankfully the movie forges its own path. (within reasonable limits)

K is easily one of the best parts of the movie. He’s everything Deckard in the original film wasn’t: empathetic, humane (he prefers to arrest rather than retire, not that he’s very successful in that pursuit), in possession of a decent sense of humor, and invested in the plight of replicants – it’s made clear very early on that K is a new-model replicant. No two-decade-long mystery kept up by a mentally unstable movie director this time!

Despite all his positive traits, however, he’s hated, or at best ignored. Whereas the original never went into what anyone other than the LAPD and Tyrell Corporation thought of replicants, 2049 pulls no punches in showcasing the reflexive hatred with which most people treat artificial humans. In this sense, K is the perfect protagonist for a story of the 21st century; being a decent man matters little in an indecent world.

The other best part of the movie is how well it integrates all of its influences. 2049 is true to the universe of the original, down to recreating its early-80s conception of the future where Atari and PanAm still exist, along with the Soviet Union. It manages to do this without any of it feeling forced or maudlin, the camera lingering too long so that the point hits you between the eyes like the laser tube round that aerates Leon’s brain pan.

What really stands out, though, isn’t the evocations of the original, but the echoes of all the other works that influenced, or were influenced by Blade Runner. At this point Blade Runner is one of the most influential movies of all time. It makes a poetic sort of sense that the sequel would have the recursive influence of stuff inspired by the original. It’s hard to watch any of the scenes within the monolithic Wallace Corporation, especially the scene of a replicant birthing, and not see the direct influence of Ghost in the Shell. Similarly, K’s relationship with his holographic AI wife – which is handled with remarkable sensitivity and lack of snark at K’s expense – is hard to sit through and not think of more than a few anime and manga that have come out since the mid 00s.

There is also a pervasive theme of gynophobia throughout the movie, which could be attributed in part of the general direction of a lot of sci-fi anime since Ghost in the Shell. I think, however, that that theme speaks more to one of the many malaise currently afflicting 21st century Western collective consciousness, along with mass extinction, out-of-control pollution, child labor, and corporate hegemony, all of which are present and accounted for in Blade Runner 2049!

In summary: I look forward to the next movie where Sci-fi Harrison Ford can reunite with his estranged daughter.