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Blade Runner 2049

30/10/2017

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Picture
The year is 2049, there is the real world and the outer world, separated by a wall, presumably built by America and paid for by Mexico. Global warming has not been kind; LA is in the year of winter powered by the perpetually sunny state of California which has been covered in stunning solar panel towers. There is a shortage of crops but we still have cigarettes as tobacco fields are both an important part of American GDP and a great way to make someone look bad ass in the movies.

If this film is in any way a prediction of the future it’s good to know that technology gets way out of hand, also buy Mitsubishi shares now, diversify portfolio with Coca-Cola and sex bots.

On a side note I once read that after Return Of The Jedi, George Lucas held back on making any more Star Wars movies until the technology was right. That might also be fitting of Blade Runner. The film just can’t fail to disappoint, visually it’s stunning, with its vast landscapes, baron city ruins, fallout zones, mega cities, and technological fantasy.

Blade Runner also captures a complex and obscure dystopian future featuring child slavery, android servitude, and a macho world of sexual obscenity not too dissimilar to Duke Nukem’s Land Of The Babes. Technologically there is a lot to take in, from the delights of hover cars to mainstream JOI companionship, in 2049 Joi is a robot hologram who will risk everything in the pursuit of syphilis. One bit of technology that stood out was the 4D TV’s, I mention as Back To The Future also predicted them so I’m thinking it’s only a matter of time folks.

The plot is enjoyable, it neatly works on its predecessor’s mind melt that people can’t guarantee that they're human because memories are implanted faster than the NSA can access your webcam but it adds a twist with Replicants urging to be recognised as equals, and you get the sense that the Replicants are gearing up for a Hunger Games style conflict sooner or later.

The Replicant’s call to war comes with the discovery of a child born of Replicant descent. So basically this is the plot from Orphan Black, a child born from a clone gets hunted down by an evil corporation so that they can do testing on its genetic structure or something.

However unlike Orphan Black there is less logic behind the corporations motivations to recover the child, for instance if they really wanted to produce well behaved drones then reproduction might not be the best way of doing it, on the premise that you have more genetic uncertainties and less control over production and data analysis.  Also it seems as if Mr Wallace has created a technology which has garnered him huge wealth and he's left looking a bit like a one dimensional super villain suffering from a god complex, with very weak motivations and a lack of depth. 

Ms Luv also fails to use the company’s firepower to wipe out K which makes it feel a bit like a weak Bond movie at times because you never feel like he is in critical danger and the one question you come away with is why at any point in this movie wasn’t K killed when he could have been.

The LAPD leader is like the love child of Theresa May and Mariano Rajoy and her motivations to quell rebellion before it kicks off a referendum are a bit easier to understand. This makes the plot a bit more tangible and if the corporations motivations were a bit meatier this film would have a more complete feel about it.

Blade Runner also attempts to raise familiar questions in AI SciFi such as when is an android considered equal to a human, when does AI start to think for itself, can AI feel real emotion and if so does such emotion relate to independent thought. With that in mind, despite the weak plot points, Blade Runner offers total escapism into a bizarre world, worth seeing for the innovative technologies, abstract ideas and stunning landscapes.
 
The cover art for this post is by @JamesJeanArt
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