1. Conventions:Given Blade Runner 2049’s pedigree - Denis Villeneuve on directing duties,
Roger Deakins handling the cinematography - we’d have been taken aback had the
movie not looked stunning, and, of course, it does. But what’s so thrilling about Villeneuve’s
sequel is how completely 2049 feels of a piece with the Blade Runner universe - not just
aesthetically, but in terms of its mood, themes and tone. Like the first film, it’s a neo-noir
detective story with a side-order of ennui and existential panic. Like Deckard and in
particular Roy Batty, K is a lost pilgrim in search of meaning and purpose: are his memories
real or second hand? What does it mean to be conscious, but without the same rights as a
human, or, as Lieutenant Joshi so coldly puts it, even a soul? Brilliantly, miraculously, Blade
Runner 2049 does all this without feeling like a stale re-read of a seminal movie. Villeneuve’s
affection for the world Scott created is plain, but the film’s rhythms and symbolism are the
director’s own. K’s existential search is not the same as Batty’s existential search; K doesn’t
want an extension on his life, or to meet his maker. His desire, at least as we see it, is to find
a connection to something greater: to feel that his life has value, that he exists for a purpose
beyond that of a state-sponsored assassin.
Theorists:Baudrillard states that: “another film often cited as ‘postmodern’ is Blade Runner,
in which science, technology and progress are all questioned and shown in some way to
have ‘failed’. The world in blade runner is polluted by industry and overcrowding; only the
rich escape to the ‘off-worlds’. One of the key themes of the film is the ‘blurring’ of the
differences between the real and the artificial, between the humans and the replicants.
Increasingly it is no longer possible to be clear about what it means to be human
Institution: As of November 19, 2017, Blade Runner 2049 had grossed $89.3 million in the
United States and Canada, and $160.3 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of
$249.6 million. The film was a box office bomb and is expected to lose Alcon
Entertainment about $80 million, as the producers said that it needed to earn around $400
million worldwide "to be a win".
BLADE RUNNER 2049
