Blade Runner 2049

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by ponkine, Dec 19, 2016.

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  1. The thing whole premise in Blade Runner was the replicants had a short life span. They rebelled to find a way to live longer. Deckard and Gaff, shouldnt have been able to live 10 times longer just to create a sequel.
     
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  2. marblesmike

    marblesmike Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    Did you see the movie?
     
  3. Did you read only the last thing I posted?
     
  4. Gaff was never thought to be a replicant. As to Deckard, Scott argued that they had created a better Replicant that could survive long and was more human.

    I, of course, agree with Fancher and Peeples—it robs Deckard of the value of rediscover No his humanity after dong a job that drained him of his humanity and forcing him to lose his passion for life. There were clearly his nets that Deckard was a replicant in the original cut (such as the look of the eyes) but, having said that, the Owl had that look as well and, in the original script and as originally shot it wasn’t artificial. It was real.
     
  5. The dialog between, Deckard and Rachel when they first met stated the owl was artificial. Gaff could very well have been another type of blade runner. I dont recall which article in which it came from, but it was implied Bryant is the real human at the police force. There were clues.

    It makes no sense Tyrell Corp would be able to make longer lived replicants when it was an inherent design obstacle Tyrell explained to Roy. Gaff pretty much tells Deckard before he goes on the run. "It's too bad she won't live, but then again, who does?" Implying they were all cogs in the machine with limited time.

    PKD, presents these existential dilemmas in his stories. The Matrix motif seems like hollywood screen writing.
     
    Last edited: Jun 9, 2018
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  6. Jerry

    Jerry Grateful Gort Staff

    Location:
    New England
    All I know is that windshield wipers didn't evolve through 2049.
     
  7. will_b_free

    will_b_free Forum Resident

    Location:
    Boulder, CO
    Possibly there were two competing ideas while the story was being developed. In one idea, replicants had a four year lifespan and that was as good as they could do. In another idea, replicants' four year lifespan was something intentionally added. And it was that second idea which resulted in an exposition-heavy scene in which Bryant tells Deckard that the four year lifespan was added by Tyrell Corp because they'd found that replicants started to develop "their own emotional responses" after about four years - the implication being that the replicants would be dangerous and unpredictable after that point, that they would not be good slaves after that point.

    BRYANT
    The designers reckoned that after a few years they might develop their own
    emotion responses. You know, hate, love, fear, envy. So they built in
    a fail-safe device.


    DECKARD
    Which is what?

    BRYANT
    Four year life span.

    (And illustrating that replicants develop their own emotional responses at about that time, we see Roy acting like an infatuated little boy when he is with Pris, rather than acting like a confident, accomplished man as one might expect. He's bashful, he looks down after he kisses her, he's new at this).

    Roy eventually asks Tyrell if his four-year lifespan could be extended, and for no obvious reason Tyrell has actually experimented doing that very thing. He tells Roy that attempts to extend the lifespan of replicants who have the built-in four year life span have failed.

    TYRELL
    A coding sequence cannot be revised once its been established.

    That discussion sounds very much like it may have been written back when the idea was that four years was as good as they could do --

    TYRELL
    You were made as well as we could make you.

    -- although I suppose one could imagine scenarios in which the need to extend the life of a replicant might come up. In any case, they were discussing replicants such as Roy with a built-in four year lifespan.

    Ultimately, you have to consider, that if Tyrell was experimenting with implanting memories in order to get a more predictable set of emotional responses, then wouldn't it make sense to run that experiment on replicants who are not programmed to die after four years?
     
    Last edited: Jun 9, 2018
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  8. will_b_free

    will_b_free Forum Resident

    Location:
    Boulder, CO
    It made sense that Gaff was human, given his limp and cane, and the explanation from Sebastian that if you couldn't pass the physical you couldn't go off-world. And, Gaff monitored Deckard, down to even knowing where Deckard's gun fell.
     
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  9. This is consise. I guess I had forgotten about the fail safe discussion and only remembered the arguement Roy had with Tyrell trying to find a way to fix his DNA.

    I always figured Gaff was a type of replicant by his demeanor and eyes. There was also something in that article I read some years back that had me believing the main characters were AI with the exception of the engineers, Tyrell and the police chief.
     
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  10. SBurke

    SBurke Nostalgia Junkie

    Location:
    Philadelphia, PA
    I actually got the Blu-ray myself when it dropped to $15 on Amazon and I'm going to give it another shot.
     
  11. Hardy Melville

    Hardy Melville Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York
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  12. audiomixer

    audiomixer As Bald As The Beatles

    HBO is streaming it currently.
     
  13. Hardy Melville

    Hardy Melville Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York
    Nice post.

    I have long rebelled at the notion that Deckard was a replicant. I think there are at least two reasons, meaning two reasons I can articulate. Probably there is some subconscious one as well, but the two are first that we have no reason to discount the explanation Tyrell gave Roy as to why they had limited timelines.* Given that explanation, the biochemical barriers would be so substantial that it defies logic they would have been overcome, maybe ever? But even more so in the short time period that was Roy's life.** But most of all regarding Deckard himself, his timeline the film gave every reason to believe had not begun shortly before the film's events began. So how was it that Deckard would have been created probably before Roy and the other Nexus's in his class, with Deckard having a normal life timespan, and Tyrell's explanation have made any sense? Tyrell was lying? It turns the whole thing inside out, and for what purpose? It ends up being a case of overthinking, when the film actually has more meaning (see second reason) if Deckard was in fact a human.

    The second is that a film that presents the sort of existential issues you allude to is, imho, inherently more interesting than the particular kind of sci fi narrative found in the Matrix. Others may disagree, but that's the way I see it.

    One aspect of your post I am not sure I follow, though, is in referring to Gaff, I certainly felt at the time I first saw the film that it was far from clear how accurate he was, how much he really knew. Why would Gaff have insight into what Tyrell was, or wasn't, up to? Sure he had an idea, being a policeman, investigating the whole thing. That would explain why he had a point of view. But I never saw him and his role in the film to serve as a kind of all seeing oracle. Nor does his statement serve to show that Deckard himself was a replicant.

    In the end, considering the film as a whole, I do think that Gosling is at least somewhat problematic in the lead. But the characterization you make of the sort of Matrix-y explanation and the problems with it I think do help to explain why it was not a better film.

    * Consider that Roy himself desperately wanted to extend his life, and would have sought any means of doing so, but instead on hearing Tyrell's explanation gave up just like that. I think that was because Roy had feared that what Tyrell told him was true even before Tyrell said it. In short it is too implausible to think Tyrell was lying. Having said that it was possible for Rachel, but not for Deckard, that between Roy's inception date and hers that Tyrell had succeeded in overcoming obstacles, but how much so I don't think is addressed in the film.

    ** not to digress too much here, but regarding the previous *, it is conceivable that Tyrell could have developed a new replicant to have a longer timeline (Rachel) but not have overcome design problems in earlier series, such as Roy.
     
  14. Hardy Melville

    Hardy Melville Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York
    I don't have HBO.
     
  15. marblesmike

    marblesmike Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    What about the exposition scene early in the film where Deckard's boss is talking about how after a bunch of off-world issues with the replicants that they built in a fail-safe device--a 4-year lifespan? So maybe Roy was designed with the limited lifespan, but others before (and after) that didn't have that built into them?
     
  16. Runicen

    Runicen Forum Resident

    I want to say that this was addressed, but I may be blurring the book with the movie. Basically, the gist I retained is that they used to be more integrated on Earth and public outcry basically required the off-world restriction to their use (i.e. Blade Runners are necessary because there's no such thing as an "authorized" replicant on Earth) and that the reason the current models have the limited lifespan is to prevent them from becoming so authentically human over time as to be indistinguishable from the real thing. So, the assumption is that the old ones were obviously artificial and were rejected for that reason, but the new ones are deliberately limited so they can't transcend the artificial.
     
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  17. Hardy Melville

    Hardy Melville Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York
    I see Runicen's response to yours, but wanted also to add the following.

    Having included a definite 4 year lifespan does not in and of itself indicate what the lifespan would be for a replicant without that. It might be six years, it might be twenty. Where the film does sort of tie into what we know about aging is that cell division over time, over the life of the individual, has a certain entropy dynamic. For replicants I would think it likely that, particularly for earlier examples, the ability to slow down this entropy dynamic would not be well developed. OF COURSE we are here talking about a fictional story, but in terms of how much of it is at least plausible, that would seem to follow.

    Perhaps then it is also plausible that as more advanced replicants are developed, the sort of "issues" that were described would come to their attention. At that point a definite timespan was included, but again this does not mean that without one they would live for a long time.

    Ftr I am here more than usually prepared to consider counter arguments. We are after all talking not only about a work of fiction but one that quite carefully included ambiguity and different perspectives.
     
  18. will_b_free

    will_b_free Forum Resident

    Location:
    Boulder, CO
    I got the Blu-Ray, liked it enough to then get the 3-D BluRay when it came back into stock, and now I'm like "I really should have gotten the 4K, in case I ever get a 4K setup".

    But if you just want the Blu-Ray it is on sale at Amazon for $9.99 this week.
     
  19. ssmith3046

    ssmith3046 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Arizona desert
    Really great Blu-Ray picture quality.
     
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  20. John D.

    John D. Senior Member

    I sprung for the 4K at amazon today, was going to get the BluRay but back ordered for weeks. I've got an OPPO 203 for 4K , but the not the 4K screen. So, in the meantime I will watch the BluRay, till I get a 4K TV.
     
  21. darkmass

    darkmass Forum Resident

    Is the OPPO 203 one of the 4K capable players that will permit playing a 4K UHD disc but at the same time properly display it on a full HD screen? (HDMI communication should exchange the protocols for that.) I don't know how something like that would compare to playing a standard Blu-ray, but it could be worth a look for you.
     
  22. Hardy Melville

    Hardy Melville Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York
    Thanks.
     
  23. tlake6659

    tlake6659 Senior Member

    Location:
    NJ
    You can watch the 4K disc on the Oppo without a 4k TV if needed. The Oppo will just display it in the 1080 resolution.
     
  24. rjp

    rjp Senior Member

    Location:
    Ohio
    just finished watching this today........i really don't know what to say.
     
  25. Ghostworld

    Ghostworld Senior Member

    Location:
    US
    I just saw a Harrison Ford interview where the interviewer flat out asked "Did you and Villeneuve discuss the idea that Decker is a replicant." And Ford says "We did." The interviewer asks "What did you both think" And Ford won't say what they talked about because "then there wouldn't be all that discussion out there." We sci fi nerds are our own best PR machine.
     
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