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Blade Runner II - SPOILER

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    #51
    Originally posted by Lang Spoon View Post
    Hmmm. Everyone but everyone loved that new Mad Max film, and I hated hated hated that movie. The guitar with flames coming out, the bad guy who looked like a pro wrestler, ffs. Not optimistic at all.
    I don't understand how anyone could not like that. But if you don't, then maybe this isn't for you.

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      #52
      Originally posted by Lang Spoon View Post
      Can’t help it, was bored stiff, and intermittently stifling laughter, would have done me good to have at least been able to pretend to like it in the pictures as well. Fuck sake ‘poker face’.

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        #53
        Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post
        I don't understand how anyone could not like that.
        Because they have a big black hole where their sense of delight and amazement should be.

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          #54
          Aye, ahm fae Fife. Delight and amazement mark you for being a fanny worth a kicking. Was expecting more a mad max 2 hyper realism rather than a cartoon/game cut scene style from the director. Theron was excellent in it, but Hardy, barely remember him (also I may have been slightly cut before viewing).
          Last edited by Lang Spoon; 29-09-2017, 23:53.

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            #55
            Oh that's a good point. Fury Road has a certain mythic quality to it doesn't it? While 2, for all the costumes etc. is much more grounded.

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              #56
              It felt like what the Tina Turner ropey part III might have been given 100 million of effects budget. Eye catching shite. Definitely shaky ground for the ban now. Totally Gonzo’d myself with Truth.

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                #57
                Has no-one else seen it yet? Went this afternoon and saw it at the local Imax. Loved it.

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                  #58
                  I saw it this afternoon. It's good, I'm not sure how much of that is nostalgia though.

                  They pull off a sequel to a film from thirty years ago that was predicting 2019 very well. It is the same predicted world (well, slightly more post apocalyptic).
                  Harrison Ford can only play old Harrison Ford now, I know he never had a massive range but I think he's given up trying.
                  All the core cast are white. Which for all the background characters being from around the world and everything being in multiple languages, feels a little odd.
                  The nudity is a little gratuitous as well.
                  Though last two things make it feel as 80s as the original as the actual set design.
                  I'm interested in seeing it in 3d now I've seen the 2d version.
                  It's an odd world isn't it? One man, one genius man, well two in succession control these massive companies. That feels rather 80s as well. Does he not have shareholders, a board, employees?

                  I really did like it, I just have these things niggling away.

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                    #59
                    I loved it, even though i’m still not sure if we’re supposed to think Dekard is a replicant.* Maybe it doesn’t matter.

                    Though the story is totally unlike the book, this film reflects the book a bit more by showing how most of the planet is an irradiated wasteland.

                    There’s room for another sequel. Wallace still hasn’t got his comeuppance and the replicants want to start a revolution. There’s room there for some more stories.

                    They’ve also released a few animated shorts that serve as prequels. Check it out.

                    The cast is diverse but all the main characters are white. The virtual girlfriend is played by a woman born in Cuba. So maybe she’s not really “white.” Indeed, she looks “multiracial” which would make sense if she were going to be marketed to consumers all over the world.

                    They should have made Robin Wright’s character and McKenzie Davis’ character non-white. Ryan Gosling’s character has to be white to uphold a certain plot mystery. Plus, he’s a bankable star. Making either of the baddies non-white would feel racist, perhaps. Especially if they’d been Asian.

                    *He wasn’t in the book. He sleeps with Rachel, but she turns out to be awful and kills his sheep. Dekard goes back to his wife. In the films he isn’t married.

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                      #60
                      “It's an odd world isn't it? One man, one genius man, well two in succession control these massive companies. That feels rather 80s as well. Does he not have shareholders, a board, employees? “

                      That’s a trope in a lot of movies. It just makes it easier for the plot. Of course, in real life, the replicants would be designed and created by hundreds or maybe thousands of scientists and engineers working for a publicly controlled company, but it’s harder to turn that into characters that can be developed in a film or limited tv series let alone turned into a metaphor for God.

                      So, for example, in the original Blade Runner the idea was that Tyrell was an artist as well as being the Series Six’ father figure - evoking Pinocchio and some other myths - so it’s more poignant when Roy Batty squishes his head.

                      It’s also a thing in some of William Gibson’s work and that of other scifi writers - that eventually the superrich will be so rich and that they’ll transcend and become a different species. That’s implied in this one with Wallace being a bit of a cyborg.

                      It would make sense if they took it further and made the omnipotent creator/villain an AI. But the only popular films I can recall that did that are Tron (Which is underrated) and, of course, The Matrix and Terminator franchises.

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                        #61
                        Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post
                        I loved it, even though i’m still not sure if we’re supposed to think Dekard is a replicant.* Maybe it doesn’t matter.
                        I went last night with my son, and asked him this on the way out - I'm fairly hard of hearing and struggle with dialogue in movies, particularly when the background music is amped up like it was there (I watch movies and TV dramas on tv with subtitles) - but he quoted some line back which seemed to confirm one way or the other.

                        I was in two minds about going but was convinced to go by someone who'd seen it on Saturday, and glad I did, loved it and it is was a worthwhile sequel. Although it was very long, the pacing was right and it didn't dip too much. Agree with the earlier comment that the gratuitous nudity was a bit jarring.

                        First movie that has got me into a cinema for a few years (barring a re-release of Blue Velvet last year, which I only went to to kill a couple of hours) and the first that my son drove me to, and was able to buy me a pint at.

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                          #62
                          I both loved it and hated it, whereas about a month ago I was fully expecting to only hate it. Loved most of the mise-en-scene, particularly the retro-future tech stuff which seems to be so in vogue (see also Legion, Alien: Isolation and of course Electric Dreams). The story was fine. Hated most of the nods to the original, most of which sort of screamed "Remember this? Do you? Remember?". Also didn't like the effective retconning of Nexus generations and the reopening of the "is he a replicant". Frankly, it would have been a better movie without Deckard and Rachel. No connection to the original other than universe. The one nod I did appreciate was Olmos doing a sheep origami while saying "It's what he wanted most" or something like that, which is of course a book reference.

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                            #63
                            Originally posted by Levin View Post
                            I saw it this afternoon. It's good, I'm not sure how much of that is nostalgia though.

                            They pull off a sequel to a film from thirty years ago that was predicting 2019 very well. It is the same predicted world (well, slightly more post apocalyptic).
                            Harrison Ford can only play old Harrison Ford now, I know he never had a massive range but I think he's given up trying.
                            All the core cast are white. Which for all the background characters being from around the world and everything being in multiple languages, feels a little odd.
                            The nudity is a little gratuitous as well.
                            Though last two things make it feel as 80s as the original as the actual set design.
                            I'm interested in seeing it in 3d now I've seen the 2d version.
                            It's an odd world isn't it? One man, one genius man, well two in succession control these massive companies. That feels rather 80s as well. Does he not have shareholders, a board, employees?

                            I really did like it, I just have these things niggling away.
                            All worthwhile observations. On top of that I found it jarring how coroner's offices and LAPD don't appear to have any security or access control in 2049.

                            I enjoyed it, I thought Gosling was excellent and I really liked his jacket. Was a shame that Bautista wasn't in it more, and that Leto didn't die. I find him terribly hammy at the best of times. Roger Deakins' cinematography is breathtaking and if I watch it again, it will have to be on IMAX. Found the score to be equally as good. It's a long film but not once did I wish it would hurry up.

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                              #64
                              I enjoyed it.

                              Whether you like it or not, it's hard to remember something as visually arresting as this; maybe Interstellar came close. As has been mentioned it's a long film, but it has the confidence to linger on scenes, the polar opposite of someone like Michael Bay.

                              I like Ryan Gosling--I don't understand all the negativity that's thrown at him.

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                                #65
                                “All worthwhile observations. On top of that I found it jarring how coroner's offices and LAPD don't appear to have any security or access control in 2049.”

                                I think the idea there was that the police and Wallace Corp work closely on replicant issues so Luv was able to come and go as she pleased.


                                It’s not surprising that it’s mostly men who saw it. It wasn’t a massive hit when it came out. It was only after they released better cuts of the film that it started to become a cult classic. But that happened because of word-of-mouth in fanzines and comic shops, and early char boards, etc, which were/are male dominated.

                                There are loads of non-male sci-fi fans. I don’t see a reason why they wouldn’t like both films. The first time I saw Blade Runner in full was the directors cut, at the DOG Street theater in Williamsburg, Virginia. IIRC, I went with a woman named Kelly and she liked it too.


                                I didn’t think there was that much boobage and insofar as there was, it was about the virtual woman and showing how that will be a thing in 2049 and that capitalism will keep trying to gratify our sexual desires and need for companionship, even as the world turns to shit. The point was that he really loves his virtual girlfriend but she looks like the millions of others they’ve sold and is programmed to be whatever he wants, so is that really love or not? Mind blown.

                                On the other hand, it only showed female prostitutes and female virtual girlfriends and female advertising models. I don’t think more porn and prostitution for the gay male or straight female market would mark huge progress, but I guess it’s some progress over the unbalanced patriarchal situation we have now.

                                And I’m hoping that by 2049, if nothing else, we have a more nuanced and sophisticated understanding of gender. No mainstream sci-fi that i’ve seen has really addressed that. Where are all the non-binary/androgynous characters? I’m sure by 2049, a lot more people will be dressing and identifying that way. Which is fine, of course.

                                The daughter/memory-maker character is a worthy female character. Perhaps she will be developed more if they make a sequel.

                                And Robin Wright’s character is a perfectly cromulent “strong female,” albeit kind of a stock character. And the leader of the revolution is female. So it seems the writers wanted to have good female characters, but still imagine the future as male-centric as the 20th Century noir detective books and movies that Blade Runner borrows from.

                                Indeed, Ryan Gosling’s character really likes Sinatra and his girlfriend dresses in 20th Century styles and makes him a fake standard 20th Century American meal so he doesn’t have to look at his fungus noodles or whatever. So I guess he sees himself as a Daschel Hammer character.
                                Last edited by Hot Pepsi; 09-10-2017, 16:54.

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                                  #66
                                  And I’m hoping that by 2049, if nothing else, we have a more nuanced and sophisticated understanding of gender. No mainstream sci-fi that i’ve seen has really addressed that. Where are all the non-binary/androgynous characters?
                                  Ursula LeGuin does, of course, but I don't think The Left Hand Of Darkness has ever been adapted. Also, it involves aliens, not humans.

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                                    #67
                                    Originally posted by Ginger Yellow View Post
                                    Ursula LeGuin does, of course, but I don't think The Left Hand Of Darkness has ever been adapted. Also, it involves aliens, not humans.
                                    Right. And that one episode of STTNG.

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                                      #68
                                      Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post
                                      On the other hand, it only showed female prostitutes and female virtual girlfriends and female advertising models. I don’t think more porn and prostitution for the gay male or straight female market would mark huge progress, but I guess it’s some progress over the unbalanced patriarchal situation we have now.
                                      I do wonder how much that is a deliberate attempt to be a sequel to a film from 1982 and keep that film's social mores or if the makers are just a bit sexist.

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                                        #69
                                        Originally posted by Levin View Post
                                        I do wonder how much that is a deliberate attempt to be a sequel to a film from 1982 and keep that film's social mores or if the makers are just a bit sexist.
                                        Hollywood? Sexist? Never!

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                                          #70
                                          Just remembered a less controversial nod back to the era in which the original was made - advert hoardings showing logos of companies who were big names in the early 80s, like Atari and Pan Am.

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                                            #71
                                            Just remembered a less controversial nod back to the era in which the original was made - advert hoardings showing logos of companies who were big names in the early 80s, like Atari and Pan Am.
                                            I think that was less of a nod to the era than to the actual film, which had both of those. The sequel also had multiple Peugeot and Sony signs, which were presumably paid for.

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                                              #72
                                              I've seen the film now so just caught up with this thread.

                                              My feelings about this are complex. I liked it but I also didn't. I watched the original a few weeks ago and felt the same way. Some of it was very good. Some of it didn't make much sense. I don't mind films leaving things ambiguous but sometimes it felt like they were just setting out to do that.

                                              I can see what they were trying to do with Joe falling in love with Joi. Can you be in love with an AI? It was the update of falling in love with a replicant. And in her own way she chose to be free by being downloaded onto a single device. But at the same time she was superfluous to the plot.

                                              The nudity was unnecessary and felt a bit old fashioned, I agree. The new Tyrell style character wasn't particularly believable. That bit where he checks over the newly birthed replicant then kills her seemed gratuitous. As did blowing the head off the new Rachel. That's one of those wasteful things lunatic villains do in movies. Why go to the bother of making a Rachel just to off her after Deckard turns her down at the first pass. Replace her eyes and try again.

                                              I liked the big Atari ads.

                                              I did like that they used the original Rachel's most advanced status as a plot device and made her character much more important in the Blade Runner story arc.

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                                                #73
                                                Oh and Edward James Olmos was great in his cameo. But if thought he was making an origami bull as if to communicate to Joe that he was lying (this is bull, being the message)

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                                                  #74
                                                  In addition to creating a subplot about how in the future, even love will be manufactured by software companies, I think Joi mostly serves the same purpose that Tonto, Margo Lane, Jimmy Olsen. Watson, etc. served in old radio shows - a good way to develop the main character and for the audience to understand what he’s doing is for him to be talking to somebody else.

                                                  In most detective stories, the protagonist has a partner. Or, in the case of classic noir, there’s narration or voice-over. But that’s lazy in a movie. So this worked well. For example, in the scene where he’s looking at the DNA records, talking to her was, I thought, an elegant way to get through that exposition.

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                                                    #75
                                                    Yes I see that. One of the weaknesses of the first film is that Deckard had no one to converse with.

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