Blade Runner 2049 is a 2017 American neo-noir science fiction film directed by Denis Villeneuve and written by Hampton Fancher and Michael Green.[8] A sequel to Blade Runner (1982), the film stars Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford (who reprises his role as Rick Deckard), with Ana de Armas, Sylvia Hoeks, Robin Wright, Mackenzie Davis, Carla Juri, Lennie James, Dave Bautista and Jared Leto in supporting roles. Set 30 years after the original, the story depicts a replicant blade runner, K, discovering the remains of a once-pregnant replicant. To prevent a possible war between species, K is secretly tasked with finding the child and destroying all evidence related to it.
Principal photography took place in Budapest, Hungary between July and November 2016. Blade Runner 2049 premiered in Los Angeles on October 3, 2017 and was released in the United States on October 6, 2017, in 2D, 3D and IMAX. The film received acclaim from critics, with some calling it one of the greatest sequels of all-time.[9][10][11][12]
Plot[]
In 2049, bioengineered humans known as replicants are slaves. K (short for his serial number, KD6-3.7), a Nexus-9 replicant, works for the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) as a "blade runner", an officer who hunts and "retires" (kills) rogue replicants. He retires Nexus-8 replicant Sapper Morton and finds a box buried under a tree at Morton's protein farm. The box contains the remains of a female replicant who died during a cesarean section, demonstrating that replicants can reproduce biologically, previously thought impossible. K's superior, Lt. Joshi, fears that this could lead to a war between humans and replicants. She orders K to find and retire the replicant child to hide the truth.
K visits the Wallace Corporation's headquarters, the successor to the defunct Tyrell Corporation in the manufacture of replicants. Wallace staff members identify the deceased female from DNA archives as Rachael, an experimental replicant designed by Dr. Eldon Tyrell. K learns of Rachael's romantic ties with former blade runner Rick Deckard. Wallace Corporation CEO Niander Wallace wants to discover the secret to replicant reproduction to expand interstellar colonization. He sends his replicant enforcer Luv to steal Rachael's remains and follow K to Rachael's child.
At Morton's farm, K finds 6.10.21 carved into the tree trunk and recognizes it from a childhood memory of a wooden toy horse. Because replicant memories are artificial, K's holographic AI girlfriend Joi believes this is evidence that K was born, not created. He searches LAPD records and discovers twins born on that date with identical DNA aside from the sex chromosome, but only the boy is listed as alive. K tracks the child to an orphanage in ruined San Diego but discovers the records from that year to be missing. K recognizes the orphanage from his memories and finds the toy horse where he remembers hiding it.
Dr Ana Stelline, a replicant memory designer, confirms that the memory of the orphanage is real, leading K to conclude that he is Rachael's son. At LAPD headquarters, K fails a post-traumatic baseline test, marking him as a rogue replicant; he lies to Joshi by implying he killed the replicant child. Joshi gives K 48 hours to pass the baseline test or he will be 'retired.' Joi hires Mariette, a prostitute replicant, as a surrogate for Joi to have sex with K. Mariette, who is part of the replicant freedom movement, leaves a tracker on K. At Joi's request, K reluctantly transfers her to a mobile emitter so he cannot be tracked through her console memory-files. He has the toy horse analyzed, revealing traces of radiation that lead him to the ruins of Las Vegas. He finds Deckard, who tells him that he is the father of Rachael's child and scrambled the birth records to protect the child's identity; Deckard left the child in the custody of the replicant freedom movement.
Luv kills Joshi and tracks K to Las Vegas. She kidnaps Deckard, destroys Joi, and leaves K to die. Using Mariette's tracker, the replicant freedom movement rescues K. When their leader, Freysa, tells him that she helped deliver Rachael's child and that the child was a girl, K understands that he is not Rachael's child, deduces that Stelline is her daughter and that the memory of the toy horse is hers, one she implanted amongst those of other replicants whose memories she designed. To prevent Deckard from leading Wallace to Stelline or the freedom movement, Freysa asks K to kill Deckard for all replicants' greater good.
Luv takes Deckard to Wallace Corporation headquarters to meet Wallace. Wallace offers Deckard a clone of Rachael in exchange for revealing what he knows. Deckard refuses, and Luv kills the clone. As Luv transports Deckard to be tortured and interrogated off-world, K intercepts Luv's shuttle and tries to rescue Deckard. He fights Luv and ultimately drowns her, but he is mortally wounded. He stages Deckard's death to protect him from Wallace and the replicant freedom movement before taking Deckard to Stelline's office and handing him her toy horse. As K dies on the steps, looking up at snow falling from the sky, Deckard enters the building and meets his daughter for the first time.
Cast[]
- Ryan Gosling as K / Joe
- Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard
- Ana de Armas as Joi
- Sylvia Hoeks as Luv
- Robin Wright as Lt. Joshi
- Mackenzie Davis as Mariette
- Carla Juri as Dr. Ana Stelline
- Lennie James as Mister Cotton
- Dave Bautista as Sapper Morton
- Jared Leto as Niander Wallace
- David Dastmalchian as Coco
- Barkhad Abdi as Doc Badger
- Hiam Abbass as Freysa
- Wood Harris as Nandez
Edward James Olmos reprised his role as Gaff from the original Blade Runner film. Sean Young also returned to the film to portray the clone of her original character Rachael. This was achieved with the assistance of stand-in actress Loren Peta for some shots and the use of CGI to make her appear as she did in 1982. Archival footage, photos and audio of her performance in the original film is also used to further the plot.
Production[]
Development[]
Since the 1990s, licensing disputes over Philip K. Dick's 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? had stood in the way of producing sequels to the science fiction drama Blade Runner (1982). Director Ridley Scott conceived two ultimately unrealized projects vaguely connected to the Blade Runner canon in the interim. Scott's second project, a collaboration with his son Luke and younger brother Tony titled Purefold, had been imagined as an episodic webseries examining conceptions of empathy.
Nearly three decades after the film's release, Alcon Entertainment co-founders Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson purchased the intellectual property from producer Bud Yorkin. The terms of Alcon's acquisition prohibited the remake of the original Blade Runner film, but entitled the company rights to syndication, franchising, and derivative media such as prequels and sequels. No longer satisfied with the profits of their smaller-budget features, and with investor funding scarce, Kosove and Johnson sought to increase Alcon's output of blockbuster films: "If you don't have repetitive cash flow, which is a fancy way of saying being in the sequel business, you are going to be in trouble eventually." Progress on a new Blade Runner feature soon intensified when Kosove named Christopher Nolan one of his ideal choices to direct. However, Nolan said he never planned to direct, despite being an admirer of the Blade Runner franchise.
By August 2011, Alcon announced Ridley Scott's signing as the film's director to the press. The British filmmaker had long desired a sequel to expand upon the subject matter. After securing Scott's services, the studio assigned Michael Green and a returning Hampton Fancher the responsibility for writing the script. Alcon producers provided some insight of their vision but were unsure of how to approach the Blade Runner story, hence they and the normally candid Scott were tight-lipped when questioned further about the sequel's artistic direction in interviews conducted during the pre-production. Ultimately, Scott resigned from his duties once his existing commitment to Alien: Covenant (2017) took precedence, and retained partial oversight as an executive producer. He also made significant contributions to the screenplay, albeit in an uncredited role.
Blade Runner 2049 was Alcon's second collaboration with director Denis Villeneuve, who they called for a meeting at a cafe in rural New Mexico to negotiate an offer. They had an existing professional relationship from Prisoners (2013). Villeneuve credits Blade Runner for inspiring his passion for filmmaking, but hesitated to accept the assignment at first as he feared tarnishing the franchise's legacy. Nevertheless, he liked the screenplay and was assured by Fancher's investment in the project. Villeneuve preserved elements of the original film by modernizing Blade Runner's retrofuturistic onscreen world, which he saw as imperative for an authentic story.
A scene from Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One (2018) set in the Blade Runner universe was excluded from the film's finished cut. Spielberg had sought copyright approval during the filming of Blade Runner 2049, which Alcon producers refused as they feared the explicit reference would affect their commercial prospects, even though Ready Player One was released months later.
Casting[]
Harrison Ford and Ryan Gosling were Blade Runner 2049's first significant casting choices. Gossip about Ford's participation had been circulating in the media since the project's conception, claims which the producers initially denied, having only approached the actor for a part in 2014. Alcon did not publicly announce their signing until the following year. Ford expressed interest in reprising his role in past interviews and was enthusiastic about the Blade Runner 2049 script. The working conditions on set was another aspect of the production Ford was pleased with, a stark contrast from the stressful shooting environment he endured on Blade Runner. Ford stated the thirty five-year passage of time, plus the synthesis of a new story with Deckard's already-established backstory, lent unique context to playing his aged character. The only other returning Blade Runner actor, Edward James Olmos, appears in a supporting part which pivots the main story.
The screenwriters tailored K specifically for Gosling, but it was the opportunity to work with Villeneuve and experienced cinematographer Roger Deakins, paired with his faith in the script, that convinced the actor to join Blade Runner 2049 in his first leading role in a blockbuster production. Gosling developed a reputation for his discriminating film choices—the prospect of working on big-budget franchise sets never enticed him, yet he trusted the filmmakers' instincts, and the thematic complexity of the film's screenplay furthermore reassured his decision. A longtime Blade Runner fan, the actor said his first viewing experience of the film as a young teenager was profound, remarking, "It was one of the first films I had seen where it wasn't clear how I was supposed to feel when it was over. It really makes you question your idea of the hero and the villain, the idea of what it means to be human." Blade Runner 2049 proved challenging for Gosling because of the production's scope.
Ana de Armas auditioned several times before landing the film's female lead. De Armas was an actress of national renown in Spain, aspiring to break into English-speaking roles. After working in her first Hollywood film in Hands of Stone (2016), she settled in Los Angeles in pursuit of a role that did not typecast her ethnicity. De Armas underwent four months of rigorous speech training to master her English before auditioning. Once the studio commenced production of Blade Runner 2049, the actress said her fitness training provided the necessary mental space to prepare for the intense shooting schedule.
Villeneuve considered David Bowie, one of the franchise's core influences, for the part of Niander Wallace, but the singer died before the start of filming. Instead, he and the producers looked at Jared Leto, fresh off the filming of Suicide Squad (2016) because they felt he exuded Bowie's rockstar sensibility. Leto refrains from naming specific sources that shaped certain aspects of his character's persona, rather the actor cites real-life friends that work in tech as a general influence. Leto is notorious in the film industry for his unorthodox preparation for his roles, and he continued his unusual practices in Blade Runner 2049 by wearing custom opaque contact lenses to work the set completely blind. Villeneuve recalled his first day shooting with the actor, "He entered the room, and he could not see at all. He was walking with an assistant very slowly. It was like seeing Jesus walking into a temple. Everybody became super silent, and there was a kind of sacred moment. Everyone was in awe. It was so beautiful and powerful—I was moved to tears."
A raft of mostly young actors comprise Blade Runner 2049's supporting cast; David Dastmalchian, Sylvia Hoeks, Carla Juri, Mackenzie Davis and Barkhad Abdi were lesser-known stars with years of expertise in indie cinema. Among the few exceptions are Dave Bautista, Hiam Abbass and Lennie James, whose castings were revealed between April and July 2016, and Robin Wright, assigned to one of three major female roles in Blade Runner 2049. Wright's participation had been rumored for weeks, but was not immediately confirmed by the filmmakers because her existing duties to Netflix's political TV thriller House of Cards momentarily stalled the negotiations.
Filming[]
The filmmakers embarked on location scouting in April 2016, and principal photography of Blade Runner 2049 commenced that July, lasting four months until November. They first toured London but found no soundstage available for the needs of the production. As a result, Deakins and Villeneuve flew to Hungary for location scouting partly due to Scott's familiarity of the country's network of facilities. They also toured Slovakia to source architectural ideas. Blade Runner 2049's production crew were mostly Hungarian, with some American staff hired to supervise the set. Inserts with Wright and Hoeks were the first scenes filmed on set. Shooting took place mainly at Korda Studios and the Origo Studios backlot in suburban Budapest, where the shoot qualified for a 25% tax rebate on in-state costs from the Hungarian government.
The Alcon–Sony partnership allocated $180 million ($90 million each) for the budget, rebates notwithstanding. Interior shots of the Budapest Stock Exchange's Liberty Square palace doubled for Las Vegas in casino-set scenes, and abandoned Soviet industrial sites such as the Inota Power Plant and the Kelenföld were important filming locations that emphasized Blade Runner 2049's dystopian ethos. The Budapest palace was the film's largest set, occupying at least three floors of the building. Filmmakers revised Deckard's capture by Luv into a simple conversational scene after Ford conveyed to Kosove and Johnson his disapproval of the dialogue.
Pitfalls occasionally beset the production. The filmmakers frequently fell behind schedule, and an Origo Studios-employed subcontractor was killed by falling debris when dismantling one of the sets. Gosling's obligation to fulfill a New York City press junket for La La Land (2016) exacerbated the unusual circumstances of the shoot; however, his scenes were able to be filmed in time for the Thanksgiving holiday.
Cinematography[]
Blade Runner 2049 is the third Deakins–Villeneuve collaboration after Prisoners and Sicario (2015). Together with production designer Dennis Gassner, the men brainstormed ideas for the film's visual palette as Villeneuve was editing his science fiction drama Arrival (2016). The sequences were then storyboarded and left for Deakins and Villeneuve to execute. The two were inspired by the architecture of several global cities to develop a hostile, imposing brutalist style for their fictionalized Los Angeles, among them the appearance of Beijing's cityscape in dense smog, the foothills of southern Spain, Bangladeshi shipyards, and certain mid-twentieth century landmarks in London (such as the Barbican Estate and Trellick Tower). For Las Vegas-set scenes, the filmmakers researched intense dust storms in the Sahara, Saudi Arabia and Sydney to replicate the sandy desert ruins Villeneuve sought.
It became apparent to Deakins that Blade Runner 2049 would be one of his biggest undertakings because of the technical demands involved realizing the onscreen universe. Deakins exercises full artistic control of his shoots, and the extent of his oversight meant a single-camera setup for the set—the British cinematographer rejected a studio line producer's request for a nine unit-camera setup because he firmly believed said technique would yield sloppy camerawork. Rather he and Villeneuve resumed the practical approach of their previous collaborations to capture the Blade Runner 2049 scenes. They shot the project in 1.55:1 aspect ratio from a single Arri Alexa XT Studio camera with Zeiss Master prime lenses, assisted with an attached crane arm or a dolly. The filmmakers conducted tests with an Alexa 65 camera but preferred the XT Studio's somewhat grainy image quality, and the choice of lenses corresponded to the scale and lighting specifications of the scenes. For example, close-up character scenes were captured in 32 mm lenses, but filmmakers captured sweeping cityscape shots with 14 mm and 16 mm lenses. Occasionally, production filmed with Arri Alexa Mini cameras to capture shots from the spinners, the vehicles used in the film.
When Gassner was first approached for Blade Runner 2049, he was called with a request from Villeneuve to observe the shape of passing street sweepers. The designer had known Scott since 1982, when they first collaborated for the Francis Ford Coppola-directed musical One From the Heart. Redesigning the spinners then became one of his initial responsibilities. He and the filmmakers envisioned a harsh, angular design for the spinners, one intended to evoke the sense of technological innovation. It was also up to Gassner to complete most of the Blade Runner 2049 sets so producers could exercise full artistic control of the shoot. Gassner described the process as especially difficult as design elements had to be distinct, but lore faithful, and considered under a tight shooting schedule.
Post-production[]
Warner Bros. announced in early October 2016 that the film would be titled Blade Runner 2049. Editing commenced in December in Los Angeles, with the intention of having the film being rated R. At the 2017 San Diego Comic-Con, Villeneuve said that the film would run for two hours and 32 minutes. There originally existed a four-hour early cut of the film that Villeneuve described "quite strong" but also at times "too self-indulgent". He prefers the shorter final version that he describes as "more elegant" and which Ridley Scott still described as too long. Villeneuve says he will not show the four-hour cut to anyone. As with Skyfall, cinematographer Roger Deakins created his own IMAX master of the film rather than using the proprietary "DMR" process that IMAX usually uses with films not shot with IMAX cameras.
Music[]
- Main article: Blade Runner 2049 (soundtrack)
Rapper-producer El-P said he was asked to compose music for the first Blade Runner 2049 trailer, but his score was "rejected or ignored". Jóhann Jóhannsson, who had worked with Villeneuve on Prisoners, Sicario and Arrival, was initially announced as composer for the film. However, Villeneuve and Jóhannsson decided to end the collaboration because Villeneuve thought the film "needed something different", and also that he "needed to go back to something closer to Vangelis's soundtrack" of the first film. Composers Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch joined the project in July 2017. In September, Jóhannsson's agent confirmed that he was no longer involved and was contractually forbidden from commenting. The musical cue during the final scene, "Tears in the Rain", is a call-back to the "Tears in rain" scene from Blade Runner which saw the death of the film's central antagonist Roy Batty. The track is a reimagined version of the original Vangelis work.
Release[]
Theatrical[]
Blade Runner 2049 premiered on October 3, 2017, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, although following the 2017 Las Vegas Strip shooting, the red carpet events were canceled prior to the screening. It was the opening feature at the Festival du nouveau cinéma in Montreal the following day. It also was premiered in Switzerland at the Zurich Film Festival on October 4, 2017. Sony Pictures Releasing, which had obtained rights to release the film in overseas territories, was the first to release Blade Runner 2049 in theaters, first in France and Belgium on October 4, 2017, then in other countries on the two following days. The film was released by Warner Bros. in North America on October 6, 2017. In addition to standard 2D and 3D formats, Blade Runner 2049 was released in IMAX theaters. Also, Alcon Entertainment partnered with Oculus VR to create and distribute content for the film exclusively for its virtual reality format and launched it alongside the theatrical release of October 6, 2017. That content would later be referred to as Blade Runner: Revelations. Due to the popularity and preference of IMAX in 2D (as opposed to 3D) among filmgoers in North America, the film was shown in IMAX theaters in only 2D domestically, but was screened in 3D formats internationally. Just like Skyfall, the movie was specially formatted for IMAX at the expanded aspect ratio of 1.9:1. The film is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for "violence, some sexuality, nudity, and language".
Some scenes in the film were censored in Turkey. The scenes that featured nudity were cut. This decision received criticism from the country's film critics.
Marketing[]
Warner Bros. and Columbia Pictures jointly released an announcement teaser on December 19, 2016. A selection of excerpts (lasting 15 seconds) were released as a trailer tease on May 5, 2017, in the lead up to the full trailer, which was released on May 8, 2017. A second trailer was released on July 17, 2017.
Reception[]
Box office[]
Critical response[]
Accolades[]
| List of awards and nominations | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Award | Date of ceremony | Category | Recipient(s) and nominee(s) | Result | Ref. |
| IndieWire Critic's Poll | December 19, 2016 | Most Anticipated of 2017 | Blade Runner 2049 | Won | [13][14] |
| Golden Trailer Awards | June 6, 2017 | Best Teaser | Blade Runner 2049 | Won | [15] |
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Johnnie Walker Releases Whisky of the Future, Inspired By Blade Runner 2049". Markets Insider (September 25, 2017). Retrieved on September 26, 2017.
- ↑ "BLADE RUNNER 2049". British Board of Film Classification (September 25, 2017). Retrieved on October 5, 2017.
- ↑ "‘Blade Runner 2049’ Kicks Off October Box Office as Clear Favorite". TheWrap (October 7, 2017).
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedpreview - ↑ "'Blade Runner 2049' Tracking for $40M-Plus U.S. Debut". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved on September 14, 2017.
- ↑ "Blade Runner 2049". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved on October 5, 2017.
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedopening - ↑ Egner, Jeremy (September 8, 2017). "'Blade Runner 2049': Harrison Ford, Ryan Gosling and the Creators Discuss the Sci-Fi Sequel and Rehash Old Arguments". The New York Times. Retrieved September 9, 2017.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- ↑ Lynch, John (September 28, 2017). "The first reviews of 'Blade Runner 2049' are calling it a 'sci-fi masterpiece'". Business Insider. Retrieved on September 29, 2017.
- ↑ Bradshaw, Peter (September 29, 2017). "Blade Runner 2049 review – a gigantic spectacle of pure hallucinatory craziness". The Guardian. Retrieved on September 29, 2017.
- ↑ "Impeccably cool 'Blade Runner 2049' is a ravishing visual feast: EW review" (September 29, 2017). Retrieved on September 29, 2017.
- ↑ Kohn, Eric (September 29, 2017). "Blade Runner 2049 review – Denis Villeneuve's Neo-Noir Sequel Is Mind-Blowing Sci-Fi Storytelling". Indiewire. Retrieved September 29, 2017.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- ↑ Kohn, Eric (December 19, 2016). "2016 Critics Poll: The Best Films and Performances of the Year According to Over 200 Critics". IndieWire. Retrieved on July 7, 2017.
- ↑ Greene, Steve (December 19, 2016). "2016 IndieWire Critics Poll: Full List of Results". IndieWire. Retrieved on July 7, 2017.
- ↑ McNary, Dave (June 6, 2017). "'Wonder Woman' Wins Top Prize at Golden Trailer Awards". Retrieved on July 23, 2017.
External links[]
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