I adore SciFi, so I watched the new Blade Runner 2049.
I liked the metaphors in it and I also liked that it evaded the opinions of the common folk who’re more into silly skit movies that won’t tickle their imagination (yeah, the movie didn’t do so well at the box office, but in this case it’s a good thing)
I absolutely adored every scene in this movie as well as the obvious metaphors regarding the concept of “Peter and the Wolf” which is a prominent motif throughout the film and tells a lot about the characters. Of course, evident in the use of the technology for Joi, a masterpiece by Сергей Сергеевич Прокофьев.
The film itself touches on many currently common societal issues which aren’t only present in the USA, but also the rest of the world, especially regarding the nomophobia as well as the people’s disconnection from the actual people which happens by kindling the technology further and further. There is not just a question of the transhumanism, it’s already established well and mighty, but there’s a question of whether the transhumanization can lead to a better world or not.
Visually it’s a good film with good actors and especially actresses. The accents were extremely sexy. The movie didn’t feel like it had any sort of a political agenda in it nor it tried to pamper to the PC culture, which imho is a great accomplishment for a modern film nowadays. (looking at you star wars with a very angry face)
This movie shows and stands as a great example that even after so much time passed there can be a film which continues where the previous one left, but you needn’t watch the previous part in order to enjoy this one and the vice-versa also applies.
The movie also did a fair amount of respect to the culture of the 80s Synthwave aesthetics whilst keeping the new approach to the muzika score by Hans Zimmer (and that other guy whose name I forgot, sorry mr. guy)
The Synthwave with the Cyberpunk scenery of a not so distant future felt spot on.
Although, there was this issue referring to the relative disconnection in terms of the multiple languages situated at one common place and although I believe that this is a metaphor I didn’t really take into the account to the fullest I do feel like it had a lot to do with the imminent issue of the blackout that people spoke about in the film. There were Russians (and the soviet theme was lasting) as well as Japanese, Koreans, French etc… Some of which were highly stereotypical and not at all particularly interesting. It was a nice touch hearing other languages, but it appeared as if everyone understood everyone else without any effort. This was never explained in this particular movie, but I take it as if the multilingual barrier was commonly ease-up by the installation of a transhuman piece of equipment or a chip or whatever. Almost immediately reminded me of several SciFi films I enjoy, such as Terminator 2 and Matrix. It also possesses some of the Anime aesthetics, but this is still very slim in comparison so I won’t venture there at the given time.
I got the SciFi vibes similarly to the vibes I used to get whilst playing video-game called “Another World”. The minimalist musical score fits the emptiness of the human heart and the world’s desolation which is stirred up only by the greedy companies, despite the fact that humans went to 8 or 9 different planets/worlds and are dying out. In the end, is the happiness that technology gives us “real” or “fake”? There is some existential and philosophical gestures in the movie, especially on the premise of Joi who’s following the agent K or, rather, Joe.
I also endlessly enjoyed some of the gimmicks, too, such as the Sony’s Jukebox that plays an audiophile level audio followed by the holographic image of the old video, possibly from some internet database. Apparently, some technology, despite it’s old age, didn’t eventually fade out as it’s common with the CDs, VHS and other types of recording media which may get demagnetized or corroded/disintegrated in some other way.
I keep imagining what a great value such a device might’ve had from the timeline perspective of the film’s events themselves. The song was a common evergreen piece by Frank Sinatra called One for my Baby and the holographic image portrayed Frank’s live gig at Royal Festival Hall in London. This is particularly interesting since knowing what audiophiles the Japanese people actually are their choice for leisure are often either Jazz and/or common evergreen songs, mostly the songs referring to the Los Angeles. As someone who’s into audiophile level music for personal enjoyment, this particular gimmick was ever so fun to observe and made the film so much better in my opinion since it portrayed something to realistically plausible, yet so distant and yearn-inducing. Almost like that little special thing that people usually dream of possessing, yet somehow lose from the grip of their hands once they wake up
Blade Runner 2049 is definitely not just another movie down the line and it really hit all the piano notes for me. It’s practically everything a SciFi lad could ask for in the modern age and I appreciate that it’s something of a discussion piece per se.