YMMV / Blade Runner 2049

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• Accidental Aesop:
  • The environment is a bigger issue than people realize and if you're ignoring it to focus on individual issues then the entire thing is likely to collapse when you're not looking.
  • Poverty is a huge social ill that is going to continue destroying lives even in a future of What Measure Is a Non-Human? technology.
  • Assuming Joi is Just a Machine, you can view a message of the movie as, "Don't ignore real women for your fantasy video game girl."
  • Stop trying to focus on being unique and important. Being just one of many is actually a good thing. There's even online essays about this.
• Applicability: As mentioned above in Accidental Aesop, K looking for a reason to feel special while also confiding in an artificial intelligence designed to comfort lonely people serves as a great exploration of the relationship between advanced technology and humanity's growing loneliness and sense of purposelessness, which is especially relevant in the age of social media, what with the rising levels of depression, loneliness, and self-hatred because of it. Furthermore, the concept of Joi does not seem surprising at all when taking into account pornography addiction and adult webcam sites where patrons (usually male) can pay the cam models/streamers for sexual requests or mere attention.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Just how much does Joi genuinely love K? An argument can be made that, as an advanced A.I. programmed to "say everything you wanted to hear", means that most interactions between the two are just simply Joi trying to satisfy K's needs, up to and including a Three-Way Sex where she allows K to hire a local prostitute to act as a 'stand-in' for her. However, there are also scenes that suggest that she develops actual feelings for K instead of just following her directives as well. She seems very enthusiastic when K bought her an advanced mobile emitter that allows her to go anywhere she wants and interact with the world around her. Later in the movie, she begs K, against his objections, to transfer her personality into the mobile emitter entirely then destroy her original system in his apartment so that it cannot be used to track him down, even if it means that she's at the risk of being 'killed' permanently if the emitter is destroyed. She frantically tries to wake K up after his vehicle crashed before the scavengers overwhelm him, and her last words before she is destroyed by Luv is telling K that she loves him. But then, K later has a conversation with a holographic advertisement of Joi, in which she uses several of the same affectionate words and phrases his own Joi did, reinforcing how she's programmed to love him, but then again, the holographic Joi is an advertisement made specifically to attract each individual customer and technically not the same 'Joi' that knows K personally. And given how a Replicant's emotions and human responses come mostly from fake childhood memories programmed in their brain, is the A.I. feelings that different?
    • Even more so since we know that Replicants can move beyond their programming, as we see with Roy Batty and the others in the original, as well as the replicants in this film that are slowly developing a resistance. If the Replicants can move beyond programming, what's not to say that Joi and other A.I. programs couldn't?
    • It's worth noting that Joi's use of specific phrases and pet names comes from before Joi asks K to break the antenna in her emitter. Sure, Giant Naked Joi isn't the same Joi, but she is a targeted advertisement almost certainly using data in the cloud and customer-identification capability. Just imagine what advertisers do today with non-sci-fi technology, and extrapolate it to a corporate dystopia where problems like building hard-AI, natural language use, and visual recognition are completely solved.
    • A case can be made that Joi is literally just an AI who becomes an extreme version Talking to Themself is tied to the entire last portion of the movie and K's arc. Given the ending the timing with him encountering the giant naked Joi soon after K discovers that he was not the miracle offspring of Deckard and Rachel it plays into the theme that all along K was the The Unchosen One who deep down desperately wanted to be The Chosen One. Joi was just echoing his repressed desires when she kept driving at him being the child. In the end the emotions she showed were just K's own desires for companionship which he could never really get from either humans or other replicant's due to what he is and what he did as a Blade Runner. With these reveals it was enough to push him to his decision to save Deckard and reunite him with his child instead of just selfishly running or trying to kill Deckard as the Pro-Replicant army had asked him to do to keep Ana safe. Throughout the movie he either did things per missions given to him or his own personal survival, at the end he did something that was neither mission nor in anyway for his own benefit because he realized his place in the whole thing and wanted to do what he felt was right.
    • When Luv attacks K in Las Vegas, Joi appears and begs Luv to stop, which then leads to Luv promptly smashing Joi's emitter and killing her. If she had stayed quiet, Joi would probably have survived, and the fact that she cried out anyway, seemingly because she couldn't bear the sight of Luv beating him, throws some serious doubt on the "Joi doesn't really love him" argument.
  • There are a number of small moments in the movie that seem to indicate that, even if she's not completely sentient, Joi does do things that go beyond mere corporate programming to satisfy his needs. When K is relaxing in Deckard's apartment after their drink together, Joi curiously kneels down to examine the plants that Deckard is growing. Notably, K has his back to her and isn't even looking in the same direction, so she's not just following his areas of interest, but clearly has some degree of independent curiosity that's not just related to him.
  • One could argue that Luv like many other Replicants, also wants to find the child for pro-Replicant reasons, and not just to help her boss build a better race of slaves. She flat-out says at one point that she is going to lie to Wallace to cover up a murder and, by extension, cover up the fact that she can be disobedient in the first place. She is visibly enraged when she thinks the child is out of reach and goes on a speciest anti-human rant about Replicants being superior when Lt. Joshi tells her the child is dead, and it is possible that she too has the memories of Ana in her head driving her to believe she can be more than "just" another Replicant, which puts her aggressive No-Holds-Barred Beatdown of K and her gloating of being "better" than him in a different context- both are driven by I Just Want to Be Special, but Luv goes to more murderous extremes because of it.
  • Consider the scene where Wallace horrifically mutilates that poor Replicant woman in front of Luv. In that scene, as well as every other time that she kills someone in the movie, Luv is shown crying, but when she's with Wallace in that scene, she looks rather subtly terrified. Wallace's line to her as he leaves ("The best angel of all...aren't you, Luv") is a clear case of emotional manipulation on his part. And not to mention how desperate she is to prove herself to Wallace, taunting K by telling him "I'm the best one", echoing Wallace's words even in a moment of mortal peril. Are her violent actions motivated by an Inferiority Superiority Complex? And moreover, is her fanatically dedicated service to Wallace an example of Undying Loyalty, or because she's actually afraid of him?
    • If so, is it because she knows that Wallace will inevitably replace her, or is it just because he's that cruel? Or both?
  • Is Ana Stelline actually the offspring of Deckard and Rachel, or is K? The film does indicate it is Ana. But while she does confirm that the memory of the wooden horse is real, she never acknowledges it to be hers. The only word we have to go on about the gender of the child is someone who has every reason to lie to protect its identity. And both Ana and K have the same eye color, which they both share with Rachel.
    • The green eyes can be explained fairly easily. Rachael and K are both replicants, so it's not unlikely that they might have the same eye colour. Since Ana is Rachael's daughter, she would likely inherit at least one of her parents' eye colour, in this case her mother's.
  • What was Luv's precise motivation for killing Joi? A deliberate act of cruelty, intended to break K's spirit? Another example of her Inferiority Superiority Complex meant to demonstrate the power she holds over K, that there's nothing he owns that she can't take away? An example of Fantastic Racism in action, since most of the other Replicants we see seem to think themselves superior to holograms/AI beings, like Joi? Jealousy motivated by her Villainous Crush on K, and anger that he loves what she considers to be an inferior being to her? Was it just because she could? Or some combination of the above?
  • In his brief cameo, Gaff appears to have gotten only more enigmatic with age. His statement that Deckard was "not long for this world" and use of the Replicant euphemism "retired" seems to suggest that he still at least believed Deckard was a Replicant whether or not this was actually the case, but many fans have taken it at face value that Gaff is a Secret-Keeper protecting the secret of Deckard and Rachael, supported by his famous "it's too bad she won't live" line. Does he actually believe Deckard is dead, or does he know that he's still alive in Vegas, and is flat-out lying to K's face to protect Deckard? If he is protecting Deckard and Rachael, does he know about their child? And was he possibly even a member of the Replicant resistance? After all, since we have no idea how many people were involved in protecting Ana other than Freysa, Deckard, and Sapper Morton, it's quite possible that Gaff could have assisted them- and it would have been very helpful to have a currently serving Blade Runner keeping the others away from going after the AWOL Deckard. If Deckard's job was "scramble the records and leave", Gaff's job could have been "stay behind and look the other way." Again, much like the original, no matter the extent of his knowledge, we still have no idea what his motivation is for doing anything he does.
    • Furthermore, is the line "something in his eyes" confirmation that Deckard is a Replicant? After all, Replicants are detected by scanning their eyes.
  • A number of fans have noted a very small moment during Deckard's conversation with Wallace. When Deckard leans forward to ask "You don't have children, do you?" Wallace very slightly recoils, almost as if he's afraid of Deckard.
  • Ana's tearful reaction to K's breakdown. Genuine empathy for a very distraught person, or guilt over knowingly turning him into her decoy? Perhaps she put her real memory into circulation to turn at least one Replicant into her decoy, but she didn't expect her victim to actually come to her doorstep and show her the consequences of her action.
    • For that matter, why do Ana give her real memory to Replicants? It could be for malicious reason as stated above, but could it be that she genuinely believes doing so would make them happier, thinking that they are real people all along? If that's the case, it's possible that her tearful reaction is due to a realization that her plan completely backfired and ruined the lives of these Replicants instead.
• Alternate Aesop Interpretation:
  • Some fans have interpreted it that nobody is actually important and trying to think you're better than anyone else is a recipe for disaster.
  • Others have suggested the movie has the message of "stop focusing on Misery Poker for one group and focus on problems for all humanity", since the movie showed that not only Replicants were suffering, but the poverty-ridden in general, while also showing the environment is completely destroyed.
  • The film's depiction of women qualifies as well. Perhaps owing to its relatively detached, clinical narrative style, viewers have disagreed whether the film should be read as an endorsement or a critical view of its setting's obvious misogyny. For his part, director Denis Villeneuve has stated he had no such intention, but others may consider Death of the Author to apply. This is discussed in much further detail under Broken Base.
• Award Snub: Although the movie did quite well at the Academy Awards, picking up five nominations and two wins, many were angered that Denis Villeneuve was passed over for Best Director despite the nearly impossible task ahead of him. Similarly, Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch failed to get a Best Original Score nomination for their dense, atmospheric and moody compositions that paid homage to Vangelis' legendary work without ever copying it wholesale.
  • Thankfully averted with cinematographer Roger Deakins, who finally won the Oscar for this movie after 13 previous nominations with no wins.
• Awesome Music: See here.
• Broken Base: The film's portrayal of women is a source of division. The film is at times extremely Male Gaze-y, and its setting is unambiguously misogynistic (as was that of the original, but 2049 arguably takes this further), with women mostly being relegated to roles of sex workers, victims, or "holographic housewives", but there's disagreement over whether the film steps over into endorsing the misogyny of its setting. For his part, director Denis Villeneuve says that it is not intended to do so: "Blade Runner is not about tomorrow; it's about today. And I'm sorry, but the world is not kind on women." Some of the film's defenders have argued that the film can be read as a parable about fertility, perhaps comparable in some ways to The Handmaid's Tale or Children of Men — its villain, Niander Wallace, is obsessed with fertility, essentially "consumed by rage that women can do something he cannot", as Helen Lewis argued in the New Statesman:

  "Fertility is the perfect theme for the dystopia of Blade Runner 2049, because of the western elite anxiety that over-educated, over-liberated women are having fewer children, or choosing to opt out of childbearing altogether ... Feminism is one potential solution to this problem: removing the barriers which make women feel that motherhood is a closing of doors. Another is to take flight, and find another exploitable class to replace human females ... Maybe androids don't dream of electric sheep, but some human men certainly dream of electric wombs."

  • Writing in Moviepilot, meanwhile, Rachael Kaines argues that the theme of the entire setting is that of "second-class citizens. Replicants. Orphans. Women. Slaves. Just by depicting these secondary citizens in subjugation doesn't mean that it is supportive of these depictions - they are a condemnation." (Kaines' interpretation is arguably in keeping with Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? as well, as Dick intended society's dehumanisation of androids to have applicability to all forms of societal oppression; the novel was explicitly constructed as a deconstruction of the mindset that produced the Holocaust, but due to Dick's subtlety, many readers missed his intended meaning.) Despite these defences, the film's portrayal of its female characters and some of its plot elements (particularly the violence against women) remains a point of contention, and women overall seem to have responded less readily to the film, which may have been a factor in its relatively middling box office performance.
• Complete Monster: Niander Wallace is a corporate executive who fancies himself a godly figure. Producing Replicants as slave labor, Wallace intends to find a way to breed them infinitely so as to have the best labor force, demonstrating his control over them by forcing one Replicant to slit its own throat. Later brutally killing a newly made Replicant to make a point, Wallace has his adjunct Luv torture and kill any in her way to find the naturally born daughter of Rick Deckard and the Replicant Rachael. Later offering Deckard a new Rachael, Wallace kills her before dropping any hint at affability and sending Deckard off to be tortured for information.
• Cry for the Devil: A number of viewers found themselves feeling unexpectedly sorry for Luv given the amount of her service to Wallace, namely that she has no choice but to watch him murder other Replicants just for kicks and lead his crusade that, if successful, will lead only to her being rendered obsolete. And almost a literal example of this trope, given that Luv cries on several occasions.
• Even Better Sequel: Some critics came to the extent to consider this movie as even better than the original. Opinion among ordinary moviegoers is decidedly more mixed.
• Evil Is Cool:
  • Luv has gained quite a few fans on account of being a ruthless and even terrifying Dark Action Girl, who kills tons of people but practically oozes style in the process.
  • Niander Wallace is a merciless, unfeeling Corrupt Corporate Executive but is well-liked for his creepily stylish appearance, incredibly high-class threads and office and Jared Leto's extremely unsettling performance.
• Fanfic Fuel: Joshi sends K a slideshow of five other replicant soldiers who deserted with Sapper, but none of them show up again, even with the resistance, making it interesting to wonder what kind of incognito lives they are living.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • A one-sided example with My Little Pony: The Movie (2017) of all things, as both films were released the same day with this one being cited as the reason why the former underperformed at the box-office (which is ironic, as this film hadn't really done any better).
  • More straightforward with Bright, as fans of that film don’t get along with this movie’s fans due to this being acclaimed by critics and audiences acclaimed but being a Box Office Bomb while Bright was a ratings hit despite its Vocal Minority fanbase.
  • A minor one with fans of The Force Awakens, over which movie had the better late-career performance from Harrison Ford in a sci-fi movie that hasn't had a sequel in 30 years.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • With Drive (2011), another film with Ryan Gosling as a stoic, understated protagonist in a noir Los Angeles, especially since the films have very nearly the same climax. Plenty of "Real Human Bean" jokes have been made about K since the film came out.
  • Fans of this movie often get along surprisingly well with fans of Mad Max: Fury Road, with both films being long-awaited sequels to legendary, genre-defining science fiction films, that came out after thirty years in Development Hell. Not to mention that both received overwhelmingly positive reviews despite the seemingly-impossible bar that was set by their predecessors, and both made extensive use of Practical Effects to create their dystopian futures.
  • With Cyberpunk: Edgerunners for both being well-received entries in the cyberpunk genre, and for the similarities between David and K's struggles with their humanity.
• He's Just Hiding: It's possible to wonder if Joi survives Luv stomping on her hologram emitter, given how it doesn't look too broken after the stomping.
• Genius Bonus:
  • The character name Ana Stelline is a pun on anastellin, a human antiangiogenic peptide.
  • One for those aware of Philip K. Dick's original influences; Niander Wallace is most likely intended to be a stand-in for the Demiurge, a malevolent creator figure with delusions of godhood that, despite its delusions, can create only imperfect, material things and bring suffering to those under its thrall.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: While 2049 lost its first place at the weekly US box office quite rapidly, it's enjoyed greater success in Denis Villeneuve's native Québec, where it maintained first place at the local box office for three weeks.
• He Really Can Act:
  • Dave Bautista gets the opportunity to show off an emotional range that he's never had the chance to demonstrate before.
  • After his first role as the Joker had mixed results, Jared Leto manages to prove here that he can deliver a rather creepy performance as a Corrupt Corporate Executive who fancies himself a god.
  • A downplayed case with Ryan Gosling, as some of his other recent roles had already helped raise his reputation as an actor, but some critics have cited this as one of his best performances to date, if not his best.
  • Even more downplayed with Harrison Ford, his stature as an actor is unquestionable, but many viewers admitted to being surprised by the impressive depth and complexity of his performance as Deckard in this film, despite his limited screentime, especially considering the accusations of Dull Surprise that have been frequently made regarding his acting in the first film.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Mackenzie Davis' casting in Terminator: Dark Fate, in which Linda Hamilton is supposed to reprise her role, means this movie won't be the last time Davis appears in a newer installment of a long-running sci-fi franchise that began in The '80s, will feature the original movie's star returning to the role many years later, and centers around humanlike, violent robots... as a bonus, Davis plays a cyborg in Terminator, when Blade Runner has her as an Artificial Human, who mocks K by saying "You don't like real girls".
• I Knew It!: When Ryan Gosling was announced as the new main character, it was universally assumed that he would be portraying a new LAPD Blade Runner. The official synopsis released in December 2016 confirmed this. A good number of people also guessed that he was a Replicant.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: K's a Replicant. Although a carefully guarded secret prior to the film's release, good luck trying to find someone discussing the movie nowadays without mentioning that fact, considering it's an essential, fundamental aspect of his story and character that largely drives his role in the plot (and is revealed in the first five minutes of the movie, no less)...
• Memetic Mutation:
  • A still image of Ryan Gosling's face after being accidentally punched by Harrison Ford◊ made the rounds on the internet, as both of of their expressions were priceless.
  • The scene of the giant pink Joi hologram leaning down to talk to K has widely become ripe for photoshop fodder.
  • "CELLS" and "INTERLINKED" became popular on 4chan, specifically /tv/.
  • "Not even close to baseline" has become a new way of saying "feels bad man" online.
  • Screenshots◊ of K's violent Freak Out when he visits Ana Stelline's lab are very popular as a reaction image, with one variant of the meme captioning his face with "I'M SO LONELY AND HORNY".
  • The image of K lying down on the stairs in the snow at the end of the film, usually used to indicate depression. Another 4chan addition is repeatedly adding more and more Goslings to the scene as additional posters remark their agreement at whatever depressive or lonely post the first guy made.
• Misaimed Fandom: The whole point of Joi's character (arguably) is that no matter how appealing she might be, an artificial woman is no substitute for real love (probably). It didn't stop the dozens of fans who left the theater thinking "I want one", probably on account of her being playing by Ana de Armas.
• Moral Event Horizon: If you thought Luv hadn't crossed it with her brutal murder of Lieutenant Joshi, then her crushing Joi's emitter to eliminate her will definitely do the trick. Her other acts of violence, while not morally justifiable, could at least be explained as aligning with her mission; this last one, however, appears to have been done for no other reason than pure, sadistic cruelty.
• Narm: K casually bursting through a marble stone wall like a cartoon character while chasing Deckard is a bit too much of a Mood Whiplash for a scene meant to be tense.
• Narm Charm: Niander Wallace is so Obviously Evil that some of his dialogue borders on the cartoonish (e.g. "You do not know what pain is... you will learn"), but Jared Leto sells the hell out of it so convincingly that the character is both charismatic and terrifying.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Jared Leto as Niander Wallace, who only has two scenes but completely sells his unnervingly alien god complex.
  • Bautista's Sapper Morton is only in the introductory scene but plays a fairly plot-important role pretty well. The subsequent backstory we hear afterward on Sapper only adds to it.
  • The poor Replicant woman who Wallace kills appears only in that single scene and has no dialogue, but she's so pitiable and her death so cruelly unnecessary that she leaves a serious impact.
  • The aggressively harsh, sardonic, unseen interrogator who torments K with a barrage of emotionally manipulative questions as part of his baseline test.
  • Lennie James as the slimy orphanage director Mister Cotton.
  • Edward James Olmos' cameo as Gaff in a retirement home, still doing origami.
  • Frequent scene-stealer Tómas Lemarquis shows up as an overly cheery File Clerk who helps K get some information.
  • Barkhad Abdi as a friendly black-market dealer who only talks in Cityspeak.
• Sci Fi Ghetto: Triumphantly averted, with five Academy Award nominations and Roger Deakins finally winning his Cinematography award for the film's absolutely gorgeous cinematography. Shame about Villeneuve not being nominated, though.
• Signature Scene:
  • The giant naked Joi hologram leaning down to point at K has quickly become the film's iconic image. The fact that the scene is arguably the emotional center of the movie helps a lot. If history repeats itself, it might become the equivalent of the original film's scenes of the giant advertisements with the smiling geisha.
  • K Suddenly Shouting at the memory facility as he discovers his memories might be true.
• Squick:
  • Continuing the eye motif of the original film, we get a lovely shot of K washing Sapper's removed eyeball off in the sink. Yay.
  • The "artificial food" that Sapper grows and K is shown eating. Maggots are involved.
  • Coco's horrific death, when Luv punches him in the back of the head so hard that his mouth and eyes start welling up with blood as he chokes to death on his own tongue.
  • Everything about Wallace's interaction with the newborn replicant, from him wiping the gooey-clay like material from her naked body while creepily whispering "Happy birthday", to the kiss he gives her right before slicing her lower abdomen open and letting her bleed to death.
• Supercouple: Although it's left up to the viewers' interpretation how much she actually loves him (or is capable of loving him), people really love K and Joi together, despite (or maybe even because of) the fact that they're both (supposed to be) emotionless machines incapable of loving each other and they're both dead. Also helps that their respective actors are both gorgeous and have great chemistry.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Luv appears to feel deeper emotions than replicants should, and she seems to be conflicted about the things Wallace has her do, based on the quiet tears she sheds on several occasions. However, absolutely nothing is done to explore this aspect of her character further.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Audiences are clearly supposed to see Luv as a Jerkass Woobie, with moments of her in tears meant to show how she’s forced into villainy and has no choice but to carry out Wallace’s killings. However, this is undercut by her pointlessly cruel murder of Joi. Unlike her other kills, this action is completely unnecessary, and no matter your reasoning, it’s clearly a vile act born out of pettiness. The sheer needlessness of it can make it hard to feel anything for Luv crying over her other acts of villainy, as the one time when she unambiguously has no directive to kill, she chooses to do so without hesitation anyway. Also contrasting with the attempts to make her seem Forced into Evil is how she's all too happy to trash talk K and boast about her superiority, implying she enjoys what she's not moping over it. There's also the scene where she mortally wounds Coco and leaves him to slowly die instead of ending his suffering, even casually stepping over his body as if he's no concern to her. There was no reason for that beyond cruelty and apathy.
• Visual Effects of Awesome:
  • The visuals from the first trailer alone are incredible, turning the Chiaroscuro Cyberpunk aesthetics of the original film up to eleven with modern visual effects and CGI. Furthermore, the film is lensed by famed veteran cinematographer Roger Deakins, and it pays off big time. So much so he finally won an Oscar for his work!
  • They apparently didn't use a lot of CGI. Ryan Gosling and Villeneuve state that they only used four greenscreens for the entire production and a good 80% of the film was done practically. The LAPD headquarters, the ruined cities and Niander Wallaces building? All scale models and miniatures! The deserted background of Las Vegas as Rick Deckard and Officer K talk? A matte painting. The famous shot of K walking slowly through the desert? A combination of a gigantic set, miniatures and CGI. Here's a behind the scenes clip for proof. Visual Effects of Awesome doesn't begin to describe it.
  • The shots of Rachael were replicated through motion capture and CGI so perfectly that it was almost impossible to tell which elements were real and which elements were artificial. In fact, Deckard's memory of Rachael looked as if they'd lifted it directly from the first film. According to the head of VFX, it took an entire year to do that one scene. Needless to say, their efforts payed off.

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