>The highly stylized 1982 science-fiction film Blade Runner was probably an influence on 2046, Wong Kar-wai’s wondrous, poetic art-movie investigation into a science-fiction writer’s romantic history with several women. Now it appears that 2046 has, in turn, influenced the reboot of remake-crazy Hollywood’s Blade Runner, which appends a random date to its otherwise pointless title: “Blade Runner 2049.” Here, the conflict between human police and replicants (rogue robots who long to be human) gets replayed by K (Ryan Gosling), an officer whose trek into the future’s vast wastelands repeats the same mission — and the same turquoise-tinted miasma — depicted in the original film. Once again, the job is to terminate unruly replicants, but this time they must stop an impending revolution. The replicants in Blade Runner 2049 present no political allegory (unless panic-stricken viewers see Antifa clones — inhuman despoilers of liberty — under every bed), but their conflict with K revives a problem that already existed in the first film, based on Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?: The man-vs.-robot concept is banal except to those who admire Dick’s dystopian fantasy as prophecy.
The highly stylized 1982 science-fiction film Blade Runner was probably an influence on 2046, Wong Kar-wai’s wondrous...
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>There is a political problem when sci-fi fantasy trivializes technological complexity (whether social media or artificial intelligence) and then makes matters of intercommunication and self-knowledge, such as K’s internal crisis, a tiresome predicament. Hollywood fails its social and artistic purpose. Yet something about Blade Runner appeals to the imagination of sci-fi fans who can’t get enough of it and to filmmakers such as Wong and now director Denis Villeneuve, who get caught up in its chic, mysterious clichés.
>In Blade Runner 2049, dystopia fatigue is unavoidable: Pollution and culture-mixing of whites, blacks, Asians, and Latinos still plague mankind’s future, although K takes it all in stride (in his flying patrol car). K is so hopelessly alienated that his only relief is to employ a hologram, Joi (pouty Ana de Armas), who willingly goes from domestic servant to sex worker. In the most interesting stunt, Joi and a hooker-spy named Luv (Sylvia Hoeks) form an interlink to dupe K into simulating physical intimacy. But this disingenuous scene will disappoint anyone who remembers how Wong’s 2046 delved into desire, sexuality, and personal ethics through a man’s sensual recalling of his troubled love life (plus the passionate, unforgettable performances by Tony Leung, Ziyi Zhang, Gong Li, and Faye Wong). To depict human sexuality less sensitively than Wong does (and as simplemindedly as in Ex Machina) minimizes Blade Runner’s poetic potential, and it doesn’t enlarge Villeneuve’s artistic potential, either.
>one week ago, people were saying armond would like the new blade runner because he likes villeneuve
Le contrarian negro
>Look at the failure in cultural terms: Ridley Scott’s reputation was made 35 years ago by Blade Runner’s canny mix of sci-fi and film-noir nostalgia. Its story roused anxiety about the past and future as embodied by replicant-hunter Deckard — Harrison Ford, direct from Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark, in his first major adult role.
>The illusion of zeitgeist seriousness was based primarily on the visual extravagance Scott learned from his work as an advertising wizard. That first nighttime cityscape of a despoiled, rain-drenched Los Angeles was breathtaking, like a dense, upside-down vision of a faraway galaxy. Scott made the basic detective plot sumptuous and visually textured. He furnished aesthetic surprises in the retro/futurist design, and either pathos or tragedy in the hunted-down replicants themselves — Sean Young’s teary Rachael, Daryl Hannah’s muscular Pris, Joanna Cassidy’s voluptuous Zhora, and Rutger Hauer as the platinum blond arch-replicant Roy Batty, who, like the most compelling film-noir villains, seemed a projection of the hero’s dark side, given fallen-angel profundity in a poetic farewell speech.
>Yet Blade Runner’s legacy was trashed by Scott himself when he authorized a “director’s cut” that repudiated the film’s poignancy by making Deckard just another replicant. I saw Scott confess his hypocrisy at a Museum of Modern Art tribute from the advertising industry — he renounced any artistic commitment to the film and upheld the prerogative of studio executives who altered the narrative simply to exploit additional sales.
>Blade Runner 2049’s problem stems from more than its nearly three-hour length. It starts with director Villeneuve, a once-promising surveyor of political and spiritual matters (Incendies, Prisoners, Sicario) who is now taking his place in the long history of hackdom, alongside Scott. Villeneuve does nothing with K’s initial thought: “To be born is to have a soul, I guess.” The impassive Gosling lacks the existential cool needed to carry that “soul” line. He’s told, “You’ve never seen a miracle.” But K’s human–replicant opposition, staged as a loud, brutal fight with Dave Bautista as a scarily imposing replicant, doesn’t answer that challenge. Scott made Blade Runner look miraculous; but, except for a couple of extraordinary images (falling snow melting in the palm of K’s calloused hand and a pet dog watching as drones carry his master off into the distance), Villeneuve never strikes the moral terror that has distinguished his best films.
>When K’s encounter with Ford’s Deckard finally occurs, Villeneuve forfeits the emotional power of the parent-child reunion one expects for a series of ridiculous last-minute hazards. This ending is cheap. When a subsidiary character announces, “There’s a bit of every artist in their work,” it doesn’t justify Villeneuve selling out his usual grasp toward profundity. (The subplot of an underground revolution led by Hiam Abbass as a one-eyed radical evokes Incendies, but it’s a frustrating distraction.)
>Because Villeneuve has submitted to Scott’s director’s-cut pseudo-profundity, he loses the chance to make Blade Runner 2049 mean something in the current moral upheaval, in which dystopia and the distance between humans and apparatchiks are everyday realities. Ultimately, Villeneuve’s sequel is more ultra-hack Scott than visionary Wong. Blade Runner’s awesomeness is gone.
>Why isn't this movie more political?
lel what a hack
He prefers the theatrical cut of Blade Runner shows what a pleb this guy is. And liking transformers and BVS does not make you a contrarian.
>I don't understand complex sentences and therefore make erroneous assumptions regarding the meaning thereof
lrrn2read
>Ultimately, Villeneuve’s sequel is more ultra-hack Scott than visionary Wong. Blade Runner’s awesomeness is gone.
What's wrong with this guy?
NO NO NO HE WAS SUPPOSED TO LIKE IT SO I COULD SPAM Sup Forums BTFO REEEE
He's a fucking hack who didnt understand that gosling and ford was NOT a child reunion
...
are you stupid? he's says the scene when K meets Deckard was intended to have the same power of a child being reunited with his father but fails miserably
Why can't people ever counter his reviews?
>almond
>detailed reason why he likes or doesn't like a film
>some mouth bathing /r/movies pleb
>MOVIE SUX, KINOO, BASED __
Isn't the same guy who wrote that Hot Fuzz is garbage while Jack&Jill is a modern comedy masterpiece? He's like the definition of contrarianism
I didn't know about 2046. Seems interesting, but can't find any torrents for it. Could anyone post a magnet link?
don't bother; you won't like it
lmao half of this review is just straight up trashing on Ridley Scott
Why is he wrong? Give us a detailed explanation that counters what he's said about both
How does he always write what I think? Am I me or Armond?
yeaaaaah yeaaah!
Will Sup Forumstards ever recover?
black gay contrarian pleb cinephile detected
>It starts with director Villeneuve, a once-promising surveyor of political and spiritual matters (Incendies, Prisoners, Sicario) who is now taking his place in the long history of hackdom, alongside Scott.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH. /ourguy/. Sup Forums right again.
Armond LOVES Arrival while Sup Forums doesn't.
Bump you fucking tasteless imdbdora
He also loves Sicario it seems. /ourhack/
>Why is he wrong? Give us a detailed explanation that counters what he's said about both
MUH POINT-BY-POINT REBUUTAHLS!!!!
There you have it
This is the type of low iq reddit movie buff that praises blade runner 2
But reddit loves point by point rebuttals?
Sup Forums here, armond is one of us
See what I mean? He even admits himself he's from there
CELLS
Bump again
It's weird how redditrunners are ignoring his review even though they claimed Sup Forums was going to be blown out by it
INTERLINKED
OUR GUY!
>culture-mixing of whites, blacks, Asians, and Latinos still plague mankind’s future
>culture-mixing of whites, blacks, Asians, and Latinos still plague mankind’s future
wtf im literally shaking
Based
>Armond White is MegaAutist
it suddenly all makes sense
Was just about to say the same thing
For once, he's wrong.
Villenueve was always a hack.
This is true
True. Deakins should practically be created as co director in most of his crap.
where is he bros
doesn't he like Edgar Wright?
He deserves it too. I mean, it's not too subtle
>"I saw Scott confess his hypocrisy at a Museum of Modern Art tribute from the advertising industry"
but Scott deserves it because he is ultimately a heartless publicity-making machine. Maybe it's why the first Blade Runner worked out so well. But it's definitely why he's produced so little of substance since.
griffin is primitive filmmaking and he does not deserve to be called the best
Why would you need in. After all,
YOU ARE HERE
Thanks Vlad! Tell me more about what "Red Pilled" sources I should trust. I know I'm supposed to trust contrarian negro, breitbart, and Russia Today. Anything else so I can be fully red pilled?
he likes Hot Fuzz honey child
>The replicants in Blade Runner 2049 present no political allegory
doesn't try to, you reaching fuck
>There is a political problem when sci-fi fantasy trivializes technological complexity
again, there's nothing trivial about a future with total corporate domination of the human mind by being able to tell JOY itself
>In the most interesting stunt, Joi and a hooker-spy named Luv (Sylvia Hoeks) form an interlink to dupe K into simulating physical intimacy.
the fuck is this shit? he's blatantly getting details of the movie wrong and mixing up characters, has someone called him out on this yet?
you can't be parading this shit so smugly if it gets basic details wrong
>does nothing with K’s initial thought: “To be born is to have a soul, I guess.
>does nothing
it's present throughout the whole movie...
to the point where the movie straight up bring up the idea of being ' a real boy'
Half of what he's saying shows he just misunderstood so much of what was going on right in front of him it's pointless to aruge
Be more specific.
he's blatantly twisting shit in this review of blade runner, its hard to argue against exactly because when he actually happens to mention actual details of the movie he gets them wrong
so he's already wrong yet all of his 'thoughts' are presented as 'insight' even while being completely baseless
lmao
>if you don't provide an three page essay addressing this 5-page review on this anonymous image board then that means Armond is right!
I like Armond but he always gets the basic shit wrong in his reviews. He did same thing in his review of Good Times.