Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

Rezz

Rezz

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Chris said:
Oh yeah, my girlfriend started fairly quickly to complain about the slow pace and had her head in her hands at some points. I suggested that we walk out but she stuck it out. We definitly had the bad kind of "WTF was that?" conversation afterwards and have no desire to watch the original.

I hope I'm not repeating myself but a great point I saw in a review is that the main character learns that he may be a real boy and has his first emotional reaction of the movie, leading to him almost being terminated himself by the LAPD. The next scene he has a weird replicant prostitute and hologram girlfriend threesome, it breaks the tension built up and your desire to see how he escapes his situation - because he has time to do that then can apparently just freely fly his car out to Las Vegas despite failing his baseline test. That scene should be in the movie be perhaps much earlier, when we meet the prostitute for the first time.
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Well, his boss did say that he has 48 hours and that he should leave before the hunt starts, so he sort of did have time. He plowed after work and then decided it was time to bounce. I mean I've done that a few times myself, so I definitely can't say it's not a semi-normal reaction to traumatic information.

But yeah, it definitely changed the tone of that series of scenes a bit; wasn't really "wtf" for me as much as it was "well, here's some of that implied humanity" stuff. Minus the whole him not even checking on the replicator chick and immediately just hanging out in the kitchen with his holo-girl again. The guy -really- didn't like "real" girls.
 
jayrebb

jayrebb

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amigo said:
Doing my part and going to watch it again tomorrow, taking 4-5 friends with me.
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Good man!

Trying to see it again before/during Halloween weekend in IMAX. Crossing fingers it hasn't been pulled yet. Got my ear plugs for the ending-- so no complaints this time bros!
 
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ShakyJake

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Finally got to see this this evening and haven't been reading this thread. I had no idea this was a flop at the box office.

Anyway, I enjoyed it for the most part. Probably one of the best looking films I'm seen in quite some time (and was that a CGI Rachel? Because that shit looked real with no uncanny valley). But one thing that bugs the shit out of me, and this hearkens back to one of the reasons BSG annoyed me, is that why on earth make androids/replicants human-like to the point where they have the same limitations? They can be bruised, can bleed, need to breathe (which doesn't make sense at ALL if these are used for off-world labor). And now they want them to give birth? Oh, okay. So, what's the gestitation period there? 9 months like humans? How many androids can be cranked out by a huge factory in 9 months? Zero sense.
 
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khorum

khorum

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Good point about Cylons but Replicants are organic; literally synthetic humans. They're grown in vats until they're adult-sized like that chick born in the movie. So they'd be ideal for shipping to some other planet as a frozen embryo.

Wallace was talking about producing them in the trillions to colonize millions of stars. We wouldn't fly giant replicant factories out there, too inefficient for its ratios. They'd just send them out to candidate planets as frozen embryos and have them stay frozen in orbit while robots prep the site. The idea has been bouncing around more or less in that form since Freeman Dyson thought of seedship colonization for NASA.
 
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spronk

spronk

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DenisV I think purposely stayed away from too much of the "what is the rest of the human civilization like?" in 2049, we really don't see how 99% of humanity lives. We see the equivalent of Iraq, where the left behind live in squalor. Maybe there are billions of humans and replicants living in off world colonies, and robots exist in millions of forms from tiny bots for space exploration to massive building size robots that terraform planets. Maybe the replicant nuHumanity Wallace wants to build is the equivalent of nobility, the ones that will think and shape a society of a trillion planets with many levels of slave labor robots under them.

We get a few small hints in the shorts from the "replicants were fighting other replicants in off world wars for no real purpose", the first time we see Luv she is pitching a replicant work force to an asteroid mining lady exec, and Wallace lamenting the fact that humanity has so far only colonized 9 planets.

As someone mentioned earlier, there is a great sci fi book by Charles Stross, _Saturn's Children_ about a robot hooker and the world she lives in, where humans are extinct but billions of robots still exist.
 
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Phazael

Phazael

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One thing that struck me on the second viewing:
With the exception of K/Joe, all of the replicants lament being oppressed, but are quick to shit on the computer AIs as being beneath them. Both Luv and Hookerbot specifically take a dump on Joi in various subtle ways, in particular. I thought that was a brilliant little wrinkle buried in the story, especially when you kind of consider that K is specifically fond and even concerned for his Spankman3000 (was concerned for Joi's safety) which suggests that he had a level of empathy that most in that world lacked, even prior to the events of the movie, setting him apart from most. This also suggests that their baseline test is probably not close to perfect as they think.
 
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Phazael

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ShakyJake said:
Finally got to see this this evening and haven't been reading this thread. I had no idea this was a flop at the box office.

Anyway, I enjoyed it for the most part. Probably one of the best looking films I'm seen in quite some time (and was that a CGI Rachel? Because that shit looked real with no uncanny valley). But one thing that bugs the shit out of me, and this hearkens back to one of the reasons BSG annoyed me, is that why on earth make androids/replicants human-like to the point where they have the same limitations? They can be bruised, can bleed, need to breathe (which doesn't make sense at ALL if these are used for off-world labor). And now they want them to give birth? Oh, okay. So, what's the gestitation period there? 9 months like humans? How many androids can be cranked out by a huge factory in 9 months? Zero sense.
Click to expand...

Souped up altered Replicants that are tougher than normal humans and can crank out more of themselves by standard means (instead of massive goop tanks and implanted fake memories to make them function) would be a huge step forward for colonization. Also, having the replicants be human like makes them ideal for preparing the world for its (assumed) eventual human masters. Finally, there are simply certain shitty tasks the replicants were being used for where resembling humans is essential (hookerbots, salesmen, social functionaries, ect). I think its also fairly obvious that being able to use the same tools, food, and clothing as humans makes logistics a much lower pain in the ass. Its also a lot easier to rely on organic healing over maintenance for mechanical fatigue like robots would likely have. And flesh bots (while capable of rebelling) are not something that can be hacked and reprogrammed easily like a robot army/work force might. Short version, life is cheap.

At the core, though, we know the memory implantation shit was something of a huge pain in the ass and essential to their long term operation. The film had examples of prized suppliers of the implanted memories who were getting paid big bucks simply to create them. What we don't know are all of the biological differences between the replicants and humans, beyond the enhanced strength/healing that was demonstrated. As amoral and hideous as it sounds, you could theoretically have a whole world colonized, terraformed, and populated by replicants over a couple generations, then swing by and trigger a built in biological kill switch of some sort (custom retro virus or built in suicide trigger maybe) to wipe the place clean and let regular humans move in and populate the now vacant but established infrastructure. Sounds morbid and diabolical, but looking at the Leto character, it seemed well within the realm of possibility as their plan.
 
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spronk

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People around the internet were quoting a $400m figure needed for profitability
Blade Runner 2049 falls below expectations at box office

But thats probably Alcon throwing out some bad numbers to hide revenue from investors. They took advantage of significant tax credits overseas and filmed in Hungary and the supposed $150m budget is probably not that high in actual money spent, plus Sony and Warner Bros kicked in $90m of that. Yeah, the movie's not gonna be making any profit from theaters but by the time streaming, blu rays, etc work out it'll probably do ok. Not fantastic, but not "Alcon has to shut down now" bad.
 
Royal

Royal

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Sony and Alcon each put up $90 million. That's where some of the higher budget estimates are coming from, saying that they actually did spend that much on production and that the $150 million figure getting kicked around so much is a post tax credits figure. And Alcon doesn't have many investors. They're owned by the two guys who founded it and a former big wig from FedEx. They finance most of their films the old fashioned way, thru banks.

And it goes beyond the financial aspect for Alcon. They have a relationship with Warner Brothers and they needed to establish a tent pole sort of franchise to help keep WB interested in maintaining that relationship going forward. BR2049 was their big play to do so (which by itself is something of a head scratcher, since if you're trying to set up a franchise with broad appeal why do you make this kind of movie because it clearly won't have that).
 
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Kreugen

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Tyrell was playing God, that's why replicants are "more human than human" rather than vaguely anthropomorphic robots.He wasn't building a better robot, he was building a better human.Eugenics without all of the legal and moral red tape.

Wallace was using mental conditioning to convince a superior being to accept slavery. And few people likely understood exactly how close to human the replicants really were - like calling them "skinjobs" when, as you said, they are WAY beyond that.
 
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Royal

Royal

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Not looking good for the great Asian hope.

Box Office: 'Blade Runner 2049' Bombs In China

The most damning part of that article:

The irony of all this is that the winner in China this weekend will be Warner Bros. and Skydance’s Geostorm. So essentially the Dream Factory opened Geostorm in China on the same day as the other movie that they were merely distributing in North America. It’s a strange circumstance, even if it somewhat makes sense. Anyway, the poorly-reviewed Gerard Butler disaster adventure topped the box office in China on Friday, earning $10.1 million (including online ticketing fees).

Where the hell is that meteor at already? I hope it's in the mood for Chinese takeout.
 
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Big Phoenix

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China really is the worst. Not only do they encourage Hollywood to make shittier movies, they force Hollywood to write needlessly cast chinese characters or add in chinese locations/themes in movies.

I honestly shocked Blade Runner was even released there without either of the above in it.
 
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spronk

spronk

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Blade runner 2069: Shanghai Knights starring Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker as replicant detectives sent to the chinese colony of Peaceful Harmony to investigate the case of an asian replicant sex bot murdered by a gwailo (white devil)
 
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