The long overdue _Blade Runner_ thread

What a grand lark to STILL NOT TELL US FOR SURE if Deck is robo-Deck or not. A brilliant wheeze that, i bet Hampton Fancher was pissing himself.

It was everything I wanted it to be without knowing it. I even liked Hans Zimmer's contributions for once – much like Villeneuve himself, Zimmer and Wallfisch struck an ideal balance between homage, imitation and continuation. And Fancher managed to augur a third instalment without cheapening the plot. I'm glad I temporarily overcame my irrational, newfound – well, it's only been ten years or so… – aversion toward movies and TV series in general.

yeah i haven't been to a movie in years, that probably helped, even if my showing did get dumped in the 'little theater' rather than the big room where i saw it

Theater sound mixing is so weird now -- the second place I saw the film was way too loud, and the bass crossover was off so dialogue almost got lost in the rumble at times, but there were certain parts where the spatial mix was amazing. The scene where K's in the Las Vegas street and hears the piano was actually obvious! In my first viewing you couldn't quite hear the piano, even when he went inside and could hear Deckard playing upstairs.

There were also some parts where there was music playing from a source in the background and it really sounded as if it was coming from the corner behind the characters.

The transition scenes in the car were extra BWAAAAAAM

yeah, I actually wonder how much my enjoyment of this movie is due to seeing it on in an Imax theater which had a very good (and very loud) sound system.

A significant part of it, I'm sure, but there's nothing wrong with that. It's vision and sound, after all…

The Dolby cinema site doesn't have it listed, but the theater I saw it in that second time has Dolby Atmos, if that means a specific audio mix

I only wish I was at one of the theaters that sprays rain and smog at you. Now that's immersion!

Thank God odour simulators are still decades away.

I have very bad news for you
http://www.cj4dx.com/aboutus/aboutus.php

What a grand lark to STILL NOT TELL US FOR SURE if Deck is robo-Deck or not

yeah, this was a definite part of the discussion on the way home as i too was trying to figure out if this had actually been revealed ..

I have very bad news for you
http://www.cj4dx.com/aboutus/aboutus.php

― mh, Tuesday, October 24, 2017 4:12 PM

Oh no.

What a grand lark to STILL NOT TELL US FOR SURE if Deck is robo-Deck or not

yeah, this was a definite part of the discussion on the way home as i too was trying to figure out if this had actually been revealed ..

― mark e, Tuesday, October 24, 2017 4:13 PM

Not only that, but the mystery of the 'miracle' is further deepened by our inability to determine whether Deckard is or isn't a replicant. Well played, Mr. Fancher.

I wonder if they tried to bring david peoples back also? hes old but actually younger than fancher

oh, and i know its a small thing,
but i loved that some of the adverts still had the same vocals that have been sampled by various industrial/electronica bands ('a new world' etc)

incredibly obvious, but I appreciated the reuse of the "Tears in the Rain" song from the original

Roy Batty dying in the rain, K dying in the snow

also the thing he does several times during the film where he looks down at his hand, waves it and turns it over, is the same thing the daughter does in the holographic falling snow inside her home

And the same thing the AI girlfriend does in the rain.

did you ever look at your hand, man? like really look at it?

Robots are obsessed with precipitation, for obvious reasons.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/cYD9LtTFMPk/maxresdefault.jpg

I still get a laugh every day thinking about the scene where Deckard locks the door behind him and K runs through the wall like the Kool-Aid Man. That could have been out of a Buster Keaton movie, or Young Frankenstein.

What a grand lark to STILL NOT TELL US FOR SURE if Deck is robo-Deck or not. A brilliant wheeze that, i bet Hampton Fancher was pissing himself.

― piscesx, Tuesday, October 24, 2017

anyone who bought a ticket looking for THE ANSWER TO THIS ANCIENT MYSTERY deserves exactly what they get

yeah loved this. Watching baseball right now so will post something more extensive tomorrow.

I loved this. Just loved being immersed in it (it's to the film's credit that I, a pregnant parent of a toddler who can barely sit down without desperately needing to go to sleep, did not begin to doze off). Perhaps flagged a bit in the last 20 mins or so.
From the first shot that was in (white smoggy) daylight it was kind of refreshing yet familiar. Gosling a bit too broody though? Like there's only a couple of glimpses of the impact of what he's finding.

https://www.facebook.com/WetaWorkshop/posts/10154685746932303

Weta behind the scenes building miniature BR 2049 sets

gosling appropriately affectless for the numbing existence his character leads but yes i kind of agree, if he's a Real Boy he sure doesn't show it very often

The donkey doesn’t show what it’s feeling in Au Hasard Balthazar very much either—and it’s maybe an over the top comparison but his character’s final moments struck me as similar.

That comparison makes sense and brings to mind Descartes' relevantly wrongheaded conception of animals as automata.

It all traces back to the Drunken Boat by Arthur Rimbaud. The protagonist of that poem is an outmoded piece of technology that wanders the Earth for decades past its expiration date. So are the replicants. I actually think they lifted parts of the original screenplay's dialogue directly from the poem.

Compare this stanza:

I know the skies bursting with lightning, and the waterspouts
And the surf and the currents; I know the evening,
And dawn as exalted as a flock of doves
And at times I have seen what man thought he saw!

with Batty's speech from the original:

I've... seen things you people wouldn't believe...
Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
I watched C-Beams glitter in the dark
Near the Tannhäuser Gates.

Not to mention the 'sidereal archipelagos'. I'm not convinced, mind you, but you can add that to your dossier.

Hauer wrote those lines himself iirc

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tears_in_rain_monologue

that description of the Drunken Boat had me wracking my brain for when I'd seen a cartoon about a robot who helps throughout all of human civilisation. thought I was going mad. but it was a little story within Fargo s3.

Yeah, was going to say. "I can help!"

I finally got to see this last night. I had expected it to be good, but I'm very pleased to say that I think it's flat-out great. Sure, Villeneuve didn't craft a perfect movie, but then again, who does?
It's the first time that Gosling has impressed me as an actor - in particular, at the moment that the gigantic Joi addresses him as "Joe", and his head sinks as the last of his illusions evaporates.

CS-80-esque Vangelis-tribute sounds were terrific

Yes. There's a soundtrack-making-of on YouTube, in which Wallfisch is filmed recording a part with Zimmer's CS-80, and expertly using the pitch ribbon to achieve those trademark Vangelis slides.

Tons of great stuff here, it goes deep:

https://www.provideocoalition.com/AOTC-Bladerunner-2049

planning to attend on the 18th, will report DV's remarks

https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/3690?locale=en

thank you for your service

Rewatched the original last night; about as I remembered it, ie good and short of a classic, cuz Sean Young reminded me of Carol Burnett as Joan Crawford, and humanwise [sic] it's saved by Rutger Hauer.

The sequel -- Jesus fuck, what a soporific UGLY pile of waste. I left before Villeneuve's q&a was over. Yeah you had to dive in and make the release date, and it shows.

fair in its way, any highlights from what you saw of the q&a?

we’re in the most monotonous grey waste period of film i’ve lived through right now

Carol Burnett as Joan Crawford was a classic though no?

but intentionally funny. Young's look was risible, and her dialogue was making me roll my eyes even in the clips used in the sequel.

D.V. just had a lot of standard praise for Deakins and the effects people, and talked about how he brought in Hans Zimmer late bcz he needed a Vangelis vibe. He needs to go back to doing the stuff he did in Canada.

I'm amazed I'm not seeing more writing about the backward sexual politics of this thing, despite the foreseeable "child" countertwist.

i saw the new one over thanksgiving break (on literally the last day it was playing where my parents live) and i straight-out loved it. great movie theater movie.

ie big, loud, and ugly

yeah i'm glad i saw it in the cinema. the sound alone is just flat-out amazing. and the glitched-out nightclub scene would not have been as great on my 27-inch TV.

i can't remember if i mentioned this yet or not but i did notice jaggy pixels on the introductory text, which ironically would probably not have been visible on my TV but eh. it's weird that digital projection is still sort of shit? i also looked for ryan gosling's personality really closely but when i zoomed my eyes in real close it was just de-rezzed artifacts

I'm amazed I'm not seeing more writing about the backward sexual politics of this thing

Why invite that torrential backlash of nerdbro ragegarbl on yourself over a movie everybody will have forgotten by the time the next Star Wars movie comes out?

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/11/denis-villeneuve-blade-runner-2049-dune

Some critics accused the “world” in Blade Runner 2049 of being hostile to women.

I am very sensitive to how I portray women in movies. This is my ninth feature film and six of them have women in the lead role. The first Blade Runner was quite rough on the women; something about the film noir aesthetic. But I tried to bring depth to all the characters. For Joi, the holographic character, you see how she evolves. It’s interesting, I think.

What is cinema? Cinema is a mirror on society. Blade Runner is not about tomorrow; it’s about today. And I’m sorry, but the world is not kind on women.

There’s a sense in American cinema: you want to portray an ideal world. You want to portray a utopia. That’s good—dreams for a better world, to advocate for something better, yes. But if you look at my movies, they are exploring today’s shadows. The first Blade Runner is the biggest dystopian statement of the last half century. I did the follow-up to that, so yes, it’s a dystopian vision of today. Which magnifies all the faults. That’s what I’ll say about that.

(That first line is the interviewer)

that answer is some bullshit