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Death by Franchise (a Blade Runner 2049 review — No spoilers)

As I said in my review of The Mountain Between Us, which I knew no-one was really going to care about except for me, I saw the big movie everyone cared about yesterday too and of course I’m going to review it as well. So lets talk about My Little Pony.

Oh, that’s not the movie that everyone is curious about? It’s Blade Runner 2049? FINE! Be that way. (I promise, no spoilers here)

Ok, actually I didn’t see My Little Pony this weekend. I did in fact go to Blade Runner 2049. I was too tired to write up the review last night and figured I’d wait til the morning. I’m actually pretty glad I did. Because that allows me to address something that sort of surprised me, but probably shouldn’t have. Namely, that no one went to go see it.

Ok, not no one. It is going to be the highest grossing movie the box office this week, but it’s going to miss its mark by a lot. It was looking to clear about $50million. It looks like it might come in under $30M. Steph and I went to see it last night and there were a lot of empty seats for a Friday night. A whole lot of empty seats really. Way more than I was expecting.

And I’m pretty sure it was way more than Hollywood was expecting too. Because I think the problem is that in 2017, Hollywood is so addicted to the idea of extending existing IP into marketable franchises, that they forgot one very important detail. NO ONE FUCKING LIKED THE ORIGINAL BLADE RUNNER WHEN IT FIRST CAME OUT. Seriously! The original Blade Runner was produced on a $28M budget. And it managed to gross … drumroll please… $27M domestically. And an additional $6million overseas. That’s it. Yes, it was 35 years ago and that’s more money than it sounds like now, but it’s still a box office failure. Blade Runner LOST money!

So clearly the right thing to do is wait 35 years and bump the budget up an extra $150M and see what happens?

What? That’s crazy, you say? Why would anyone give an extra $150M to a movie that no one really cared about in the 1980s and wait 35 years to make it? Well, if you had that thought, maybe you should be working as a Hollywood producer in charge of green lighting pictures. Because, apparently no one there did.

It probably seems like I don’t like Blade Runner. That’s wrong. I fucking love it. I love it so much that I have the BluRay boxed set which has like five different versions of the movie, and comes with a collectible scale model of Deckard’s car (which my wife doesn’t understand why I keep sealed in the box rather than taking it out to play with or put on a shelf because she’s some kind of savage). I loved the original movie. And I liked this one a lot (may need to see it again to see if grows on me even more). So what went wrong?

Well, I’m not the viewing public. And neither are the rest of the critics on the Internet.

The original Blade Runner is a hard movie to watch. It really is. It’s slow and complex and convoluted and really doesn’t make a fuck ton of sense. It’s also amazing and innovative. It is visually gorgeous. It’s a film that changed the sci-fi industry. It changed the film industry. It changed cinematography and special effects. It’s a film that I have studied in film classes, screen writing classes, literature classes and cultural studies classes. In many ways it’s a masterpiece. And in many ways, that basically makes it school work.

People don’t like schoolwork.

Except, sometimes, when something becomes important enough it gets lucky… and over 35 years it develops enough prestige that it gets a cult following, and then people do like it. That’s Blade Runnner. The first one. And maybe, in 2052, that will be this one too. Maybe. It’s not there yet.

And that’s the thing. People weren’t really clamoring for a sequel to Blade Runner. At least not a lot of people. There were some loud people. But those are the hardcore sci-fi fans. These are the people who are going to see any sci-fi film anyway. What you need, if you want to justify a $185million budget, is to get in regular people. People who just want to enjoy an evening at the movies and not work so hard. Yes, the first film is a science fiction film and maybe that makes it feel like a Hollywood blockbuster. But it isn’t. It’s an artistic thought piece and exercise in intellectual film making. And it’s one that doesn’t actually have a built-in audience of nostalgia fans the way the Star Wars or Star Trek franchises do. Turning Blade Runner into a franchise and expecting it to be successful at the level that justifies that budget makes as much sense as throwing $185M at Roshomon or Battleship Potemkin. And if you’re asking yourself “what the fuck are those?!?!” then I have two answers for you: “they’re brilliant” and “exactly!”

As for the movie itself? Well, like the original film, it tries to do a lot. And in fact it succeeds and doing a lot. But in trying to live up to it’s own legend, it maybe tried to do too much for the forum that it had to exist in.

Goal #1: It had to be part of the franchise and capitalize on the nostalgia of the first film, because it’s 2017 and apparently that’s what we fucking do now. This is the place where it probably failed the hardest. Mostly because, as I pointed out, there really ISN’T any franchise nostalgia for Blade Runner. The people who are the biggest fans of it are actually film and hard sci-fi fans who don’t care about that. So the film tries to manufacture it by Rogue Oneing it. In particular there are two cameos in this film that just don’t belong there. One at least sorta kinda makes plot sense. The other, which seems like it’s there just to make ME specifically excited… just doesn’t work at all. It is totally inconsequential, other than to say “hey, remember this… from the Blade Runner? Have some more Blade Runner in your Blade Runner. We’re Blade Runnering this shit up, yo!” This is not that kind of movie. It didn’t need it. Both could have just been removed.

Goal #2: Be an interesting thought piece that uses hard science fiction to comment on the world around us. This worked a lot better. In fact, I was really engaged in the storyline. One of the things this does really well is extend the themes of the first movie (consumerism, fear of technology, the nature of humanity, capitalism and government run amuck) by exploring it with NEW plot lines instead of just rehashing the old ones. In particular the main plot line, while related to the first film, is really its own thing that kind of boldy goes in its own direction and really draws me in. I cared about it. I cared about how the character would proceed through it. I could see that it was designed to dovetail into the B plot line (which was far more related to the first film) from the very beginning, but I wanted to see the execution and see how these two ideas intersected. If I had a problem with it, it is that once the B plot really gets rolling in the third act, it sort of overtakes the A plot. And I was far more interested in the A plot. I felt a little cheated because I was more invested in the new characters and their story. That said, I was still on board.

Goal #3: Expand the world. Here is where I was most impressed ands consequently, maybe the most let down. One of the great things about the world of Blade Runner is that it is clearly set up to be lived in. While the first film focuses on Deckerd, there are clearly interesting and engaging storylines set up for Rachel, Roy, Priss, Gaff and Tyrell. This does much the same thing, but maybe too well. While the first film leaves me with questions that I feel comfortable with pondering for the rest of my life, this one left me with questions that I just wanted more answers to. There are C, D and E plot lines that are very interesting and have little if nothing to do with the concepts from the additional film. And yet, because the world is built so well and is so expansive, they work in seamlessly. And they are interesting. My favorite character in the film by far is Joi (played by Ana de Armas). I won’t say why, because of spoilers, but she was great. She was interesting and I saw that they were doing something very original with her. I was all-in every time she was on screen and missed her when she wasn’t. I wanted to know more about her story and her motivations. She could have been the whole movie on her own. But since she doesn’t have her own movie she serves as the C plot for this one. And she is so unimportant to the A plot and the B plot that she could be removed from the film entirely without affecting the narrative. In fact, the Wikipedia entry for the movie has a very thorough recap of the plot (which you shouldn’t read, because again spoilers) and yet, it doesn’t mention her AT ALL in the entry, other than the cast list at the time I am writing this. And that leaves it somewhat unbalanced. One of the most interesting things from the entire film for me regards Joi’s relationship with Mariette (played by Mackenzie Davis). I was fascinated by the story that is hinted at by the film, but Mariette is the F or G plot line at best, and not only is she not mentioned on the Wikipedia page, I’m betting most people who have seen the film and are reading this are saying “who the fuck is Mariette? What is he talking about? I better google it… Ohhhhhh….”

And that’s sort of the problem with the movie. Like the first film, there’s just a lot going on. However, the first film didn’t even try to be a movie for the masses. This wants to be. And the masses are just not going to get it. The first film was sort of a miracle of working within budget constraints. It was expensive for the day, but does a lot of film innovation to make it look even bigger. This film didn’t have that. It just burned money on special effects. It also threw a lot of money at getting a good cast. Obviously they wanted Harrison Ford back, and they cast Ryan Gosling as the new lead. But they didn’t particularly need Robin Wright (although she’s really good because she’s a phenomenal actress). And Jared Leto is…. there. Basically he Jared Leto’s about, and… well… probably isn’t worth it. He brings his name to the film and not much else. He’s clearly trying to do his best impression of Joe Turkel as Eldon Tyrell, but it doesn’t really work. His character, Niander Wallace, is just different and every time he was onscreen I just saw Jared Leto doing his schtick. Everyone else was great, particularly Armas, as I said before, but also Sylvia Hoeks.

But with that much going on, the film needed to make some choices. It is more than 45 minutes longer than the original, a film that already seemed slowly pace. As I said, my favorite part of it, the Joi plot line, could have been removed entirely with no incident. But there was another way to go. It probably shouldn’t have been a movie at all. At two hours and forty-four minutes, it should have either been cut to two hours or expanded to eight. Much like Westworld, a film from 1976 that no one was really begging for a sequel to, and yet became a very successful HBO series last year, this would have thrived if it was set to a slow enough pace that it could have been explored in depth on television. My problems with Joi and Mariette could have been solved easily if they were given more time to breathe. The Westworld tv show had a $100 million budget and the extra time really enhances the story. We have reached a point where television is prestigious enough to allow this to happen. It feels like Blade Runner 2049 may only be a theatrical because it’s “supposed to be” and it could perhaps better be served another way.

So, my recommendation for this one is hard. I enjoyed it. I think it’s a great film. But I can’t really recommend going to see it for everyone. You have to ask yourself, would you really really really have paid to see the original Blade Runner in the theater if it were released in 2017 without the legend of what it has become behind it? Would you have enjoyed it? How about if it was 45 minutes longer. Can you watch nearly 3 hours of Blade Runner without a bathroom break? Did you enjoy Cloud Atlas? Because I did. I fucking loved Cloud Atlas. But if that’s if you didn’t… well, you might want to wait til you can watch this at home with a pause button and four different directors cut versions.

★★★⅓☆ (3.33 out of 5 stars) for regular people
????? (4 fucking cookies and a carrot because apparently the broccoli emoji isn’t standardized yet) for film or sci-fi geeks.

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48 comments for “Death by Franchise (a Blade Runner 2049 review — No spoilers)

  1. October 7, 2017 at 2:44 pm

    you forgot to say how many stars

    1. October 7, 2017 at 2:45 pm

      ??? No i didn’t… it says so right at the end

    2. October 7, 2017 at 2:46 pm

      weird…looks like fb just failed to display the last thousand words of your review. Oh well, carry on.

    3. October 7, 2017 at 2:47 pm

      (i had skipped to the end looking for stars because i want to know as little about it as possible until i see it)

    4. October 7, 2017 at 2:47 pm

      refresh it? I dunno… it’s working fine for me

    5. October 7, 2017 at 2:47 pm

      oh… Well, I went out of my way to not talk details (I talk way more about the first one). But safe is safe.

  2. October 7, 2017 at 2:45 pm

    I also love Cloud Atlas.

  3. October 7, 2017 at 2:57 pm

    SPOILERS Thread for things not in the review.

    (DO NOT READ if you don’t want it spoiled or haven’t seen it yet)

    You have been warned. Beyond here be dragons.

    1. October 7, 2017 at 3:00 pm

      So, for instance….
      [SPOILERS]

      One thing that I wanted to talk about but didn’t put in the review for obvious reasons…

      There’s a whole big symbolic thing in the film where “love kills joy” which is sort of awesome and somehow comes across and understated even though it’s so blatant that it should be totally on the nose. And there’s like a whole academic paper on film semiotics right there in that one scene. But I didn’t mention it in the review, because duh….

    2. October 7, 2017 at 4:10 pm

      Huh, I missed that bit. Good one.

    3. October 8, 2017 at 12:31 pm

      Which cameo is unwarranted? Because I actually didn’t mind HJO reprising his role for that small moment. I think it was included mostly to be more of a “Deckard is a replicant wink wink.” kind of thing though, obviously. I still enjoyed it though.

    4. October 8, 2017 at 12:37 pm

      Edward James Olmos as Gaff. I assume HJO was a typo? I mean I like the actor so great to see him. But it does nothing for the movie. It is just a cameo to connect it to the other one. Like I said. Rogue Oneing it. It was brief but it’s actually bad storytelling.

      Sean Young was better in that she actually advanced the plot a bit. But it still felt a little forced. Mostly because I was too aware of it. The scene wouldn’t have been missed if it wasn’t there. It was just the. Saying “hey look! We have Disney’s revere aging tech too!!!”

    5. October 8, 2017 at 12:41 pm

      Yeah I meant EJO, typo’d. I agree that it doesn’t do anything for the movie, but at least there was a story purposeful reason for him to be there? I mean, that information about Deckard could’ve been supplied some other way, but I was always under the impression that he was one of the few characters who knew Deck was a replicant (if you read the movie that way) so it made sense to me to have him included and further implicate that line of thought for subscribers of that theory.

      He’s one of the few characters that have any tie to Deckard, so if K was trying to locate this former Bladerunner it makes sense he’d be the one he’d contact or, alternatively, Brian his former Chief.

    6. October 8, 2017 at 12:55 pm

      I felt like Deckard got too much focus, and also felt that Joe was a shitty name. But I get it, he was normal, he was an ‘Average Joe’.

    7. October 8, 2017 at 1:06 pm

      Link: he didn’t really give anything interesting about Deckard. He provided no more function that could have been accomplished with K going through a list of old files. The scene was designed to give Olmos a reason to appear in the film so as to connect it to the original film. It’s a break in focus.

      Here’s the best way to think of it. Assume this was a new film. Not a sequel at all. And honestly, for the most part this does a good job of being a new film. Almost everything you need to know is in it. That scene makes no sense in a new film. It is pure exposition that takes away from the skill of the protagonist (K). If you have never seen the first part it’s one of the few things in the entire movie where you’d go “who the fuck is that guy and why do I care?” So it’s done in the name of fan service rather than storytelling, and it shows.

      Manuel: That’s what I meant in the reviews by saying that in the third act the B plot (Deckard) overtakes the A plot (K). I understand why they did both, and as I said, I think this did a much better job of integration than most franchise sequel/reboots. But it still left me feeling unbalanced because by that part (2 hours into the movie) I was completely invested in K’s story and really didn’t care as much about “oh, let me resist some stuff from that other movie…” I’d rather the time have been devoted to Joi, Luv, Joshi, or Ana…. Even Wallace (who I was least interested in because I found him annoying… he was too much of Leto just trying to chew scenery rather than telling a story). It’s not that I didn’t like seeing Deckard. That was the hardest Ford has tried in a movie in years (including Force Awakens). But he did take over the film from stuff I was more interested in.

    8. October 8, 2017 at 4:30 pm

      I suppose, I could’ve still read it as “Deckard’s Former Partner” or something and left it at that. I dunno, I didn’t really mind, and that kind of stuff doesn’t usually pull me out of a film unless it’s as hamfisted as Rogue One’s nods to the camera.

    9. October 8, 2017 at 4:37 pm

      Oh, I totally acknowledge that it wasn’t nearly as obtrusive as it was in Rogue One “Hey, remember us… we’re from the Star Wars… we’re still wearing the same outfits just so that you recognize us… please care!!!”

      But like, my job here is to be critical…

  4. October 7, 2017 at 3:02 pm

    I’m among the “not seeing it” millions, although in my case it’s not that I don’t want to see it. I just don’t want to see it in 3D, IMAX, RPX, or whatever other gimmick is sweeping theaters. There’s a total of half of one screen in town showing it “normal” this weekend, so I’ll wait for the gimmicks to move on to the next new film.

    1. October 7, 2017 at 3:22 pm

      You would be doing yourself a favor to see it in IMAX

    2. October 7, 2017 at 3:29 pm

      And I don’t go for the gimmicks, either. This is the first time I regretted not seeing it in IMAX.

    3. October 7, 2017 at 3:33 pm

      Not much for sensory overload. I suppose if I could see it in IMAX without the other elements, I might, but IMAX is on top of 3D and recliners around here.

    4. October 7, 2017 at 3:33 pm

      Recliners are awesome!

    5. October 7, 2017 at 3:34 pm

      I’ve tried ’em, don’t like ’em. After about half an hour, I found them less comfortable than regular chairs.

    6. October 8, 2017 at 1:09 pm

      Just because I should probably weigh in…. I’d say that if you’re going to pay for IMAX or 3D for any movie, this is one of the ones to do it on. But I don’t think it *NEEDS* it. I’m actually very much looking forward to being able to watch this at home with a pause button and pick it apart. I get way more engaged by storytelling than visuals.

      BUT, if there were ever a movie that is trying to take advantage of modern cinematography tech, this is one of them.

    7. October 9, 2017 at 4:53 pm

      Is this movie even available in 3D? Other places around here had IMAX but that’s as far as it went.

    8. October 9, 2017 at 5:29 pm

      I watched it in 3d non-imax.

    9. October 9, 2017 at 7:17 pm

      Huh. I must have missed any 3D listings.

  5. October 7, 2017 at 3:29 pm

    I love the original, i’ve read the actual story and i can not get motivated to even think about seeing this

    1. October 7, 2017 at 3:31 pm

      You’d be missing out.

    2. October 7, 2017 at 3:37 pm

      I honestly don’t know. Id rather see a book accurate version of the story, as weird as it was

    3. October 7, 2017 at 3:45 pm

      This is the rate occasion where the novel and film are so completely different yet totally viable and enjoyable as separate entities. This is a sequel to the movie. The book is it’s own thing.

      There were three novels written in the 90’s that are sequels to the film and try to incorporate things from the novel. They’re bizarre in that ok kind of way. I quite enjoy them.

    4. October 8, 2017 at 6:50 am

      It’s worth seeing Mike. I’ve read the book (which was great), seen the original multiple times, and enjoyed BR2049.

    5. October 8, 2017 at 6:52 am

      They’re two very distinct things. The book is about empathy, the movies are about identity.

    6. October 8, 2017 at 12:21 pm

      I personally think it’s better than the original.

    7. October 8, 2017 at 12:25 pm

      It’s a tighter narrative.

    8. October 9, 2017 at 4:55 pm

      Tighter narrative but I found the interwoven themes to be the big break from the original.

    9. October 9, 2017 at 5:20 pm

      Well sure. It was it’s own story.

      The first movie is about identity, this one’s about life.

    10. October 9, 2017 at 7:20 pm

      I didn’t see it either one that way but it’s cool that the movies have enough depth to allow for that

  6. October 7, 2017 at 3:47 pm

    I was looking forward to reading this so I could see what I missed while I was asleep. (I didn’t fall asleep because it was not good. In fact, I thought it was really good, what I saw of it! I also fell asleep during the original blade runner a couple of times. I think the darkness of it makes me sleepy.)

    1. October 7, 2017 at 5:01 pm

      Blade Runner is always on at the wrong time. I don’t think I’ve ever fully watched it without falling asleep or having something more pressing come up that distracted me.

    2. October 8, 2017 at 12:29 pm

      I love the original movie, but even I start to get tuckered out by the final 30 minutes of the film. The pacing is so… off. On the flip side, I was actually surprised by how much time had passed when I checked my watch during the 2nd film, the pacing was much smoother IMO.

  7. October 8, 2017 at 6:53 am

    Mav – well written review with no spoilers. I thought the same thing about the box office when I had no trouble getting reserved IMAX tix for us at noon on same day opening night. As we sat in the pretty empty theater, I said to Adrienne, “I’m sort of surprised it’s so empty.” then paused…”Maybe not. It’s been 30 years since the original which wasn’t that well attended. Maybe no one cares except people old enough like us to think this is cool….”

  8. October 8, 2017 at 6:55 am

    Gosling, Reynolds, just another Ryan… ?

    1. October 8, 2017 at 6:58 am

      Wait. Did I say Reynolds? My wife does that all the time and I almost never confuse them did I do that here somewhere?

    2. October 8, 2017 at 6:59 am

      Yes. I thought for sure you were just poking fun at the “which handsome Ryan was that?” that sort of goes around. You mentioned Reynolds in the casting list.

    3. October 8, 2017 at 7:00 am

      Dammit. I’ll fix it. It would have made sense if I did it on purpose but I should have made more of a joke out of it.

    4. October 8, 2017 at 7:00 am

      It’s like an Easter Egg in your review 🙂

  9. October 13, 2017 at 4:57 am

    This is pretty much right on. I find this movie interesting because it manages to hit many of the same notes as the original while also not really aping it in such a way as to feel like a remake. I liked the mood and the pace and didn’t even realize the run time was as long as it was, and I’m usually the first to want to get up and leave when the overly long 45min coda starts in the almost 3 hour Chris Nolan-esque blockbuster (hello, Interstellar and Inception). So, a win for me but I’m not gonna blame anyone for not wanting to sit through it. I’m glad they made it.

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