Fiery the angels fell. Deep thunder rolled around their shoulders...
September 26, 2017 10:31 AM   Subscribe

Three short films that bridge the gap between the original Blade Runner and it's soon to released sequel Blade Runner 2049: 2036: Nexus Dawn, 2048: Nowhere to Run and 2022: Black Out (The latter directed by Shinichirô Watanabe the creator of Cowboy Bebop) (mlyt)
posted by fearfulsymmetry (66 comments total) 64 users marked this as a favorite
 
Should I watch these in the posted order, or in the chronological (i.e., 2022 then 2036 and then 2048)?
posted by nubs at 10:44 AM on September 26, 2017 [6 favorites]


Thanks for this. I'm usually one to shy away from off screen building of plot elements for any given movie, but this film holds a special place in my heart.
posted by Sphinx at 11:04 AM on September 26, 2017


Should I watch these in the posted order, or in the chronological (i.e., 2022 then 2036 and then 2048)?

I watched as they were released (as posted)... but I'm not sure it would make that much difference
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 11:08 AM on September 26, 2017 [1 favorite]


Well now I want more Cowboy Bebop.
posted by Artw at 11:11 AM on September 26, 2017 [6 favorites]


HOLY SHIT FUCK YES

I mean, err... Ok, that was good.
posted by loquacious at 11:36 AM on September 26, 2017 [1 favorite]


so much fan service though (dialog and actions that callback to the movie) - ugh - just lazy and manipulative
posted by kokaku at 11:39 AM on September 26, 2017


My hollywood insider information (ie some critics who have already seen it and posted on twitter) gives the impression that it's v v good. Fingers crossed, because it would be nice if one beloved film from my youth doesn't end up watered down with lame sequels and remakes.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 11:51 AM on September 26, 2017


I'm trying to avoid all this extra stuff until I actually see the movie but it's getting some seriously good buzz.
posted by octothorpe at 11:54 AM on September 26, 2017 [1 favorite]


2022: Black Out yt (The latter directed by Shinichirô Watanabe the creator of Cowboy Bebop)

With a soundtrack by Flying Lotus!
posted by Sangermaine at 11:56 AM on September 26, 2017 [4 favorites]


Lordy, just saw Deakins has had 13 Oscar nominations and never won.
posted by Damienmce at 12:47 PM on September 26, 2017


Lordy, just saw Deakins has had 13 Oscar nominations and never won.

It's criminal, that's what it is.
posted by sutt at 12:48 PM on September 26, 2017


I'm pessimistic that this next installment in what will sadly now be a "franchise" is not going to begin to address that Deckard was a rapist and, in fact, the true villain of Blade Runner. Not that Blade Runner isn't one of my favorite films of all time or anything, but I cheer for Batty's gang right up to the tears in rain.
posted by sonascope at 1:12 PM on September 26, 2017 [7 favorites]


IT'S IS ONLY SHORT FOR IT IS: MODSSSS
posted by Sebmojo at 1:17 PM on September 26, 2017 [2 favorites]


I should add that I'm delighted that, unlike in the sad case of the Tron: Legacy soundtrack, the makers of the new film seem to have actually understood how much the Vangelis score exalted and gave mood to the original film and appear to have created a score that's both reflective of the original in mood and sound while still striking new tones.
posted by sonascope at 1:26 PM on September 26, 2017 [2 favorites]


Are we doing spoilers in here? I saw the animated one this morning. As a guy who watches a lot of anime and knows how cool Cowboy Bebop is, I would say... don't get your hopes up.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 1:29 PM on September 26, 2017


Luke Scott, Ridley's son, directed the first two shorts. Coincidentally he also directed the Dunkin Donuts commercial mentioned in the FPP today. Also, I believe MeFi's own Adam Savage was an extra in the short.
posted by nestor_makhno at 1:42 PM on September 26, 2017


I too remember The Animatrix
posted by Query at 1:45 PM on September 26, 2017 [5 favorites]




I am looking forward to 2049 much more for it being directed by Villeneuve than I would be if it was Ridley Scott. The three films I have seen of his have all been very good, including last year's Arrival. He seems very reliable at producing the goods.
posted by biffa at 2:13 PM on September 26, 2017 [6 favorites]


I was pleased that in the 2022 animated short, Gaff returns for a cameo. Much more chuffed that Edward James Olmos voiced him.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 2:14 PM on September 26, 2017 [4 favorites]


Are these the official extended deluxe ultimate director's cut versions of the shorts? I'll wait for the fifteenth remastered release, methinks.
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:46 PM on September 26, 2017 [4 favorites]


Ya know.... I'm still hoping for the Blade Runner 2 that is the other part of "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"

What I'm hoping for is androids disproving humans are better by mocking religion and TV indoctrination. But of course, religion is a Hollywood persona non grata.

Therefore I am prepared to be disappointed by '49 to the point of not bothering to throw my € at yet another film that's not about original material but about cashing in on a franchise.

Then, Villeneuve posts these, what, almost half an hour of proper storytelling (and I'm not even talking about moviemaking!) combined with 10 minutes of promoting the Scott director's franchise. Btw watch them in any order.

Gods be feathered, I'm conflicted.

This just probably means I'ma have ta throw my € at this.

What this is changing in me is that, maybe, I should stop looking at a film as "Part of franchise XYZ" and instead as "Well this looks it could be worth my money".

Finding Dory, for instance, fails as a sequel to Finding Nemo, but if you never heard of Nemo, Dory ain't so bad. Same goes for Matrix Revolutions (please apply your torture device of choice [ ] <- here) and, likely, Ratatouille 2.
posted by flamewise at 2:56 PM on September 26, 2017 [1 favorite]


They already have my money.

One of my favorite movies of all time. It came out when I was 10, and I saw it so many times. It changed through the years, I changed through the years. I find it to be a map of myself. It's not necessarily great art, but it's a formative thing for me.

I honestly thought the idea of Asian and Euro-white people as the future was a statement from the movie. Sure, Gaff was Hispanic, but in retrospect I think the movie meant the future to be whitewashed, as faux-real as the replicants. I'm white, but IMO the original film had whiteness and "aryan" ideals as an ideal of the future.

just part of the dystopian vision. This may sound very, very harsh... but I find the idea of black people in a "Blade Runner" world a very wrong thing. I figured Tyrell and the "future" had scrubbed us of all that reality-stuff.

(I say this as a concept about the brutal, horrible fictional future in the movie, not in any way personally-in real life- wanting PoC to be scrubbed of history, hope I made the clear)
posted by jeff-o-matic at 3:30 PM on September 26, 2017


Meant to edit: Gaff is played as a mystical Shaman type in the film, and though technically a minority, he was not a "real" figure. Anyway, adding PoC as central characters to this universe seems wrong to me, in a very, very wrong way.
posted by jeff-o-matic at 3:37 PM on September 26, 2017


OK, just gonna add: Introducing brutal racism in a concept like this is genius. Gonna make the "perfect" thing? The biggest seller?

An owl? A white woman? Who decides what the "perfect" replicant is?

I kind of doubt that this was intended back in 1982, but it's an intriguing idea to inject into a film about what "perfection" is. And if you were to build the "perfect" thing... what would it look like? Harrison Ford? Beyonce? Rosa Parks? Lupita Nyong'o? Etc?

What would a Tyrell Corp. make for a top-selling "pleasure model" like Darryl Hannah (Pris)? Other colors? Other body styles? Older-looking women/men? Faux pre-teens (Ugh?)

I doubt this will be part of the new film but it's an interesting thought experiment.
posted by jeff-o-matic at 3:49 PM on September 26, 2017


What would a Tyrell Corp. make for a top-selling "pleasure model" like Darryl Hannah (Pris)? Other colors? Other body styles? Older-looking women/men? Faux pre-teens (Ugh?)

Take a look at "pleasure dolls" already being sold and marketed around the globe.. The answer is all the above.
posted by lain at 4:27 PM on September 26, 2017


Why the fuck does Tyrell Corp have a multi-megaton EMP? What the heck were they planning on doing other than blacking out the entire west coast?
posted by jpolchlopek at 4:27 PM on September 26, 2017 [2 favorites]


I'm going to wait until it comes out on Esper.
posted by lagomorphius at 5:03 PM on September 26, 2017 [3 favorites]


biffa: "I am looking forward to 2049 much more for it being directed by Villeneuve than I would be if it was Ridley Scott. The three films I have seen of his have all been very good, including last year's Arrival. He seems very reliable at producing the goods."

Same here. Alien and Blade Runner were such amazing groundbreaking films and Legend was at least an interesting failure but everything since has been such journeyman work. Scott has made some good or even very good films over the last thirty years but nothing that felt like they were the work of someone with something to say.

I was semi-sold on Villeneuve after seeing Sicario and then totally fell in love with Arrival so I was overjoyed when he was announced as the director of Blade Runner II. Plus Deakins is one of the few DPs that I can think of who's worthy of following in Jordan Cronenweth's footsteps. (Cronenweth wasn't even nominated for an Oscar for Blade Runner in 1982)
posted by octothorpe at 6:56 PM on September 26, 2017 [2 favorites]


>Why the fuck does Tyrell Corp have a multi-megaton EMP?

...and why do they have one that crashes the flying cars but leaves the big electric building displays still working?
posted by Sing Or Swim at 6:57 PM on September 26, 2017 [3 favorites]


Why the fuck does Tyrell Corp have a multi-megaton EMP? What the heck were they planning on doing other than blacking out the entire west coast?

Corporations are people, my friend. And people have the right to bear arms. And Corporate people need the biggest arms of all for protection.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 9:04 PM on September 26, 2017 [7 favorites]


The Jared Leto one: I liked this one, and Leto was actually pretty compelling. Thumbs up.

The Dave Bautista one: Cliches and tropes abound. Thumbs down.

The Anime: Nice animation, but the voicework is...less than great. Thumbs up tho.
posted by zardoz at 9:19 PM on September 26, 2017


Corporations are people, my friend. And people have the right to bear arms. And Corporate people need the biggest arms of all for protection.

Pretty sure that GE and Westinghouse both have nukes, for example.
posted by mikelieman at 11:14 PM on September 26, 2017


Crunchyroll has had the third one yanked. It's on their site, but I guess you need Flash to watch it. Thanks, guys.
posted by Legomancer at 7:48 AM on September 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


That son-of-Scott one is a stinker.
posted by Artw at 7:59 AM on September 27, 2017


I just bought tickets for opening night at the local IMAX theater. AWWWW YEAH
posted by Annika Cicada at 9:40 AM on September 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


Good god but the Watanabe one was terrrrrrible. Why? What? WHY?
posted by adamgreenfield at 10:21 AM on September 27, 2017


And, OK, that's not accelerated decrepitude...is the Jared Leto character supposed to be suffering under the impositions of an AI personality interface of some sort? Is he a meat puppet? Enquiring minds want to know!
posted by adamgreenfield at 10:28 AM on September 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


I want this new Blade Runner movie to be good. I really do. But I don't know.

These three shorts were well-produced, but they just feel like marketing, not narratives in their own right.

I don't trust the early buzz. I looked at those early reviews. All superlatives, no real specifics. I've never heard of any of those reviewers. they work for companies like CinemaBlend, Fandango, Yahoo, Collider. Not exactly bastions of good film criticism, in my opinion.

I keep seeing red flags on this one.
posted by KHAAAN! at 10:51 AM on September 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


Maybe it's the early buzz on Discovery being moderately correct but I'm fairly hopeful?
posted by Artw at 10:56 AM on September 27, 2017


I could be transformers and the danish girl combined bad and I'll still enjoy it for what it is.
posted by Annika Cicada at 11:42 AM on September 27, 2017


Crunchyroll has had the third one yanked. It's on their site, but I guess you need Flash to watch it. Thanks, guys.

Yeah, and if you have an ID from earlier but didn't join up, brings you right to a payment page. Thanks guys, indeed.
posted by mikelieman at 11:48 AM on September 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


is the Jared Leto character supposed to be suffering under the impositions of an AI personality interface of some sort? Is he a meat puppet?

The character's name, Niander Wallace, means "New-Man Foreigner," which seems like a stealth reference to Newman Xeno, the reality-hopping villain of Matt Fraction's Casanova comics.

Wallace could very well turn out to be an old Tyrell prototype, but a name like that suggests Villeneuve (or Michael Green, the screenwriter) might be bringing in elements from elsewhere in the Dickian canon—aliens, time-travelers, humans who traveled to the off-world frontier and came back wrong.
posted by Iridic at 12:02 PM on September 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


Suspect he's suffering from the effects of a method acting weirdo.
posted by Artw at 12:33 PM on September 27, 2017 [2 favorites]


Suspect he's suffering from the effects of a method acting weirdo.

Not sure if that's a bad or good thing. Annoying, certainly, but all those 70s method movies were pretty awesome.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 3:58 PM on September 27, 2017


Leto is a supremely unlikable jerkoff and doubles down on it with his method antics. Wondering if this may somehow work in the movies favor.
posted by Artw at 4:04 PM on September 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


Ugh, Jared Leto

Still have high hopes
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 4:21 PM on September 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


Ugh, Jared Leto

Exactly! But what if they used that for good?
posted by Artw at 4:22 PM on September 27, 2017 [3 favorites]


Eh, none of these really did it for me. The first two felt very... "webisode". The Watanabe one was like "What if The Second Renaissance Part I but Blade Runner"?
posted by tobascodagama at 5:31 PM on September 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


You gotta admit the production values in the live-action ones were extremely faithful to the original, down to the ambient noises. I just want to immerse myself once more in that glorious, gritty decrepitude.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 5:34 PM on September 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


The character's name, Niander Wallace, means "New-Man Foreigner," which seems like a stealth reference to Newman Xeno, the reality-hopping villain of Matt Fraction's Casanova comics.

I love you, for truly you are of my people...but muchach@, that is the very definition of a stretch. And anyway "Newman Xeno" bears a suspicious resemblance to a certain former member of Roxy Music. #brentmini
posted by adamgreenfield at 5:57 PM on September 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


that is the very definition of a stretch

More than likely! And yet-

"Newman Xeno" bears a suspicious resemblance to a certain former member of Roxy Music.

He also looks a lot like another prominent glam rocker. (In a striking coincidence, the role of Niander Wallace was originally intended for Bowie.)
posted by Iridic at 6:14 PM on September 27, 2017


("Pareidolia is a hell of a drug." - Philip K. Dick.)
posted by Iridic at 6:16 PM on September 27, 2017 [3 favorites]


He also looks a lot like another prominent glam rocker.

You mean Jerry Cornelius?
posted by adamgreenfield at 3:21 AM on September 28, 2017


That's Casanova Quinn.
posted by Artw at 8:46 AM on September 28, 2017 [1 favorite]


Early reviews are very good, currently at 85% on Metacritic.
posted by octothorpe at 7:09 AM on September 29, 2017 [1 favorite]


Early reviews are very good, currently at 85% on Metacritic.

yeah 97% on Rotten Tomatoes
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 7:52 AM on September 29, 2017 [2 favorites]


The Guardian review is positively giddy.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:53 AM on September 29, 2017 [2 favorites]


I might have to break my rule and actually go to a movie theater to see this.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 8:54 AM on September 29, 2017


The Guardian review is positively giddy.

Has Bradshaw managed to contain himself this time, or is it full of his normal spoilers?
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:09 AM on September 29, 2017


Like the paradoxical, disturbing and bewitching realms of the author's books, Blade Runner 2049 should not exist. It's a breathtaking film; a heartfelt burst of creative energy from some of the best movie-makers currently working. It is, in short, a masterpiece.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:34 AM on September 29, 2017


Blimey.
posted by Artw at 10:06 AM on September 29, 2017


IMAX Tickets purchased for 7PM Thursday. I'm not waiting an extra day for this one.
posted by octothorpe at 10:24 AM on September 29, 2017


I'm having a hard time processing the idea that this film might be good. Cannot overcome all the years of sequels/prequels/alternateuniverse-quels based on other things that I love being crap.

Do I dare to buy a ticket?
posted by nubs at 10:52 AM on September 29, 2017 [2 favorites]


The third (2022) vid is unavailable due to a copyright claim from Crunchyroll; here's an official version from Warner that should remain up.
posted by Rhaomi at 8:13 PM on October 2, 2017 [2 favorites]


For the Blade Runner 2049 film, there's a Fanfare thread.
posted by Wordshore at 9:22 AM on October 6, 2017


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