Once again we are greeted with the all-seeing eye; and once again that all-seeing eye is followed by a series of unanswered questions regarding our existence and what makes us human.
The Blade Runner 2049 trailer bids a familiar narrative in the form of handing a popular franchise down from its original main cast down to a more younger cast. I'm just hoping that this precious accident of Ridley Scott's doesn't become hope for an extended universe type of deal. I'm completely fine with the film focusing on new characters and not-so-known actors, providing this isn't yet another franchise in which Harrison Ford's character kicks the bucket in.
Director Denis Villeneuve certainly has the talent to bring the aesthetic cyberpunk world of Blade Runner into the modern day, and some of the shots in the trailer are evident of that, I'm just more sceptical of the script's ability to once again outperform viewer's expectations. The script, for the most part, seems to be written by Hampton Fancher: the original screenwriter for Blade Runner, although Michael Green appears to have co-written the script for Blade Runner 2049. It isn't Fancher's writing I'm worried about, but Green's; his portfolio isn't anything to boast about, with most of this works being on terrible comic book movies that flopped hard. I feel Green has the ability to completely sabotage the magic in the film.
The cinematography and views of post-cyberpunk cities felt like an excellent touch to the trailer, and hopefully to the final film as well, given it pays homage to the novel in which this story is based on: Philip K. Dick's 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' in which most cities have been completely covered in dust as an outcome of Earth's destroyed environment caused by war. It shows that among those neon-infested cities lays a wasteland; a reason why most had abandoned Earth for off-world colonies in the first place.
As for the film's narrative: I've seen people question a particular piece of dialogue from the trailer, "We were being hunted," with the assumption that Deckard is referring to himself as a replicant among the others. Let's just make it clear that he is simply referring to the fact that him and Rachael, after Deckard went against his duties as a cop, were hunted for his actions, and the fact that Rachael herself was a replicant in need of being retired.
I'm assuming Jard Leto's character is a slight follow-up of Tyrell, in the sense that he himself has the power to create replicants; perhaps for his own terrifyingly dangerous agenda. "You do not know what pain is yet. You will learn." It's clear that his character is obsessed with some type of new technology, one that perhaps connects humans to replicants in some way.
Time for more crazy Blade Runner theories!
