BLADE RUNNER 2049 is a fucking amazing movie that deserves to be a classic.

Some stream of consciousness thoughts.

1- It's aesthetically and thematically distinct from the original, which doesn't make it lesser.

2- The original film feels like a '40s detective noir. This sequel, set thirty years later, feels (to me) like a '70s thriller. Less gauzy. More paranoid. Maximalist and wide open with plenty of negative space whereas the original is gorgeously cluttered.

3- BR2049 is thematically weighty.

4- The heart of it is individuality, what it means to be unique when you're socially designated as otherwise. Must we be imbued with special purpose to be important? Or do we decide it? And do we need to break our pattern to matter, or do we matter regardless?

5- In this film, the system treats women as product, or sex toys, or baby machines. Things to use, consume, and discard. The female antagonists uphold this system for powerful men. Tragic Joi is built only to love a man. The other women are underestimated, with their own agendas.

6- The freest woman who operates within the system-- freelancing, independently creating work for a massive corporation-- lives her whole life in an actual cage.

7- The replicants are treated by humans as less-than. And the replicants are masters of holographic AI. They can feel superior to them. They enjoy not being at the bottom of the social hierarchy. They enjoy looking down upon someone else.

8- (The film tackles systemic racism but has a general dearth of people of color. The most prominent Black character runs a sweatshop in a junkyard. The fact that this isn't elaborated on, used for further commentary, feels like a shameful oversight.)

9- K loves Joi because he needs to feel like an ordinary programmed artificial intelligence can love and be loved. It would mean there's hope for him. He needs to feel special.

And she *seems* like she really cares, even though, as Mariette points out, she's hollow.

10- Meanwhile, Luv is bitter that she isn't special. She knows she's disposable. She needs to prove she's better than that, not by caring for others, but by destroying. By being better than them.

A model 2nd-class citizen who upholds a system built to use and discard of her.

11- So who does the film decide is genuinely special? Where do you have to be in the social hierarchy? Is it genetic? Great Man Of History, Chosen One, Unique? Something else? What is it?

K (re: Deckard's dog): "Is it real?"
Deckard: "I don't know. Ask him."

There you go.

It's 2am and I love this movie. It will always be compared to the original film and judged by the original film's intentions, but it has its own intentions and stands very well on its own. Denis Villeneuve and @andmichaelgreen are geniuses.

'night.

(postscript: The original film's climax takes place in rain. The sequel's climax takes place in the fucking ocean. I just think that's neat!)