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Blade Runner 2049

I saw the new Blade Runner film and I loved it. I hated the idea of this sequel but I changed my mind now. It was awesome and I’m very sad it didn’t find its audience in US because I wish there could be more films like this. Not necessarily in sequel sense, although I no longer mind the idea, but generally ones that are asking big questions about what makes one human and how we treat our creations. But I love all AI/artificial humans and self determination stories so this was a perfect film for me.

I loved the visual throwbacks to the original - the close-ups of eyes and shots of K staring through rain soaked windows of his spinner and all the giant ads - especially of both no longer existing (Atari, PanAm) and out of place (after watching countless product placements that didn’t mean anything to me in so many films seeing Peugeot was fun) companies. I loved that the final was once again in water framed with water.

I loved it all the little references and in jokes (from significance of 6.10.21 being the important date - for everywhere outside US is simply four years after the film premiere day - to the rebel replicants and nuBSG cyclons having even more in common now). I was fascinated by the story. How it asked big questions about what makes one a real person and who gets to decide that. And that in the end it may not matter. Or at least other people’s view on it doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s enough if you are real to someone. Maybe all that matters is what you think about it. It’s just like what Deckard says about the the dog.

There seems to be a lot of questions left but I don’t really care if they never get answered. I like that there are plots outside the main character’s story that only briefly intersect with the main one. This makes the world seem bigger and the side characters more real because they have life outside main plot. This was the story of K becoming someone new and deciding who that person will be. Everything else we can make up ourselves.

SPOILERS under the cut

I didn’t mind the whole Replicant Revolution and fate of Ana and Deckard not being resolved because this film was about officer K becoming Joe and in his story those things don’t really matter.

For me this was story about K learning that he is a real boy even if he isn’t special and that he always had potential to become this no matter his origins. He always had a potential to be a person and make his own choices. And he did. He didn’t follow orders like he was made to do - despite his model being said to be unable to rebel. He didn’t do what others wanted him to do. He didn’t follow the orders of his LAPD owners, his maker or even the resistance. He did what he thought would be best and for Deckard and his daughter he was special.I thought that this was point of the story - the subjectiveness of personhood. We have no way of telling if any other person is self-conscious and real as we are. We assume it because they act like it. Like we do. The whole Turing test is based on not being able to tell the difference between human and machine. And maybe that’s enough. Nothing else is necessary.

In the first film Rachel was special to Deckard and worth leaving his whole life for before any of her other special qualities were known to him. She was real enough for him. And he was real enough. I love that this new film didn’t answer if Deckard is a replicant too. It just tells us it doesn’t matter.

K’s version of Joi learned and changed and she became something different than her base programming to the point she could no longer be replaced by another copy. She was real to K and it didn’t matter she was just a program. But most importantly he changed and became someone who could break his programming and lie and make his own choices. Between the fake memories, artificial companions and real experiences we see him finding his own personhood. Despite the job that makes him destroy his own kind, despite everyone treating him as nothing but object, and despite his programming stopping him from ever rebelling against all of it he longs to be real. Even if it’s just for Joi - even less real construct than himself - and even if it’s for a moment when no one is watching. And when he finally takes that step on the road to making his own choices that choice is thing that really mattered. In the end it didn’t matter that he was made not born. It’s what he chose to be mattered.

I don’t think K’s Joi was sentient although the programs like her might grow to it eventually. But she was able to learn by observing him and give KD9-3.7 what he needed to become Joe. She facilitated his growth even if she couldn’t follow him there. Joi adjusted herself to K so that she’s most helpful to him and that means helping him through his crisis in faith on the way becoming a “real boy”. And she gives him his name Joe - even if it’s just version of her logo - and guides him to follow his instincts and see it all through. She is real to him in that way. But as Mariette says she is more empty inside than she thinks and Joe realises that in the end. The difference between them is that in the end he can become more than his programming. More than just false memories and learned responses. In the end he can chose his own fate. And the fate of others.

Maybe the androids don’t dream of electric sheep but they sure do long for companionship even if it’s just an electric dream. She was a crutch he could lay on while learning to walk by himself - a fake companion for a fake human - but in the end he has to walk by himself and she cannot follow him there. She was something to fill the loneliness and lack of any real connections. It felt nice to believe she was real and she really cared about him just like it was nice to feel like he was special - born not made - but both of these were just illusions. Still, the belief in both have changed him and helped him become what he wanted to be. So she was real enough to change at least one person’s world.

I know that Joe’s last scene mimics Roy’s death - both visually and in soundtrack - and I too assumed it meant he dies however I wasn’t 100% sure. Since then the writers confirmed it but it wouldn’t be too big suspension of disbelief for him to survive. This is because we have already seen him acquire a lot of damage and then just get little patched up and sent to another battle moments later. And lt. Joshi mentions early in the film she won’t pay for repairing him which implies it’s just a matter of money and resources.

So I could imagine a version of this ending with Deckard (with or without Ana) picking Joe up, glueing him back together, selling a couple of those wooden animals and getting off world together. Or, since it’s been about 48 hours and Joshi is dead, fellow cops could’ve come find him and then patch him up to learn what happened. After learning he retired his boss killer (and after he passes baseline test due to his new found inner peace and sense of purpose) he could go back on the force and then serve as double agent for Resistance. In other words I felt like they left themselves enough space to bring him back if they wanted.

Which is why I didn’t care about film answering any questions about what happens next. We can imagine the story of what Deckard and his daughter will do next ourselves (go off world - but there Wallace is even more powerful; stay and lead revolution - but can it really succeed; talk a little bit and then never see each other again). It also doesn’t rally matter what Wallace or the Android Liberation Front will do next. It might be an interesting story on its own but I didn’t expect it to be resolved now or ever. This was the story of K becoming Joe and it had a perfect ending.

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