[ SECRET POST #5195 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5195 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 77 secrets from Secret Submission Post #744.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

While I acknowledge that the original Blade Runner suffered BADLY from a clunky story and several horrifying noir tropes that should have been shot in the head (specifically, the rape scene), I will say that thematically I much, much prefer it to the sequel. Between Roy and Rachel, the original comes down pretty clearly on the side that Replicants are people, deserving both love and longer lifespans, who are being used as slaves. While 2049 started strong in keeping up that theme, I feel like it muddied the waters massively with the ending, where K appears to come to the conclusion that the 'born' replicant, the chosen one, is worth more than he is, and sacrifices himself accordingly. I mean, I know there's a lot of arguments around the circumstances and K's own reasoning, but I don't like the shape that puts on what bog-standard replicants with fake memories are worth in the movie's eyes. Regardless of the circumstances, the movie ends with the closer-to-normal-human replicant being valued over the others, and that sits badly for me with everything Roy in particular went through in the first movie.

[sparklywalls]

I had a lot of time for 2049 despite not enjoying it anywhere near as much as the original (although when I say original, that can bring up the whole narration Vs no narration debate!) and the original had issues definitely.

But, aside from Ford phoning it in, my biggest disappointment with 2049 is how much they dropped the ball regarding the idea of being created/invented Vs being naturally born. It's 100% and interesting theme to explore if a replicant can reproduce naturally, but the first film was at pains to point out that Roy and the gang just wanted to live and love on equal terms. And as you say, K's sacrifice at the end of 2049 kinda doesn't jive with that regardless of it being his choice or not.

Also I don't like Jared Leto and my skin crawled throughout his scenes.

[(Anonymous)]

The thing that annoys me particularly with K's sacrifice is that you can see what they were aiming at. They were aiming for an echo of Roy Batty choosing to save Deckard. K in general is designed as a merged/contrasting echo of all three main characters from the first movie. He's an inversion of Deckard, an explicitly replicant blade runner who begins to wonder if he's human-like, rather than a supposedly human blade runner who begins to wonder if he's a replicant. The whole memory and chosen one thing is following directly from Rachel's ambiguity in the movie. And his sacrifice was supposed to echo Roy, choosing to let the human go when he realised he was finally dying, as a last act of humanity and mercy.

It's just that the context has completely inverted the meaning. Where Roy's mercy confirmed and hammered home his essential personhood and meaning, the tragedy of his death despite his antagonism, K's sacrifice hammers home how he doesn't matter. That he's human-like but not human enough, so he can die so the more important people can live. Roy's last act of mercy, after spending the entire movie as a brilliant, desperate, merciless antagonist, brought home how he'd been, at least to some extent, right. That he was a being capable of love and emotion and mercy, and he deserved better than what he got. That he'd died in vain, and all his moments were lost. It was played as a tragedy, as Deckard being brutally confronted with and saved by the personhood that he was paid to ignore.

K's sacrifice isn't that. Because his sacrifice is played as a triumph, albeit a sad one. It's the 'right thing to do'. It's a death that those it saves are allowed to ignore, because it was willingly and righteously done, and so to an extent it doesn't matter. K thinks it's all right for him to die, because he's saving the people who really matter, so the audience is allowed to think that too.

Roy's mercy was a last act of defiance, proving that he was everything they'd tried to say he wasn't, and that he, like all the other replicants, didn't deserve to have his life cut short. K's was a last act of compliance, proving that replicants dying so that humans (or at least natural-born beings) can live is, actually, still the right and correct way of the universe.

And I didn't like it. Um. Obviously.

[sparklywalls]

Really love everything you've said here and don't think I could really expand upon it beyond saying...I just really love Roy's arc in the film.

And this has made me think of the book. I remember being really disappointed with Roy in the book because, even allowing for the fact Blade Runner isn't meant to be a direct adaption, it just wasn't the same. I expected there to be something that inspired the film character in there somewhere but (it's been a few years since I read it) there just wasn't for me.

I get why the film left out the collective hallucinations of the martyr figure though. That stuff probably wouldn't have translated well.

Anyway, K's end is just such a waste because it makes me wonder why I've been following his story for what feels like half a day of my life if he's just going to be a good little boy and let himself die for the "right" people. There's just no real conflict there like there was with Roy where you know he's killed people yet still feel bad for his death because he just saved his enemy as a last act, and also he has a point.

[(Anonymous)]

Roy's arc was the best. Granted I'm a bit inclined towards magnetic villains, but him, Pris and Gaff were easily the most interesting things in the movie (and Gaff mostly because a) enigmatic and b) played by Edward James Olmos).

I've never actually read the book. I haven't read any of P.K. Dick's, now that I think about it. I think I tried once, and bounced off the narration style.

[sparklywalls]

I do love a good "rooting for the villain" story! The only part about watching Roy in Blade Runner I don't like is when he kills Tyrell, but that's purely because I can't deal with eye-gore in films. The reason for killing him is understandable narratively, I just always have to look away!

I have a conflict with Do Andriods....? where I'll say it's not a bad book by itself but if you're a fan of Blade Runner it's very different. I'm not sure if I'd recommend it or not. I don't regret reading it, but it's not something Blade Runner fans HAVE to read imo. In many ways, the film improved it. And in some other ways the book is worse or not much better e.g. the storylines involving Rachel and Deckard's wife.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT - I think we want very different things from this story, and find different aspects of it compelling.

[(Anonymous)]

I mean, probably, given the difference in opinion. What did you find compelling?