The Perfect Sequel Philosophy of Blade Runner 2049
One of the worst omens for a disappointing Hollywood flick is when the movie title has a big fat number at the end of it. Sequels, by and large, suck, and that’s because their focus is more on the money and the “franchise” than it is actually trying cool things with its characters and world. Blade Runner 2049 is about 10 days old now, and while it might not be a perfect movie, it is a perfect sequel, and that’s because it isn’t worried about climbing the financial ladder (though I’m sure it still wishes it had). Instead, 2049’s gaze is outward, toward one of the densest, most real-seeming sci-fi worlds ever made. This is what a sequel, a reboot, or a reimagining should be.
The original Blade Runner came out in 1982. Infamously, it wasn’t well-received at first, but is now regarded as perhaps the best science-fiction movie of all time. Its version of Los Angeles holds up even by today’s standards as one of the most fully realized alternate realities ever put on a screen, and its ashy, shadow-filled, desolate world only underscored its tonally-perfect noir storyline. It’s a movie that’s aged well and will continue doing so, and that means 2049 is completely unnecessary.
And yet, 2049’s greatest triumph is how it makes itself undeniably essential. It does this for the most part with shrewd and imaginative writing, but there are still words worth writing about the movie’s self-validating quality. It’s just good. Really good.
This movie’s whole presentation feels of a piece. The action here is physical and ugly. The mystery is tangled and slippery. The visuals—you’ve never seen anything like them. There are moments you’ll be awed, stunned, revolted, and moved. There are characters you won’t believe you care about. You’ll ask questions and you’ll find just enough answers to feel satisfied. Even if you don’t think about 2049 much in its aftermath, one or two images might stick to your brain forever. Awards are coming, too.
But how the movie really makes itself worthwhile is how it expands all the boundaries the original Blade Runner erected (or neglected to define at all). 2049 shows us more of the monolithic landscape that made the first movie such a spectacle (San Diego and Vegas are showcased in the new one, and not wasted a bit), and 2049 doubles down on all the human-replicant backstory the original only gave us a taste of. If Blade Runner was a sci-fi swimming pool, 2049 is the diving well. It’s deep and dense, and the further down you go, the more pressure you feel to grasp exactly what’s going on. Sequels aren’t supposed to be this revealing, or surprising, or fresh. We’re supposed to know these people by now, but 2049 chides us: We didn’t know the half of it.
That’s been the formula for a good sequel in 2017: Heighten the style, take another swerve with your characters, and show us more. John Wick: Chapter 2 was awesome because it gave its action a couple more gimmicks and its assassin world a ton of extra detail. Same with War for the Planet of the Apes, which found a way to trace new arcs for its primate subjects and up the scale of its set pieces. Basically, great sequels this year were terrific because they taught us something more about their universes than “what happened next.” The less memorable fare like Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales never reached beyond that. They settled for a target labeled, “like the first movie, but more,” and while that might cut a lot of big, fat checks, it doesn’t exactly cut the mustard as far as something people are going to be thinking about after the fact. It’s the difference between a nice afternoon out of the house and something you tell your friends about.
With all this being said, it supremely sucks that Blade Runner 2049 is underperforming at the box office. This is a smart, thought-provoking, extraordinarily well-made movie with two bankable stars under a beloved franchise tag, and it’s not doing well. The reception was great, and the marketing was solid. It’s going to be hard for studios to land on why this movie “failed.” Pray the solution isn’t for these companies to retreat further into the creative shelters erected by Marvel and DC and the apocalyptic concept of “cinematic universes.” It sounds ironic given its on-the-surface enfranchisement, but we’re gonna need more movies like 2049. The way its receipts are turning out, it tragically doesn’t feel likely we’ll see them.
This new Blade Runner isn’t perfect, but if someone wants to call it a masterpiece, let them. This movie is everything a sequel should be: expansive, counter-intuitive, jolting, awash with that elusive feeling of “I can’t believe what I’m watching.” For a franchise movie, 2049 downright tries stuff, for two effing hours and forty-five effing minutes. It deserves to be the standard by which future blockbuster sequels are set. It feels like a travesty that, chances are, it won’t.