Blade Runner 2049 is filled with stunning visuals and massive world-building shots.
With so much information packed into every frame, it's hard to catch everything in Blade
Runner 2049.
Here are some of the small details and Easter eggs you might have missed.
Major spoilers ahead!
Master Blaster
Between the more obvious holdovers from the first movie, like the spinners and Tyrell's
tower, eagle-eyed fans may have noticed one particular artifact that made the leap from
the original film — Deckard's blaster pistol.
And the new version isn't just close to its lethal ancestor — it's an exact replica
of the actual prop used by Harrison Ford in Blade Runner.
Surprisingly, it isn't locked in a Hollywood warehouse somewhere — it was purchased by
a private collector, who was gracious enough to lend it to the filmmakers.
According to Vice's Inside the Making of Blade Runner 2049, the prop team used it to build
Deckard's blaster all over again.
"We took a really close look at it, and basically we recreated the blaster again bolt by bolt."
Nexus-7
There are a bunch of different replicant models in the Blade Runner universe.
In the original film, Harrison Ford's Deckard was hunting Nexus-6 models.
In 2049, Dave Bautista's character is a Nexus-8, and Ryan Gosling's K is a Nexus-9.
Each new model marks a design evolution.
Nexus 6s had a four-year lifespan.
Nexus-8s, like Bautista's Sapper Morton, can live much longer, and can apparently visibly
age.
So what about the the Nexus-7s?
As far as we know, neither film explicitly mentions a Nexus-7 model, but 2049 left an
Easter egg that reveals Rachael from the original film to be possibly one of the only Nexus-7s.
When K hunts down the serial number from Rachael's bones he found buried under that tree, the
serial number begins with N7, most likely short for Nexus-7.
Which leaves the question: was Rachel the one and only Nexus-7, or was she a special
version that could reproduce?
And if Deckard really is a replicant, is he a Nexus-7 too?
A real goat
While K and Joi are tracking down Deckard, they stop at a shop owned by a guy named Doc
Badger to get K's toy horse analyzed.
Badger realizes it's made of real wood and offers K a "real horse or goat" as a trade.
Surprisingly, that line was actually a callback to Blade Runner's source novel, Do Androids
Dream of Electric Sheep.
In it, Deckard is always looking for animals.
For example, one line reads:
"'Ever thought of selling your horse?'
Rick asked.
He wished to God he had a horse."
Later, Deckard drops his entire bounty of $3,000 as a down payment on a goat.
Deckard obviously loves his animals, which is hinted at in Blade Runner 2049, when we
see that his Vegas hideaway is filled with animal sculptures, not to mention a pet dog.
Opening homage
Blade Runner is notorious for the number of different cuts it has.
And even before Ridley Scott's endless tinkering, some scenes from the script got the chop.
The original opening scene was one of those early casualties, but decades later, it was
reimagined as the opening scene for 2049.
Basically, the original script involved Deckard breaking into a replicant's house on a farm
and waiting in the kitchen for the replicant to come home.
Eventually, the replicant arrives, sees Deckard, and walks over to stir a pot that's bubbling
on the stove.
He asks Deckard if he wants some soup, and then Deckard kills him.
Scott, executive producer for 2049, must have loved the original opening, because he's been
talking about putting it in the sequel for years now.
Either way, it's a fantastic tribute to the first film.
Eyes on the sky
In one of the scenes of K flying above the city in his spinner, several fans apparently
noticed an airborne craft that resembles the USS Sulaco from 1986's Aliens — the ship
carrying Ripley and the crew of Marines.
It's hard to tell for sure — just about every vehicle in future Los Angeles is big,
gray, and blocky, and even if the design was inspired by the Sulaco, that probably doesn't
mean anything as exciting as a confirmed crossover.
However, there is a bit of backstory that makes this possible Easter egg a little more
likely.
The Sulaco in Aliens was designed by conceptual artist Syd Mead, a longtime powerhouse in
Hollywood sci-fi visuals.
Mead also worked on the design of the original Blade Runner as well as 2049.
Could that mysterious ship fans say they saw be an homage to one of the pioneers of modern
sci-fi?
Now that's something worth thinking about.
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