When Blade Runner came out in 1982, it left fans speechless — but it also left them
with a ton of unanswered questions.
Thirty-five years later, some of those questions have finally been answered thanks to Blade
Runner 2049.
That's the good news.
The bad news?
Blade Runner 2049 has left us with even more mysteries than before.
Here's a spoiler-filled look at the biggest unanswered questions in Blade Runner 2049.
"What do you want?"
"I want to ask you some questions."
So… is Deckard a replicant?
Perhaps the biggest question from the original Blade Runner is whether or not Harrison Ford's
character, the replicant-hunter Deckard, is himself a replicant.
Though the film suggested that he was, it was intentionally left ambiguous.
Blade Runner 2049 takes that ambiguity and uses it to totally troll the audience, with
Jared Leto's replicant magnate Wallace delivering a whole monologue about whether or not Deckard
is a replicant — without actually answering the question.
This is one mystery it looks like we'll never learn the answer to.
Did K die?
At the end of the film, K lays down in the snow to die in a beautiful scene clearly meant
as a callback to the death of Rutger Hauer's replicant leader Roy Batty in the original
Blade Runner.
There's one key difference, however: we see Roy die on-camera, while K's fate is left
poetically and lyrically up in the air.
Sure, he probably dies.
But the Blade Runner films love leaving things open to interpretation, and K's "death" scene
is just another prime example.
What's the deal with Joi?
One of the most enigmatic characters in the movie is Joi, K's computerized virtual girlfriend.
It's unclear whether she's a true AI, or just a sophisticated program designed to emulate
human emotions.
Does she really love K?
Or is she just programmed to pretend?
Knowing the truth may answer the other big question about Joi: how and why did she end
up bringing in Mariette for that super weird love scene?
It seems beyond coincidence that Joi happens to contact the one replicant specifically
tasked with spying on K. If Joi truly loves K, then the explanation she gives about wanting
to experience physical romance with K may be true.
But if she's just a program, you have to wonder who programmed her to help the replicant rebellion.
Could she have been hacked by them?
There's more to Joi than meets the eye, but exactly what is anyone's guess.
Who put Ana's memories in K?
The entire plot hinges on the fact that K has memories leading him to believe he's actually
Deckard's son.
However, it turns out that while they're real memories, they actually belong to Deckard's
daughter, Dr. Ana Stelline, who specializes in creating false memories for replicants.
Considering she tells K that putting real memories into replicants is illegal, it begs
the question of why her memories were recorded in the first place, not to mention how her
memories happened to end up in the exact replicant tasked with tracking her down.
Perhaps if we knew how K ended up on this case in the first place we'd have a better
idea.
But when the film opens, K is already tracking down the replicant farmer Sapper Morton, who
holds the key to the mystery.
Who told K about Sapper, and why?
Coincidence, or part of a larger plot?
The more questions you ask about it, the more new questions it creates.
Did Ana know Deckard was her father?
So, about those memories Ana has.
She tells K that her parents were ready to go offworld and put her in this bubble when
she got sick at the age of eight to protect her from the crappy world outside.
That's clearly a lie, though, because she has memories — which have been implanted
in K — about her time living in the orphanage.
So what does she really remember, and what does she really know about herself?
The replicant rebel leader Freysa, played by Hiam Abass, tells K she has Deckard's daughter
safely hidden away.
If she's telling the truth, it implies Ana knows about the rebellion and her own replicant
parentage, and is in on the whole thing.
But is Freysa telling the truth?
Did Ana know Deckard and Rachael were her parents?
If the movie had gone on for another ten seconds we would have gotten the answer, but since
it didn't, we'll have to settle for just guessing.
What happens next?
At the end of the movie, humanity seems trapped between two different replicant factions.
On one hand, Wallace wants to build replicants who can reproduce, allowing them to spread
across the galaxy.
On the other hand, the band of rebels responsible for hiding Deckard's daughter want to rise
up and overthrow their masters.
If either of these factions prevail, humanity has some pretty nasty times ahead regardless.
But what does happen?
Wallace is still alive with all the resources of the solar system at his disposal, the rebels
are off somewhere making new eyepatches for their leader, and the whole powderkeg seems
about to blow when the film cuts to black.
Looks like we'll have to wait for Blade Runner 2079 to find out!
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