Blade Runner 2049 is a stunning neo-noir sci-fi movie in which LAPD Officer K uncovers a replicant
mystery that threatens to overturn society.
Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers, it's Jan here, and today I'm delving into the thrilling Blade
Runner sequel to explain the ending, the major plot twists, some unanswered questions and
what they mean for a potential Blade Runner 3 movie.
I'm also starting my 2049 giveaway for one of these Blade Runner Funko Pops.
For a chance to win, make sure you're subscribed to Flicks And The City and let me know your
thoughts or theories about the movie in the comments below!
Quick warning: I'll be diving deep into the world of Blade Runner 2049 and discussing
spoilers, so take care if you've not seen the movie yet.
The mystery at the heart of the Blade Runner sequel is that Rachael, the replicant who
fled with Deckard at the end of the original movie, gave birth to a child, something not
previously thought to be possible.
Rachael died during childbirth and her baby was delivered via an emergency C-section performed
by Sapper Morton, the replicant who Ryan Gosling's K is hunting at the beginning of the film.
Sapper buried Rachael's remains beneath the tree outside his farmhouse and just before
he's killed by K, the old-model replicant alludes to what happened when he accuses new
replicants like K of not knowing anything because they've "never seen a miracle".
Back at the LAPD, after the bones have been analysed revealing that a replicant gave birth,
K's boss, Lieutenant Joshi played by Robin Wright, explains that public knowledge of
this secret would shatter the status quo, kicking off a war between replicants and humans,
because the idea that a replicant can give birth means they are no longer dependent on
their human creators or masters for their existence, and that they're 'more human than
humans'.
Or as K says to Joshi, "to be born is to have a soul".
Joshi considers the revelation to be far too dangerous and orders K to destroy all evidence.
But as he continues his investigation, K finds himself on a path that appears to be leading
him to the conclusion that he is the missing child Rachael gave birth to.
The major plot twist comes when the injured K wakes up among a group of rebel replicants
who inform him that he isn't Rachael's true-born child.
The rebel leader Freysa tells K the true child is actually a girl, not a boy.
This moment links back to the scene earlier in the movie when K and Joi were examining
the DNA of the missing child.
K discovered records for two children with matching DNA.
One was male, one was female, though the female's record said she'd died from a genetic disorder.
However, Deckard had taught the rebels how to scramble the records and cover their tracks
to protect the identity of the true child.
And that child is actually Dr Ana Stelline, the memory designer who K visited earlier
in the movie.
So, why did K have Ana Stelline's memory and believe it was really his own?
Well, when he asked Ana to examine his memory, she cried and seemed to confirm it was a real
memory and not a manufactured one.
And when K visited the orphanage, he found the carved wooden horse from his memory, which
also implied that the events from his memory did take place.
Joi also encouraged this belief that he was the miracle child when she told him she thought
he was special and put the idea in his head that he should have a real name, not just
a serial number, as he's important.
So, the reason all of this made sense to K, despite the fact it wasn't true, was because
his memory had been designed by Ana Stelline and she had either deliberately or unconsciously
added some of her own real-life memories into her designs.
After all, Ana did tell K that every artist includes a little bit of themselves in their
creations.
Mariette also seemed to recognise the wooden horse in K's apartment, suggesting that various
replicants had ended up with this particular implanted memory.
And notice that the filmmakers chose to portray the child in K's dream with short straggly
hair, so that initially he assumes it's a boy, but obviously it could also be a girl.
By the way, the presence of the toy horse in 2049 is a neat call-back to the unicorn
in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner and therefore a link to Harrison Ford's Deckard.
After this discovery, K tracks down Deckard who's being taken away by Luv.
K has to fight Luv who he eventually kills, but not before getting badly injured himself.
Still wounded, K takes Deckard to meet his daughter Ana at her institute, but once there
he stays outside, lying down on the steps to the building.
This seems like it's the end of the line for K as his character arc is complete, he's lost
everything, yet he's also solved the truth of his own identity and also fulfilled his
role to bring Deckard and Ana together.
And on top of that, the music which plays during this scene is the same as the music
that plays in the original Blade Runner movie over Batty's 'Tears in the Rain' monologue.
It's a sad, but beautiful moment.
Yet, while Batty's fate at the end of Blade Runner is crystal clear, 2049 leaves a sliver
of ambiguity in the fate of its protagonist, so, if the filmmakers did want to bring K
back for a future sequel and if Ryan Gosling also wished to return, it could still be possible.
As for Ana and Deckard, they're reunited at the end but we're left with questions such
as if and when she'll be told she's the key to the simmering replicant revolution, and
also whether she's a replicant, a human or a hybrid of sorts.
And that possible replicant rebellion is another huge potential storyline that could be explored
in a sequel.
There's plenty of prejudice against replicants from humans in Blade Runner 2049.
For example, K has to put up with slurs and insults directed at him both in his housing
block and at work in the LAPD.
Freysa wants to free her people and tells K that 'our lives mean nothing next to the
storm that's coming.
Dying for the right cause is the most human thing we can do.'
But although Freysa told K the only way to protect the miracle child was to kill Deckard,
he chooses not to do that.
In fact, just as Batty saves Deckard in the 1982 film, K does the same in this one; asserting
his independence and humanity once more, as he did when he lied to Lieutenant Joshi about
the fate of the replicant baby.
Still, Freysa is determined to reveal Rachael's baby to the world when the time is right and
says the child will lead their army, a thread which could be continued in a future movie.
Although, to be honest, I'd be happy if the story ended here, rather than trying to tie
up everything too neatly in future films.
Earlier, I mentioned Joi, K's holographic companion, and she's a very interesting part
of the story, even if what her character says can often be a bit of a red herring in terms
of the final resolution of the film.
Joi is, as the adverts for her point out, "everything you want to see" and "everything
you want to hear".
So, when we first meet her, she switches through a number of different outfits and looks until
K sees one he likes.
And when she tells K that he's special and important, she's probably just telling him
what he wants to hear.
Although I suspect Joi was set up as a very intelligent AI hologram who can figure out
what her owner wants and fulfil those needs, there were some hints in the movie that she
might be able to develop her own feelings [and identity].
There are some clear parallels between Joi and Scarlett Johansson's AI character, Samantha,
from Spike Jonze's movie Her, for instance the sex scenes in both movies; although the
extent of Joi's real autonomy is left more ambiguous in Blade Runner 2049.
For example, when Joi said "I love you" to K just before Luv crushed and effectively
killed her, was that real genuine emotion or just what she was programmed to do, in
other words, she said what K wanted to hear at that moment?
Either way, I thought the performance of actress Ana de Armas was cleverly ambiguous so that
we're left wondering whether Joi managed to become truly sentient before she was destroyed.
Niander Wallace, who has something of a god complex and calls his replicant creations
'angels', is also on the hunt for the missing replicant child.
He wants to create millions of new replicants as he believes they are the key to rebuilding
the Earth's environment and eventually colonising the stars.
Wallace's view of history is that civilisations only advanced when they were willing to harness
the power of a slave population and he sees replicant reproduction as the solution to
creating new replicants en masse.
Wallace has always been willing to push the limits of technology in pursuit of his own
agenda, for instance, he was the one who got replicant prohibition repealed when he developed
a new model which he demonstrated would always obey and never rebel.
It's curious that Wallace has a chip or socket in his neck and little camera drones that
float around in his vicinity which presumably are there to help him see or sense things.
His visual impairment could be a metaphor for his worldview as although he understands
the power of replicants, he's blinkered and only wants to use them for one purpose – slaves.
But even his most trusted replicants, like Luv, appear to have possible design defects.
For example, Luv seems to respond emotionally in particularly stressful situations, such
as crying just before Wallace slices open the belly of his newborn female replicant
or when Luv realises she has to kill Joshi.
Unlike Luv though, Wallace clearly appears to have survived the movie so has the potential
to reappear in a future story or sequel.
By the way, Rachael's pregnancy reveals some new details about her special prototype design
that Tyrell mentioned in the first movie.
It seems that she had more real human parts than other standard replicants at the time,
for example, reproductive organs.
That opens up the possibility that to become pregnant she mated with a human, which would
imply Deckard is human.
However, Rachael's pregnancy might not conform to normal human biology, meaning that Deckard
could still be a replicant and have impregnated her.
And, given the religious symbolism in many of Ridley Scott's films, it could even be
that this miracle replicant birth is akin to Biblical tales of a miraculous virgin birth
or of infertile women who gave birth to children who went on to become important figures, for
example, Genesis tells of Jacob's wife Rachel, who couldn't have children until God enabled
her to conceive.
And intriguingly, like Blade Runner's Rachael, the Biblical Rachel also died during childbirth.
As for Deckard, the question of whether he is a replicant or not is acknowledged in the
sequel, but the answer remains ambiguous, something the movie's director Denis Villeneuve
has said he deliberately wanted to do as he thinks that questions can be more interesting
than answers.
Niander Wallace also touches on the Deckard replicant theory in the scene where he holds
Deckard hostage and strongly suggests that Tyrell deliberately engineered the meeting
between Deckard and Rachael so that he would fall in love with her.
Wallace actually took over the assets of the Tyrell Corporation after it went bankrupt,
so it's possible he discovered this from Tyrell's records.
And Wallace further fuels the debate over whether Deckard is a replicant or human when
he ponders whether it was "love or mathematical precision" that brought the two together.
So, what did you think of Blade Runner 2049 and if you've seen the original how do you
think the two movies compare?
And where there any moments that still confused you?
I'd love to hear what you think in the comments below and also don't forget to subscribe to
my channel for your chance to win a Blade Runner 2049 Funko Pop.
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Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers!