Hey guys, I’m Dev and I am extremely hype for ‘Blade Runner: 2049.’
Denis Villeneuve has updated Ridley Scott’s classic for a new generation of fans,
And if you’re not familiar with the original or you just need a refresher,
We’ve put together a video with
Everything You Need to Know About ‘Blade Runner’
We’ll cover the gap between the two films a little later,
Including all the info revealed in the three promotional short films that came out in anticipation of ‘2049,’
But first, we’re gonna start with the
‘Blade Runner’ Backstory
It all started when the Tyrell Corporation created a race of synthetic beings known as ‘Replicants.’
Humans used the NEXUS models as expendable soldiers and slave labor,
A new life awaits you in the off-world colonies!
The chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure!
And with their unwilling help, we ramped up our colonization efforts around the galaxy to escape our polluted hellhole.
But after a rebellion at an offworld colony, the UN made Replicants illegal on Earth.
They weren’t banned entirely, but at the beginning of ‘Blade Runner’ Replicants are only allowed on other planets.
By the start of the movie, the new NEXUS-6 series is indistinguishable from the real deal.
They’re completely organic, which is where the derogatory term “skin job” comes from.
N-6 Replicants are harder, better, faster and stronger than humans.
They’re self-aware, and they can feel emotions.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
That scared the shit out of Tyrell,
Which is why he created every NEXUS-6 with a built-in expiration date.
To make an alteration in the evolvement of an organic life system is fatal.
The coding sequence cannot be revised once it's been established.
Four years from their inception, the Replicant dies.
Kinda like college!
If you’re not patient enough to wait that long,
the only other way to determine human from Replicant is the Voight-Kampff Test.
See, Replicants aren’t capable of feeling empathy for others,
That part of the test? No.
So the test uses hundreds of questions and a machine that measures their physical responses to messed-up scenarios.
A tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over but it can't.
Not without your help. But you're not helping.
Whaddya mean I'm not helping?!
It’s one of the most essential tools in a Blade Runner’s arsenal.
Which begs the question:
What the hell Is a Blade Runner?
Blade Runners are an elite task force within the L.A.P.D. whose job it is to identify, hunt down and “retire” rogue replicants.
Replicants aren’t considered people under the law, so there’s no arresting and incarcerating them.
They’re illegal property, and it’s a Blade Runner’s job to destroy them.
But that still doesn’t explain what “Blade Runner” means,
And the movie sure as hell doesn’t, either.
Not good enough. I need the old Blade Runner!
Basically, Ridley Scott just thought it sounded cool.
Which it does. I just imagine a sport that’s like part Tron, part ice skating.
Anyway, the movie was based on Philip K. Dick’s novel ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’
Also a great title, but it probably wouldn’t fit on a marquee.
The adaptation was originally titled ‘Dangerous Days,’
Isn't it fortunate it wasn't used?
Meanwhile, Scott asked screenwriter Hampton Fancher to come up with a better name for hero Rick Deckard’s profession.
The script called him a detective, but that doesn’t quite fit the job description
Fancher couldn’t think of anything better, so he looked through his bookshelf for inspiration.
And his search led him to an obscure novel by Alan Norse, called ‘The Bladerunner.’
It’s about a future world where black market medical supplies are smuggled between underground doctors.
Blade, scalpel. Runner… You get the idea.
It had nothing to do with Philip K. Dick’s book or Ridley Scott’s script,
But it was a damn cool name for a robot-killing cop,
And an even better title for the movie.
They purchased the rights to the name, and ‘Blade Runner’ was born.
It’s time to get into spoiler territory, because now we’re going to talk about everything that happened in
‘Blade Runner’
The film takes place in 2019, when retired Blade Runner Rick Deckard gets called in for the all too familiar one last job.
I was quit when I came in here, Bryant. I'm twice as quit now.
A squad of Replicant soldiers has hijacked a shuttle and made their way to Earth,
And it’s Deckard’s job to take them out:
There’s the soldier Leon,
The assassin Zhora,
Pris, your basic pleasure model,
And their leader, Roy Batty.
A real baddie.
But first, Deckard makes a stop at the Tyrell building to learn more about the new Nexus-6 models.
That’s where he meets Rachel, an experimental Replicant with implanted memories.
Unlike most Replicants, Rachel has no clue she’s not human.
She's beginning to suspect, I think.
Suspect? How can it not know what it is?
Rachel is an experiment, nothing more.
They are emotionally inexperienced, with only a few years to store up the experiences which you and I take for granted.
If we gift them a past, we create a cushion, a pillow for their emotions and consequently we can control them.
You're talking about memories.
But she takes the revelation pretty well, all things considered.
Bad joke. You're not a Replicant.
And it sets up the still unanswered possibility that Deckard himself is a replicant.
You know that Voight-Kampff test of yours. You ever take that test yourself?
Which is why Ryan Gosling wants to ask him a few questions.
Deckard “retires” Zhora, then his bosses show up and order him to kill Rachel too,
But he’s attacked by Leon before he can take her out.
Wake up! Time to die!
She saves Deckard’s life, and the two have a romantic rendezvous back at his apartment.
Meanwhile, Batty and Pris are holed up with J.F. Sebastian, a creepy genetic engineer who leads them to Tyrell.
Batty is obsessed with meeting his maker.
He confronts the man who gave him life and demands more time.
Tyrell basically says
The facts of life.
‘Sorry pal, not gonna happen,’
So Batty crushes his skull with his bare hands.
J.F. Sebastian gets it too.
Hot on the trail, Deckard kills Pris,
Then has a final rooftop showdown in the rain with Batty.
The giant, jacked-up, android Rutger Hauer beats the shit out of Harrison Ford,
but the rapidly deteriorating Replicant actually saves Deckard’s life.
Kinship!
As the clock ticks down on his 4-year lifespan,
Batty reminisces about all the wondrous sights he’s seen in his short, ugly life.
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate.
All those moments lost in time, like tears in rain.
Then… Time to die.
Deckard and Rachael ride off into the sunset,
And for 35 years, that was it for the world of ‘Blade Runner,’
Minus a video game and some tie-in novels.
But thanks to the shorts and info released by the studio,
We can start filling the gap.
Between the original and ‘Blade Runner: 2049.’
Even though a Replicant killed their founder,
That didn’t stop the Tyrell corporation from designing new ones.
The NEXUS-8s ditch the 4-year lifespan,
and now they’re built with ocular implants that reveal their true nature without any boring turtle questions.
Tortoise? What's that?
Know what a turtle is? Same thing.
But that didn’t do much to help human/Replicant relations.
The situation reaches a boiling point in 2022,
when an android named Iggy detonates an EMP over the west coast.
His goal was to wipe out the Replicant Registry used to hunt down his kind.
Then we're almost human. All except our perfect right eye.
Unfortunately, the EMP also causes a nationwide blackout.
It crashes the financial markets, destroys most electronic data in the United States and causes a global famine.
Way to go Iggy.
You screwed the world over!
These Replicants, man...
It’s all in Shinichirō Watanabe’s anime short ‘Blackout,’
And if you’re gonna just watch one of the shorts, this is it.
After the Blackout, the government stops all this wishy-washy “offworld” nonsense and straight-up bans all Replicant production.
Enter Jared Leto’s character, Neander Wallace.
He solves the hunger crisis through genetically modified food, and shares his patents with all of humanity.
But I guess literally saving the world isn’t enough for Jared Leto,
because soon Wallace starts messing around with Tyrell’s old Replicants.
My Replicants will never rebel. They will never run. They will simply obey.
His new models are utterly obedient, and he lobbies hard to repeal the prohibition.
That’s the premise of the short ‘2036: Nexus Dawn.’
Leto shows off his new and improved Replicant to some government officials,
and they’re equally horrified and impressed when it takes its own life on his command.
Do this now.
They lift the ban, and the “perfected” NEXUS-9’s are a big hit,
Even with the world falling apart due to climate change and rising sea levels.
They're like 'stop all production!' Then they're like 'okay, cool,' then it's like 'stop it again!'
Of course, there are still some of the old NEXUS-8’s out there with all that pesky free will.
That brings us to the third short, ‘Nowhere to Run.’
Set just one year before the new film, it’s about a Replicant played by Dave “The Animal” Batista.
His name is Sapper Morton, and he lives a quiet life until he’s forced to reveal his true nature to save his friend.
Someone narcs him out, and by the beginning of ‘Blade Runner: 2049’ he’s on the run.
I think I found a rogue skin job you might be looking for!
And that brings us up to speed for this extremely anticipated sequel.
The early reviews range from “phenomenal” to “breathtaking,”
And from everything we’ve seen so far,
It looks like Denis Villeneuve has created a worthy successor to Ridley Scott’s legendary future noir.