Blade Runner: 2049

What are your thoughts on it?

Personally, I loved it.

Also loved it. Visually stunning. Perhaps even more so than the original! I have a couple very minor plot gripes but they are so small that they're not even worth mentioning.

I know most people were happy with the soundtrack but I thought it felt rushed. Some sounds and themes were just used far too often. This is probably due to the fact that they scraped Johann Johannson's work so far into the production. I still would like to hear the movie with Johann's score to compare. I hope his music for Blade Runner sees the light of day some time soon.

Absolutely loved it!
I consider Blade Runner to be the ultimate sci-fi movie and to me it will always be top3 in the universe

The 2049 was almost perfect, definitely a masterpiece, in every aspect, except the soundtrack.

Johnasson's approach was insanely good and original, I was following it for years (interviews and whatnot) - he even made a virtual world of the first part, defining the music from 1982, and tried, using AI, to see how that sound would evolve 30 years into the future - all this while considering factors like in what universe the movies were happening in (USSR still exists and all that jazz...). Then taking all that data and moving further in composition while consulting friends (Biosphere was mentioned). His unreleased soundtrack is a bloody masterpiece - I'd bet real money on that any day!

And then, out of nowhere, he was replaced..?!? Even the director was against replacing him - and that far in... ... I was really angry that day.
And all that hush-hush - no one wasn't (and still isn't) allowed to comment on the situation.

I'm also 99% positive that chunks of Johannson's work ended up in the final version.

And what did we get ? Hans Fucking Zimmer and his padwan student...
Don't get me wrong - Zimmer did a fine job - the actual music is amazing - but it's just a simple continuation of Vangelis' work.

The actual sound editing was close to disaster - and definitely the weakest point in the movie.
The environmental music was placed in all the wrong places, and it was evoking (forceably so) the wrong emotions on the viewer.
Most of the time the music was ominous, dark, danger, double danger and so on... The masterful sounds (that made the first Blade Runner what it is) of awe, curiosity, surprise - are nowhere to be found in 2049.
I may sound a bit too harsh, the movie is still a masterpiece, but it really could've been even MORE.

[mcbpete]

Johnasson's approach was insanely good and original, I was following it for years (interviews and whatnot) .... And then, out of nowhere, he was replaced..?!?

Yeah I really want to know the story behind this one - It was not only so unexpected but so sudden. Like I'm sure it was still going to be Johansson's score until like a month before release !

I don't have as much of a problem with 2049's soundtrack as I thought I would have beforehand. Yeah, it's more abstract, ambient and quite frankly menacing than the music in the original, but that reflects the tone, the hopelessness for the people, in the film. There are some beautiful pieces in there.

I'm interested in knowing what the story is behind Johannson leaving the project because Villeneuve has worked with him in the past. NDA's being what they are, whether it's because he strayed too far from the source or stuck too closely too it, we'll never know.

2049's score does lack the emotional tapestry of the original but maybe that was a once in a life time catch-it-in-the-bottle thing. I can count on one hand the number of film scores that rival Blade Runner's. There were rumours that Vangelis didn't want to do the sequel and felt the world should have been left alone. Before seeing it I would have said the same thing, but afterward, I'd say it's a good pointer on how to do a continuation properly (especially after The Force Awakens). It pays homage to its history but doesn't become enslaved by it and tries to expand the scope and do many of its own things (you could argue it's story, if not the characters, are stronger than the first BR). This is probably why I was more receptive to The Last Jedi compared to some people I know, miseribalist Luke or no, his journey between the OT and the new trilogy does make sense.

Absolutely loved it!
I consider Blade Runner to be the ultimate sci-fi movie and to me it will always be top3 in the universe

The 2049 was almost perfect, definitely a masterpiece, in every aspect, except the soundtrack.

Johnasson's approach was insanely good and original, I was following it for years (interviews and whatnot) - he even made a virtual world of the first part, defining the music from 1982, and tried, using AI, to see how that sound would evolve 30 years into the future - all this while considering factors like in what universe the movies were happening in (USSR still exists and all that jazz...). Then taking all that data and moving further in composition while consulting friends (Biosphere was mentioned). His unreleased soundtrack is a bloody masterpiece - I'd bet real money on that any day!

Wow! That sounds amazing. Have you heard his unreleased soundtrack?

No, that's why it says "I'd bet real money on that any day!"

I hope it will surface someday in some form...

Aye. Sorry. Thought you might have had an inside scoop. : )

I wonder if the surfacing of Johannson's score will end up creating various versions of 2049, as with what happened to the original.

I wonder if the surfacing of Johannson's score will end up creating various versions of 2049, as with what happened to the original.

I can only hope that 'versions' will happen

[mcbpete]

Aye, surely if it was never used he could still release it (unless there was some harsh NDA contract), like Coil did with their version of the Hellraiser soundtrack before it got moved to Christopher Young

Great movie, although I probably need to see it a couple more times to fully "understand" everything (just like I had to with the original..).

My favorite part regarding the OST was when "Tears In Rain" from the original was playing during that ending scene where it was snowing! Such a powerful tune. Pretty sure more people in the cinema were quite moved during that piece.

I'm not too sure where I stand on that. I get what they were going for, but with all the new ideas expressed in the film (central being K's relationship with Joi and whether it's 'genuine' or not, or what that even means, and the journey Deckard goes through in reconnecting with his past). Actually, having said that... I see what they were going for. Maybe that's the purpose of its replay, as opposed to playing an old hit for the sake of nostalgia, ala The Force Awakens.

Anyway, the most affecting track for me is Sea Wall, which plays prior to the new rendition of Tears of Rain. The symbolic nature as to where we're heading as a species with the climate wasn't lost on me, and there's real power to that track. It takes Blade Runner's Yamaha synth sound and composes something new, and like I said, emotionally affecting with it. There are perhaps a couple of glitchy, grungy stabs I would have avoided but it really does work. I was initially cool on that scene as I didn't think the chereography quite worked, but what they went for was this. Here you have Deckard, who we still (thankfully) don't know is human or not, watching on as two 'artificially' created humans go at it to see whether the human race has the ability to venture outward with what could be considered poisonous colonisation (Wallace wants Replicants to breed as slaves after all, though I harbour that he just wants to embolden his dictatorship). At that point in time, it's clear that the human race has learnt none of the needed lessens of subjection (hello Christopher Colombus and his ilk). And all this is happening while the water is pouring from all sides against a wall to protect LA from the sea rise (and the minority - the Replicants - fighting on the other side with K and Luv).

Hello Trump etc. as well as climate change.

Yeah, there are some things going on in 2049's script alright.