Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve)

[Irish]

Anyway, I agree that "2049" is muddled in the way it approaches Officer K's motivations. He does exactly what he's asked to do up until the point he finds the Magic Horse Totem and believes that he's Replicant Jesus. Then he busts ass to figure out ... whatever he needs to figure out.

Joi seems to exist solely so that K can demonstrate empathy to the audience. The ending would play as sentimental and implausible otherwise.

[Grouchy]

At the end of the film, he has rescued Ford from Leto's henchwoman, thereby foiling Leto's ambition of finding the child and using it for his purposes, which do not seem particularly sinister in themselves (so what if he wants to colonize even more planets? Who is harmed by this?), but presumably will lead to a war between humans and robots. If he had become an out and out rebel, shouldn't he hand over the child to Leto in order to instigate a war between humans and robots? He's not even reached the point of civil disobedience, much less revolutionary warfare.

No. This paragraph makes no sense. You need to watch both movies again, bd. I'm not gonna jump at the slightest criticism of this movie, it's not like it's sacred text, but in your case the plot went over your head.

[baby doll]

No. This paragraph makes no sense. You need to watch both movies again, bd. I'm not gonna jump at the slightest criticism of this movie, it's not like it's sacred text, but in your case the plot went over your head.

That may well be the case, but even the most elusive and ambiguous films need to convince the viewer that their plots are worth caring about. Of course, not everything needs to be 100% clear, but if the viewer does not understand something as fundamental as why it is more desirable for the protagonist to succeed than for them to fail, that's a problem.

[number8]

I'd buy into Joi as anything other than an appliance if she ever demonstrated an individual personality or had any agency. But she's more akin to a holographic RealDoll than she is a person. In every scene, she's focused on K's wants and needs and never expresses any desires of her own. She has no inner life. Even when she's about to die, she's still looking to him. It doesn't come off to me as a real relationship. It comes off as a weird robot fantasy. (And possibly the fantasy of half the audience and a handful of the producers.)

This character just went downhill so fast. Her first scene was so interesting. She seemed to display an agency when he asked her what she wanted and she chose to see the rain, and I bought the acting, only to have my illusion shattered at the same time as K when she suddenly froze because of an incoming call. That really hooked me and made me look forward to what they were gonna do with her. But then the rest of the movie is exactly as you said. What a let down.

That said, I think the script banked a lot on the audience being familiar with the concept of machine learning. I think gamers or people who interact with AI daily get how customized profiles can be unique and very hard to replicate from scratch, which is kind of interesting because the film really picks and chooses what to handhold the audience about.

[Grouchy]

What did you think of the film overall? I still have no problems with how the Joi character was handled but I feel I really need to watch it again.

[number8]

Meh. I was never the biggest Blade Runner fan, but I at least recognized its leap in futurist-design. This one feels like an entirely familiar vision. I've seen intrusive holographic ads. I've seen giant industrial structures filled with dystopic baldies. I've seen evacuated, nuclear-irradiated Las Vegas. It's Deakins, so it's all very pretty, but I agree with Irish that the visual design felt both uninspired and incoherent.

I really like the way Villeneuve paces his films, even if I don't love his films. I was bracing for a 3 hour plod but this felt fast to me even though the plot is so thin. I think it's because it revels so much in its atmosphere, so that settled me in.

The score helped, I think. I love that it was loud as hell and overpowered every other sound in the movie. I sat close to the front and had fun with those sequences. It reminded me of a great sequence in the original Ghost in the Shell movie where it's just a montage of busy city life, and I wanted to see that. I could use more shots of street cleaning.

Jared Leto is very bad and his character is also very bad. But the Luv character is great. The scene where she drone-bombs human beings to death while getting an electric manicure is the best scene in the film. One of its few wholly original visuals.

I want to applaud it for attempting to see if they can get away with a protagonist who's literally not supposed to have an emotion or autonomous goals; I want to believe that there's a version of this that could have worked; but I just couldn't get a handle on K. This is where I wish the film spent more time breaking down his relationship with Joi. Because I think there's a good sci-fi story there about a robot programmed to not be special interfacing with an AI programmed to make each user feel special causing programming issues in both, but that's not explored here because the movie is more interested in the Do Androids Struggle with Daddy Issues? stuff.

[Izzy Black]

Gosling's objective is to avert a war between robots and humans, thereby upholding the (evidently corrupt) status quo--i.e., robots as slaves to humans. In other words, both he and the film end up siding with the "law and order at all costs" sentiments expressed by Robin Wright's character.

K's actions reflect sympathies with the rebellion in the end, but not as a direct order. Freysa tells him to kill Deckard, but this seems extreme, since Deckard means something to him and because he sympathizes with Ana (he literally shares a part of her). Instead, he reunites a father with his daughter, and helps Deckard cover his tracks so that Wallace can't find him. It's a risk leading Deckard to Ana, but it's a risk K sees worth taking. If he were merely carrying out the orders of Freysa, he would let Deckard drown. If he were merely carrying out his duties and the wishes of Joshi, he would have let Deckard drown and would kill Ana. He does neither. He asserts his autonomy and saves both. If his efforts were successful, then the upcoming war may still happen. Ana is alive and may still be revealed as a symbol for the freedom movement.

[baby doll]

K's actions reflect sympathies with the rebellion in the end, but not as a direct order. Freysa tells him to kill Deckard, but this seems extreme, since Deckard means something to him and because he sympathizes with Ana (he literally shares a part of her). Instead, he reunites a father with his daughter, and helps Deckard cover his tracks so that Wallace can't find him. It's a risk leading Deckard to Ana, but it's a risk K sees worth taking. If he were merely carrying out the orders of Freysa, he would let Deckard drown. If he were merely carrying out his duties and the wishes of Joshi, he would have let Deckard drown and would kill Ana. He does neither. He asserts his autonomy and saves both. If his efforts were successful, then the upcoming war may still happen. Ana is alive and may still be revealed as a symbol for the freedom movement.

In other words, the script hasn't placed K in a position where he needs to make a choice between the rebellion, maintaining order, and helping the Deckards, and in the end, nothing is really resolved. In any case, my objection isn't that K didn't join the robot underground per se, but that the film does not make it clear why the viewer should care one way or the other if there is a war or not. The status quo does not seem especially worthy of preservation, nor is the necessity of a robot insurrection made altogether clear. (It might have been helpful to give the viewer a stronger sense of what life on the off-world planets is like, instead of falling back on a lot of vague, pseudo-profound yammering about robots having souls.)

[Izzy Black]

In other words, the script hasn't placed K in a position where he needs to make a choice between the rebellion, maintaining order, and helping the Deckards, and in the end, nothing is really resolved.

I was trying to say just the opposite. The script puts him in a place where he needs to make a choice between helping the rebellion by killing Deckard, helping Wallace by letting Deckard be captured, following through on his original orders by stopping Deckard and killing Ana, or making his own way by helping the replicants yet while saving Deckard and Ana in the process. In the end, he does the latter. This is the path in which he can save each of the lives he cares about rather than letting them be destroyed. It's also the path of highest risk and greatest resistance, but for that matter, of greatest value. K thus resolves to help Deckard and Ana and also the rebellion, thereby continuing to ignore his initial orders and thwarting Wallace's plans.

In any case, my objection isn't that K didn't join the robot underground per se, but that the film does not make it clear why the viewer should care one way or the other if there is a war or not. The status quo does not seem especially worthy of preservation, nor is the necessity of a robot insurrection made altogether clear. (It might have been helpful to give the viewer a stronger sense of what life on the off-world planets is like, instead of falling back on a lot of vague, pseudo-profound yammering about robots having souls.)

Nexus 8 replicants are being hunted and retired. The need for insurrection on the Nexus 8's behalf is very basic: survival. We should care because we can see that the Nexus 8, just like the old Nexus 6 line, are plainly people and do not deserve to be hunted down and killed. We should care because they suffer and are unhappy with the work they must do. We should care because, to the extent that the goals and desires of replicants can and do break from the mandate of their designers, they should have the right to pursue those ends. But they don't. Either they obey, or they die.

As for what Ana represents, I take it that the Nexus 8 hope to recruit the new line of replicants by appealing to the fact that they can create their own paths and perpetuate their species autonomously. The fact of replicant reproduction, then, shows at least two central things the freedom movement can deploy in arguments in recruiting replicants like K. First, it shows that the replicant species needn't depend for its existence on the will of a slave owning designer. As Freysa says, "We are our own masters." Second, it shows that replicants are functionally indistinguishable from human beings ("More human than human"), which undermines the perceived justification for their enslavement and denial of their basic rights. This latter point is precisely the threat that Joshi sees in the power of replicant reproduction ("The world is built on a wall that separates kind. Tell either side there is no wall, you’ve bought a war. Or a slaughter."). So the basic question is this: If the replicants are are no different from the humans, how can the humans justify their enslavement? They can't. That's precisely the argument the freedom movement seeks to make.

[Grouchy]

Thank you, Izzy. I swear, the reactions to this movie confuse the hell out of me. I can't argue with 8's assessment that the future world building is not as innovative as the first one - this isn't 1983 anymore and lots of water has gone under the bridge. But the reactions against the plot itself seem weird to me - and it's not just baby doll, the friends I saw the movie with made fairly similar comments.

[baby doll]

I was trying to say just the opposite. The script puts him in a place where he needs to make a choice between helping the rebellion by killing Deckard, helping Wallace by letting Deckard be captured, following through on his original orders by stopping Deckard and killing Ana, or making his own way by helping the replicants yet while saving Deckard and Ana in the process. In the end, he does the latter. This is the path in which he can save each of the lives he cares about rather than letting them be destroyed. It's also the path of highest risk and greatest resistance, but for that matter, of greatest value. K thus resolves to help Deckard and Ana and also the rebellion, thereby continuing to ignore his initial orders and thwarting Wallace's plans.

It would've been more dramatic if he'd had to make a genuinely difficult choice rather than one where he gets to save the Deckards with no negative repercussions, at least for the time being--say, for instance, if in helping the Deckards, he became a marked man with both the rebellion and the villains. As it stands, there's no sense at the end of the film even that Leto is hunting him.

Nexus 8 replicants are being hunted and retired. The need for insurrection on the Nexus 8's behalf is very basic: survival. We should care because we can see that the Nexus 8, just like the old Nexus 6 line, are plainly people and do not deserve to be hunted down and killed. We should care because they suffer and are unhappy with the work they must do. We should care because, to the extent that the goals and desires of replicants can and do break from the mandate of their designers, they should have the right to pursue those ends. But they don't. Either they obey, or they die.

This may be related to the onscreen text being too small, but I missed the part about Nexus 8 robots being hunted and retired; it was my understanding that it was the old, pre-blackout Nexus 6 robots that were being hunted as it was illegal for them to be on earth. In any case, even if we were to agree for the sake of argument that the robots in the film dislike the work they are made to perform off-world (whatever it is), I still think it would be helpful for viewers to have a better understanding of what tasks they're actually performing, why they're so objectionable, and what the robots would like to do if they were free in order for one to understand the characters' actions and what is actually at stake in the story. It's one thing to understand something intellectually and quite another to feel it on an emotional level.

As for what Ana represents, I take it that the Nexus 8 hope to recruit the new line of replicants by appealing to the fact that they can create their own paths and perpetuate their species autonomously. The fact of replicant reproduction, then, shows at least two central things the freedom movement can deploy in arguments in recruiting replicants like K. First, it shows that the replicant species needn't depend for its existence on the will of a slave owning designer. As Freysa says, "We are our own masters." Second, it shows that replicants are functionally indistinguishable from human beings ("More human than human"), which undermines the perceived justification for their enslavement and denial of their basic rights. This latter point is precisely the threat that Joshi sees in the power of replicant reproduction ("The world is built on a wall that separates kind. Tell either side there is no wall, you’ve bought a war. Or a slaughter."). So the basic question is this: If the replicants are are no different from the humans, how can the humans justify their enslavement? They can't. That's precisely the argument the freedom movement seeks to make.

The justification for robot slavery is that the robots were expressly designed and built to perform certain tasks, and just as humans receive satisfaction from being of use to others, one would expect robots to be satisfied to perform their allotted tasks, whether or not there's an overseer holding the whip. But let's say they don't like performing these tasks, and they don't get any money from it that they can spend at the robot strip club after work, and on top of this, they're stronger and more intelligent than the humans who built them: Wouldn't the idea of a robot insurrection come pretty quickly and naturally, even if they didn't have souls and were incapable of procreation? Why would they need to see a miracle to become dissatisfied with cleaning up human's shit?

[number8]

This may be related to the onscreen text being too small, but I missed the part about Nexus 8 robots being hunted and retired; it was my understanding that it was the old, pre-blackout Nexus 6 robots that were being hunted as it was illegal for them to be on earth.

Nexus 6 were the models in the original film. They're the ones with a 4 year lifespan. They were made illegal prior to the event of the original film because of a mutiny that occurred off world, and a Blade Runner like Deckard hunts down the ones remaining on Earth.

Nexus 8 were the models with a long lifespan like the one played by Dave Bautista at the beginning of the movie. A couple of years after the original movie, Nexus 8s rebelled again and some of them pulled off a terrorist attack that caused the blackout. It's the last of the Tyrell replicant before the company went out of business, since they banned all replicants.

About 15 years before 2049, Jared Leto convinced the government to allow replicants again for his company by promising that the Nexus 9s are completely obedient, so there's no chance of another rebellion. This time, all Blade Runners are Nexus 9s like K, tasked to hunt down remaining Nexus 8s that went into hiding following the blackout all those years ago.

I sigh as I'm typing this, but: this was all explained in the three short films they released on Youtube as prequels. There's the anime one that depicts the events of the blackout, and one starring Leto that's just him unveiling the Nexus 9 to government officials.

[Irish]

I sigh as I'm typing this, but: this was all explained in the three short films they released on Youtube as prequels. There's the anime one that depicts the events of the blackout, and one starring Leto that's just him unveiling the Nexus 9 to government officials.

Might be something for the pet peeves thread, but I had a deep suspicion of would-be blockbusters that use cheesy short films as a marketing tool. "2049" was like the second or third one to do it this year.

[Izzy Black]

It would've been more dramatic if he'd had to make a genuinely difficult choice rather than one where he gets to save the Deckards with no negative repercussions, at least for the time being--say, for instance, if in helping the Deckards, he became a marked man with both the rebellion and the villains. As it stands, there's no sense at the end of the film even that Leto is hunting him.

I felt the stakes were clear. The final showdown happens only moments after Freysa tells him to kill Deckard. It's unambiguous that he's going against that order and risking Ana's life by letting Deckard live. He's already being hunted by the LAPD. He's been suspended, violated his orders, and will be retired if he fails his VK test again. As for Wallace, K's bleeding out and arguably dead at the end. The consequence, then, was essentially his life. The film looks like it was setting things up for a sequel (which sadly I am almost certain we'll never see), so the full extent of the consequences would not be seen until the next film. That's the nature of a cliffhanger, but I didn't feel there was any ambiguity about the stakes in his decision.

This may be related to the onscreen text being too small, but I missed the part about Nexus 8 robots being hunted and retired; it was my understanding that it was the old, pre-blackout Nexus 6 robots that were being hunted as it was illegal for them to be on earth. In any case, even if we were to agree for the sake of argument that the robots in the film dislike the work they are made to perform off-world (whatever it is), I still think it would be helpful for viewers to have a better understanding of what tasks they're actually performing, why they're so objectionable, and what the robots would like to do if they were free in order for one to understand the characters' actions and what is actually at stake in the story. It's one thing to understand something intellectually and quite another to feel it on an emotional level.

Number8 addressed the question about the Nexus 8.

As for their vocations, the Nexus 6 replicants we know about were combat and pleasure models intended to assist Offworld settlers. They were presented as either instruments for sex or military defense. The theme in the original film, then, was on the commodification and objectification of the human body: whether sexualized or in terms of functional brute force.

This theme seems to be taken up again in Blade Runner 2049. The replicants in the film seem to occupy roughly the same roles: K an assassin, Mariette is a flesh model / sex worker, Sapper is a fugitive military medical officer covering as a farmer, and Luv an agent of Wallace. Like the first film, the manner in which the characters come to terms with their autonomy or lack thereof is revealed in different ways.

In K's case, we see in the first scene Sapper says to him: "How does it feel to kill your own kind?" K responds that he doesn't kill his own kind because they don't run. He says "only older models do". This plants the seed for K's arc. It's shown how he is a killer by mandate and not genuinely free to do otherwise. Joshi reminds him of this anytime he expresses reservation or dissent. He also sees his existence as inauthentic: he's aware of the falsity of his memories and he is constantly reminded that he is less than human, a second-class citizen. He's cast as an instrument, a tool, something disposable and not free to create his own path and happiness, and he initially resigns himself to this fact. He's a disaffected assassin who only plays pretend of another life fulfilled, projecting his desires on Joi and perpetuating the process of AI objectification. But in the end, he asserts his autonomy by breaking orders and helping Deckard and the replicants.

The justification for robot slavery is that the robots were expressly designed and built to perform certain tasks, and just as humans receive satisfaction from being of use to others, one would expect robots to be satisfied to perform their allotted tasks, whether or not there's an overseer holding the whip. But let's say they don't like performing these tasks, and they don't get any money from it that they can spend at the robot strip club after work, and on top of this, they're stronger and more intelligent than the humans who built them: Wouldn't the idea of a robot insurrection come pretty quickly and naturally, even if they didn't have souls and were incapable of procreation? Why would they need to see a miracle to become dissatisfied with cleaning up human's shit?

The Nexus 8s have already rebelled and revolted in the past. That's why they're being hunted. The Nexus 6 have done the same. The thinking in this film is that the newer replicants "obey", so thinks Wallace. They're supposed to be different in this respect, and so there is presumably a greater challenge for the freedom movement to inspire them to revolutionary action. The idea behind the discovery of replicant reproduction is that it might be used to persuade these newer models to rebel. It works in the case of K. It represents his entire arc in the film.

[baby doll]

I sigh as I'm typing this, but: this was all explained in the three short films they released on Youtube as prequels. There's the anime one that depicts the events of the blackout, and one starring Leto that's just him unveiling the Nexus 9 to government officials.

I wasn't aware of those shorts, but even if I had been, I wouldn't have watched them. The film itself is already something like 165 minutes; to expect viewers to do extra homework on top of that is asking for too much of a time commitment.

[baby doll]

I felt the stakes were clear. The final showdown happens only moments after Freysa tells him to kill Deckard. It's unambiguous that he's going against that order and risking Ana's life by letting Deckard live. He's already being hunted by the LAPD. He's been suspended, violated his orders, and will be retired if he fails his VK test again. As for Wallace, K's bleeding out and arguably dead at the end. The consequence, then, was essentially his life. The film looks like it was setting things up for a sequel (which sadly I am almost certain we'll never see), so the full extent of the consequences would not be seen until the next film. That's the nature of a cliffhanger, but I didn't feel there was any ambiguity about the stakes in his decision.

He goes against orders by letting Deckard live, but the resistance doesn't know this. As far as they're concerned, K did what they asked him to. Furthermore, I did not have any sense that K was fatally injured in the final sequence. Indeed, if the ending was meant to set up another sequel (and I have no doubt that it was), killing off K would mean they'd have to find another blade runner to be the protagonist.

Incidentally, it wasn't clear to me why the LAPD was hunting him, and although I'm sure you can explain it to me, the problem as I see it isn't that it can't be explained but that the film doesn't do a very good job of explaining itself.

As for their vocations, the Nexus 6 replicants we know about were combat and pleasure models intended to assist Offworld settlers. They were presented as either instruments for sex or military defense. The theme in the original film, then, was on the commodification and objectification of the human body: whether sexualized or in terms of functional brute force.

This theme seems to be taken up again in Blade Runner 2049. The replicants in the film seem to occupy roughly the same roles: K an assassin, Mariette is a flesh model / sex worker, Sapper is a fugitive military medical officer covering as a farmer, and Luv an agent of Wallace. Like the first film, the manner in which the characters come to terms with their autonomy or lack thereof is revealed in different ways.

In K's case, we see in the first scene Sapper says to him: "How does it feel to kill your own kind?" K responds that he doesn't kill his own kind because they don't run. He says "only older models do". This plants the seed for K's arc. It's shown how he is a killer by mandate and not genuinely free to do otherwise. Joshi reminds him of this anytime he expresses reservation or dissent. He also sees his existence as inauthentic: he's aware of the falsity of his memories and he is constantly reminded that he is less than human, a second-class citizen. He's cast as an instrument, a tool, something disposable and not free to create his own path and happiness, and he initially resigns himself to this fact. He's a disaffected assassin who only plays pretend of another life fulfilled, projecting his desires on Joi and perpetuating the process of AI objectification. But in the end, he asserts his autonomy by breaking orders and helping Deckard and the replicants.

The Nexus 8s have already rebelled and revolted in the past. That's why they're being hunted. The Nexus 6 have done the same. The thinking in this film is that the newer replicants "obey", so thinks Wallace. They're supposed to be different in this respect, and so there is presumably a greater challenge for the freedom movement to inspire them to revolutionary action. The idea behind the discovery of replicant reproduction is that it might be used to persuade these newer models to rebel. It works in the case of K. It represents his entire arc in the film.

You don't really seem to be answering my question. If the newer models don't like the tasks they're assigned to perform and have the capacity to rebel, why do they need a "miracle" to persuade them to revolt? To be less than authentically human is not a reason to obey. And if it is only the fear of being retired that keeps them in line, the ability to reproduce would not make rebellion any less risky; indeed, it might make it more so if the robots had robot children they cared for.

[Izzy Black]

I wasn't aware of those shorts, but even if I had been, I wouldn't have watched them. The film itself is already something like 165 minutes; to expect viewers to do extra homework on top of that is asking for too much of a time commitment.

It's additional context, but the fact that the older line of replicants Nexus 8 with open-ended lifespans were being hunted is made very clear in the film. It's not necessary to see the shorts. I personally saw the shorts only after I saw and liked the film.

[Izzy Black]

He goes against orders by letting Deckard live, but the resistance doesn't know this. As far as they're concerned, K did what they asked him to. Furthermore, I did not have any sense that K was fatally injured in the final sequence. Indeed, if the ending was meant to set up another sequel (and I have no doubt that it was), killing off K would mean they'd have to find another blade runner to be the protagonist.

The resistance movement sends K on a mission that he ultimately doesn't accept. The central threat for K is not that he fears they will kill him if he lets Deckard live, but that their movement is at risk if Deckard lives. This makes the dramatic stakes far more compelling. He isn't moved to kill Deckard because he fears the resistance movement. Rather, he has an incentive to kill Deckard only if he shares their values. This means his choice is a matter of moral principle: Does he side with the resistance movement's consequentualist agenda (sacrifice others for the perceived greater good), or make his own way and refuse to compromise a person's life (help the resistance movement without killing Deckard)? Or does he simply refuse to help them?

As for the ending, he was laying there bleeding out on the snow. He looks to be nearing death, and at the very least too vulnerable to survive the LAPD when they find him. The point is just that he's in extremely dire straights in the end. And in general, the stakes prior to his decision were all pretty well established.

Incidentally, it wasn't clear to me why the LAPD was hunting him, and although I'm sure you can explain it to me, the problem as I see it isn't that it can't be explained but that the film doesn't do a very good job of explaining itself.

He failed his VK test. He's supposed to keep an emotional baseline. His quest stirs up emotions and empathy in him that's not appropriate for him to have. He's supposed to be an emotionally inert killer who follows orders.

You don't really seem to be answering my question. If the newer models don't like the tasks they're assigned to perform and have the capacity to rebel, why do they need a "miracle" to persuade them to revolt? To be less than authentically human is not a reason to obey. And if it is only the fear of being retired that keeps them in line, the ability to reproduce would not make rebellion any less risky; indeed, it might make it more so if the robots had robot children they cared for.

My answer to your question was that the newer models do not have the same capacity to rebel as older models. It's a point made in the film that the newer models are designed to obey in ways that is supposed to reflect a correction on the rebellious nature of previous models. We shouldn't expect them to rebel for the same reasons as previous models, i.e. simply because they are unhappy with their condition. It's also suggested in the film that part of what may be keeping the new models in line, particularly for K, is a form of ideology: making it clear that they are unlike humans, that they lack the same emotional sophistication (maintained by VK tests), and that, in virtue of this, they ought to resign themselves to the status of second-class citizens. As Joshi says, there is a wall separating humans and replicants that maintains the social hierarchy. If it dissolves, the hierarchy breaks. This is what happens in the case of K. He starts to believe that there may not be important differences between humans and replicants to justify enslavement. He learns that they can create their own path and become their own masters. He discovers a resistance movement. He's inspired by Joi, etc. These are all incentives to break.

By the way, I don't agree that fear of death plus the fact of procreation means they have less incentive to rebel. To the contrary, it shows that they needn't depend on Wallace to maintain the existence of the replicant kind. They have a genuine future to fight for. As Freysa says, "We are our own masters". By rebelling, they can become an autonomous, self-governing kind. It gives them something worth fighting for, worth dying for, and this is a point that is made explicit in the film. It's something that's genuinely motivating its characters. Both Sapper and Freysa make a point about rebelling and dying for this cause, i.e. the cause of procreation and becoming their own masters.

[Grouchy]

The shorts provide more detailed context, but they are not necessary to understand the film. If you're baby doll you wouldn't have understood it anyways.

[TGM]

Prisoners
Blade Runner 2049
Sicario
Arrival
Enemy
(Haven't seen any of his pre-Prisoners movies just yet.)

[number8]

I needed a new winter coat so I had a replica of K's coat custom-ordered which seems like a dumb decision for a movie I didn't really like but hey that coat is fire.

[Skitch]

You ain't no kind of man if your coat game isn't on point.

[Ezee E]

You ain't no kind of man if your coat game isn't on point.

I want to know if Gosling helps select these coats, or is it just coincidence that he's had the coolest coats in the movies over the last decade.

[baby doll]

Prisoners
Blade Runner 2049
Sicario
Arrival
Enemy
(Haven't seen any of his pre-Prisoners movies just yet.)

1. Maelström (2000)
2. Un 32 août sur terre (1998)
3. Polytechnique (2009)
4. Incendies (2010)
5. Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
6. Enemy (2013)

Excepting than the last two, that's also the order I first watched them in, which may or may not have something to do with my preferences. Then again, I took another look at Un 32 août sur terre in 2015 and found I liked it even better then than when I first saw it (which would've been some time in the early 2000s).

[Dead & Messed Up]

This didn't blow my mind, but it was pretty enough, and its two hours and forty minutes held my interest if not my emotions (or much of my brain). The better movie in here is a smaller piece about K the replicant and his interactions with Joi. I liked that idea of AI infinite regress, where even replicants have their servants, and maybe those servants of servants have their own quiet dreams.