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sci-phi-guy · 6 years

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Blade Runner 2049: Thoughts and Critique?

A few weeks ago (11/2/17 if Tumblr doesn’t time-stamp these posts) I saw the film Blade Runner 2049, the sequel to the 1982 ‘flawed masterpiece’ of the same name minus the date.

And much like it’s predecessor it’s a flawed film, however those flaws are much more present that I wouldn’t call it a masterpiece; but it isn’t bad, it’s actually quite good, so much so that it definitely sticks out when compared to many modern films based on pre-existing franchises or iconography.

This film is frustrating, to put it bluntly. Frustrating because it’s a mixture of being both excellent, alright, and at some parts bad.

I haven’t posted jack-squat on this blog in ages, and my ability to express and articulate viewpoints hasn’t had much opportunity to be refined well, so consider this a warning that this kind of opinionated, and I wouldn’t fully call it a critique. Also this will be riddled with spoilers, so if you plan on watching this film to make up your own mind (which I would highly encourage), please don’t read this until doing so.

Overall I thought the film was good, but there were so many flaws that I wouldn't call it great. Many of those flaws act more like trade-offs from the original film that were worked differently in the new one, which do and don't work.

Visually it's really impressive, with director Denis Villeneuve knowing what to focus on in each scene and how the lighting, color composition and blocking help establish tone and flow the film through. However the original film had so much visual detail in it that your eyes were allowed to wander wherever with what felt like a vast but cluttered, overused and believable world. The new film feels almost empty at times, crowd scenes don't feel crowded, and the lack of background detail and constraint the director puts on you don't allow you to wander that much; the camera confined, but only because it knows what to focus on.

The scene of them flying to Wallace's building as it towers over the pyramids of Tyrells' in a rainy fog while a Tibetan choir sings genuinely chilled me.

Which leads me to the music which was also great, when it's there. It's nice that the composer tried something close but also distinct from the original film's score, but most of the music is this loud thunk noise; it doesn't sound as varied as the originals, nor does it get baked into the film as well.

The plot was simple but well-defined, some of the characters were good and well-defined (some of them), and the actors who played them did a good job performance-wise. Deckard in the original only did one-bit of 'detective-work', but K is a genuine detective in this new film, doing a great deal of work to solve this mystery of sorts; it does bite him hard by the film's end, which was smart and to me unexpected.

And yeah, the way women were in this film was unusually distracting, namely because it had so much presence in the film's plot, and as consequence affected the overall feel of the film. I liked Robin Wright's character, and I kind of like Luv when she wasn't in the presence of Wallace Breen. And yes, the scene when we first see him felt almost unnecessary, like it told you that "here the bad guy does something bad to tell you he is bad guy", when his ambition and goal was enough already, we don't need to see him make out with a naked woman and then kill her right after; my mom described this part as "voyeurism", and my parents' dislike for this movie is far stronger than anything I can say.

As for Karen (I know it's Joi, but she condemned herself as Karen the moment she brought out the holographic meatloaf), this was the most distracting thing about this movie, namely because she had so much in it, yet gave so little outside of being a motive for the male leads actions. The scene where she melds with the prostitute to have a three-way, while visually cool my man-ass will admit, inappropriate story-wise. Like Ryan thinks he's a born replicant, fails his Voight-Kampff test, and then has sex? I couldn't believe that, as I watched this scene in the theater, I was preferring the grubby, uncomfortable love scene in the original Blade Runner; because unlike this one, that scene between Deckard and Rachael had some sort of an odd context in the film, and was also appropriately-timed as well.

The part where they brought back Rachael to torment Deckard, after parading her skull around was cruel, but it's placement in the film is interesting because it does address a question the Final Cut of Blade Runner brought up: Is Deckard a replicant or not? They don't answer it, they leave it, toss it around actually. And it gives a pausing moment where Deckard says only one line: "I know what's real.............."

In the ending of the 2007 Final Cut of Blade Runner, Deckard finds an origami unicorn in his apartment, an image he saw in a daydream earlier in the film. They don't give a direct answer as to what Deckard is, they only hint and prod but never define. This twist ending is hailed by so many people as for making up a great majority of the original film's unsatisfactory 1982 version; it's far better than any 'happy ending', that's for sure.

But here's the thing: this man, whose profession is hunting down and killing people who have been defined as not real, who has been nearly killed by those who know they are not real , and has fallen awkwardly in love with someone who he knows and who she now realizes is not real, has now come to possibility that he himself may not be real. What does he do?

He accepts it. We don't know what he accepts, but whatever it is, he simply moves on.

And while Blade Runner 2049 may not follow this theme of accepting ones' reality to its' exact beats, it does what this film does in a whole and takes parts of what the made the original film work and expands on them with some strengths and weaknesses everywhere.

K knows his implanted memories are fake, yet accepts them as the bedrock of his identity, regardless of the slave-like state he lives in society. It's only when he begins to question whether he was born or not that he becomes more erratic, until it eventually leads the great detective to assumes the role of somebody he is not. It's why the twist near the end when we realizes that the child was a girl and not a boy like he assumed is so effective; K did far great a deal of intuitive detective work in this film, and yet even he misses out on what were some vital clues to fit the possibility that he may be more than what he is, whether he likes it or not. And it's only when he's in-front of that gratuitous billboard, when not-his-Karen calls him something only his-Karen could, that he accepts what he is, and goes to save Deckard.

It's not just him, but alot of the other characters here display varying takes on this theme of acceptance. Joshi half-heartedly accepts her death along with the possibility that K lied to her, Luv without choice accepts her dual position as the high-end of a massive corporation while being a slave to that corporations' leader, and even Wallace, literally blind in his grasp for power cannot accept his nor humanity's limitations and thus seeks a born race of slaves to fulfill his desire. Even the underground revolution of replicants, who show up for only a few minutes of a near three hour movie, consist of those who cannot accept their place in society because it is that of a slave.

Blade Runner 2049 is a flawed film, but it's still a good one despite some shortcomings and frustrating choices throughout. It walks away from the long line of passable films modern Hollywood has been rolling out with an established franchise attached to it, but only a few feet. Overall, it's a short step in the right direction.

#bladerunner #bladerunner 2049 #film review #critique #?#sch-phi guy #opinion

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liamanimation · 5 years

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Script v1

INT. CAVES IN BOLIVIA - MORNING

Our protagonist, Jason, clad in a white pullover, a desert scarf, khaki cargo pants and a large rucksack with climbing gear, is exploring the caves, searching for a suspected extraterrestrial site. The caves as dim and quiet, the loudest sounds coming from Jason’s movements.

JASON

(Whispers) Astounding, local electrical distortion

Jason stops taking note of the compass spinning wildly in one hand and his torch flickering in the other. This reassures him that he is on the right path and he continues the way he was going. Until he meets a dead end.

JASON

This can’t be right! (pausing) It has to be on the other side.

Looking at a crack in the wall in from of him, Jason decides he must get through to the other side o the wall. Taking his climbing pick, Jason begins hacking away at the limestone until the rock gives way to a small opening just big enough to pass through. As he slowly shuffles through the crevice the tranquil quiet of the cave is startlingly disrupted by the sound of his phone ringing from his pocket. Causing Jason to jump in shock.

JASON

How is it I’m able to receive calls this far underground?

He rustles into his pocket and pulls out his phone answering it.

JASON

(Quietly) Hey.

The phone call is from Lucius, Jason’s friend and trusted business partner.

LUCIUS

(Stressed) Please don’t tell me you’re in Bolivia right now!

JASON

Okay, I won’t.

Jason continues to shuffle down the passage.

JASON

Do you believe in aliens?

LUCIUS

What?

JASON

Extraterrestrial Intelligence, beings from beyond our stars.

LUCIUS

(Concerned) Listen, man. I think you’ve lost it.

Jason pauses staring out into a wide cavern lined with outcroppings of crystals that stretched deep into the darkness below him. He drops his rucksack and pulls out a red flare. Lighting it, he tosses it off into the abyss, the glow from it lighting the walls of the cavern as it goes, showing the shape of the walls as it falls. Seconds later it hits the ground. Faintly lighting the cavern floor and highlighting the straight edges of an inorganic structure.

JASON

I… I think I’ve found it.

After hanging up the phone Jason secures his hook into the ground before looping the long spool of rope into his harness.

JASON

(Internally) I’ve never felt so adventurous

Very timidly he backs himself towards the edge, taking a deep breath he leans back over the edge keeping the rope tight.

JASON

(Nervously) You can do this Jay, it’s just basic physics. Tension, friction, weights, gravity. (sighing) All just simple stuff

Slowly he begins to abseil down and eventually he touches down on the cavern floor.

INT. PYRAMID RUINS - AFTERNOON

Jason stares in awe as he sees the structure ahead of him. He takes out more flares and throws them out. Making the dimly lit cavern slightly brighter.

JASON

(Muttering) Amazing

Cut to black.

Time has passed since Jason first found the ruins and is now studying them, trying to understand how it works.

JASON

Okay beautiful, tell me your secrets

Jason has his hands pressed against the side of the structure. The cavern floor is now brightly lit by a number of bright floodlights powered by a small generator, the area is littered with his items. A folding table stands metres away from the ruins with a selection of tools and equipment a bunch of metallic objects he had collected from around the cavern. Walking away from the pyramid, Jason inspects one of the nearby crystals, looking at it closely it glows faintly in response to his touch, he then takes a tool and scrapes the surface of it collecting the filings onto a petri dish.

JASON

Interesting, You only light up with direct contact.

He then takes the sample to his microscope for examination.

JASON

Beautiful.

The crystalline structure is more complex than anything he’s ever seen before. As he moved his hand to adjust the dish, the structure seems to change in response to his proximity.

JASON

Woah. It that how you light up? Like some form of bioluminescence. (pausing) Could you be some kind of organic matter? Fascinating. What causes this? Heat maybe?

After examining it Jason puts the sample away

JASON

Let’s see if we can’t find out how you’re connected

Putting the sample away Jason sets up a Ground penetrating radar.

JASON

(Internally) The Ground penetrating radar will let me get a tomographic image of what’s going on beyond what my eyes can see

After setting it up on the display he begins slowly pushing the large wheeled device around the floor of the cavern.

JASON

(Astonished) Ho-ly…

The inconsistencies in the tomography revealed that the pyramid Jason could see was quite literally the tip of the iceberg as its structure stretched deep under the ground spanning an area as wide as the cavern itself.

JASON

There’s no physical connection underground, but without a doubt that crystal up there is made of the same material as all the surrounding crystals, and I’m willing to bet there’s a significant connection.

Cut to black.

INT. PYRAMID RUINS - NIGHT

Jason has been in the cavern for 5 days now and has taken to recording his findings in audio logs. Pacing back and forth in front of the pyramid he records a new entry, the audio record in one hand and his notebook in the other gesturing to the pyramid, crystals and various other items as he speaks

JASON

My current theory is that although the pyramid is damaged, the pyramid and the associated alien artefacts are functional but in some sort of low powered state. I’ve learnt that some these a effects react to bioelectrical fields emitted by the body, temporarily powering them in a similar fashion to the luminescence of the crystals If I can find any suitable method to repower them I may learn what their true functions are.

Cut to black.

INT. PYRAMID RUINS - Evening

Day 7 in the cavern, Jason is starting to show signs of fatigue and he his stubble is starting to significantly show.

JASON

From the various scans I have completed I can confirm that the pyramid has a specific purpose as for what that purpose is, I don’t know

Jason collapses into his chair and rubs his forehead.

JASON

But I previously thought the Pyramid was some kind of temple, I’m certain at this point that if it’s not a transport vessel, it’s some kind of hub or station, this would explain the peculiar way it interacts with radio waves and other communication systems.

He picks up his cell phone and looks at it. The screen shows he has full cellular reception.

JASON

Despite being underneath hundreds of feet of rock my cell phone has near perfect reception. Imagine the data this thing contains.

Turning in his chair he rotates away from the table to face the pyramid.

Cut to black.

INT. PYRAMID RUINS - NIGHT

Day 10. Jason stands in the centre of his makeshift lab in the cavern next to the giant alien pyramid. His equipment has been outfitted and augmented with scraps of alien technology.

JASON

I’ve started making some significant breakthroughs. Studying one of the devices out the pyramid I have been able to reverse engineer a functional holographic projector.

He activates the hologram suspending projections in the air around him.

JASON

The other breakthrough was a new type of power cell multitude of times my efficient than my previous graphene battery, using a synthesized crystal structure at its base similar to the alien crystals of the cavern but potentially capable of being produced on earth.

Jason picked up a small crystal off the table and held it up as it glowed faintly in his hand

JASON

I’ve come to the realisation that I’ve been thinking about this all too linearly. In 2 dimensions when I need to be thinking 3 or even 4 dimensions, I had been working based on my understanding of science, physics, biology, chemistry, as we know, following the laws we have for the universe. But what if we’ve been playing with an incomplete deck of cards, what if the laws of the universe we have are wrong because they are based on our misunderstanding because we’ve been missing part of the equation, I know the pyramid holds the key.

A moment after he turns off the recorder his cell phone begins to ring. Removing the papers that covered it Jason Picked up the phone. It was his wife, Melissa calling.

JASON

Hey, Honey, is everything okay?

MELISSA

(softly) Everything's fine.

INT. JASON’S LIVING ROOM - NIGHT

The room is cluttered by mess as Melissa stands in a purple dress holding the phone to her as their son runs rampant in the background.

MELISSA

I was just wondering when you were coming home, It’s getting a bit difficult to deal with a hyperactive mess maker on my own, I’m getting bigger every day,

Melissa is heavily pregnant and rubs stomach before sitting down on the sofa.

INT. PYRAMID RUINS

JASON

I’m really sorry, but this work is too important for me to come back yet.

MELISSA

(Sadly) Oh. Okay. We miss you.

Cut to black

An undetermined amount of time passes as at this point Jason has lost track of time. The cave is filled with the aggressive whirring sound of the circular saw in the scientist’s hands as he pressed it against the side of the pyramid, sparks flew out as metal broke metal, but it’s blade of the saw being worn away by the superior structure of the wall. There was a giant crack as the generator blows, throwing the cavern into darkness. Jason tosses the saw to the side and sits down. His clothes are filthy, his eyes saturated with bags and his beard has taken full form. As he sits on the ground his back leaning against a large crystal staring up at the pyramid. He hit record.

JASON

I’m not sure what day it is, Maybe a Tuesday. But none of that matters. I’ve made some significant developments, but the Pyramid still eludes me. I can hear it buzzing in my head calling out to me. I have to get inside.

More time passes and the generator has been repaired using alien parts and the cavern had light once again. But the entire cavern was on its side. Slowly Jason gets up from lying on the floor and the cavern turns right side up as he does so.

JASON

(Internally) Must've blacked out again

Zombie-like in his movements he walks to a table and picks up the audio recorder.

JASON

The alien artefacts seem to react to charges of electricity but despite my attempts with different voltages and amps haven’t been able to get any device to remain powered for longer than a few minutes at most, But once I found a suitable method I should be able to scale it up to power the pyramid.

Cut to black.

JASON

It’s the orbit rings. I how could I be so stupid to dismiss them a purely aesthetic (Laughing maniacally) Come on Jay, on your feet.

He gets out of his seat blinking hard to force his vision to focus as he looks for the welding torch and mask. Once he had them he wasted no time getting to work welding the parts of the broken circular piping surrounding the pyramid.

Cut to black.

JASON

(Pleading) I want to go home.

As if begging the pyramid for permission a tear escapes one of his tired eyes rolling down his face. He hears a deep droning in his head, unsure if it is his wavering mental state breaking or the pyramid somehow spurring him on

JASON

(Crying) I miss my family, I miss my life.

But the droning gets louder and he flips down the welding make and ignites the torch. Crying as he welding for hours, continuing to weld well after the tears had stopped. Eventually, the entire system is repaired and Jason feels a whelming level of relief.

Jason connects power cables to each of the planetary spheres on the orbit rings.

JASON

(Internally) Okay. Here we go

He takes a deep breath mentally preparing himself. Hitting the power relay switch activating the surge of the energy.

The orbit rings begin to whir as beams shoot around inside them in opposing directions at blinding speeds. They began to bang and crackle as protons collide within them. The energy field starts ramping up and the rings begin to lift off of the ground and rotate. Jason smiles with wonder as the pyramid comes to life but he feels off-kilter like the cavern is warping around him. The feeling is so strong he thinks he might pass out. Suddenly it all stopped the rings continued to rotate slowly in the air. But the pyramid still remains closed off to him.

JASON

(Shouting) No, no, no, no!

Jason runs up to the pyramid hitting and punching it.

JASON

(Crying) Why? Why won’t you open?

Dropping to his knees hanging his head as all hope fades. The silence was broken by a deep groan as the doors of the pyramid opened pouring bright white light on to Jason. Looking up from the ground the stared into the light in awe.

Fade to white.

#year3 #anim3002

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patrickbowienewman · 6 years

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My Uncut Love for “Blade Runner: 2049″ Hasn’t Diminished (And Probably Never Will)

It’s been months since Denis (Sicario, Prisoners, Arrival) Villenueve’s sequel to Blade Runner was unveiled to American audiences, and in an unfortunately surprising twist of fate, many of us Yanks didn’t show up to watch it.

As soon as those first exhilarating trailers struck social media, I fully expected Blade Runner 2049 to be the instant cultural phenomenon Ridley Scott’s original film never was - vindicating Blade Runner’s decades-long crawl from cult curio to global ubiquity, and reviving the moviegoing public’s obsession with replicants, spinners, origami, steaming food truck noodles, and Johnnie Walker sipped from those gorgeously sculpted tumblers.

If you’ll indulge me while I do a little bean counting, Blade Runner 2049 cost in the ballpark of $150 million to make. In those first few weeks of release, audiences eventually bought enough tickets to raise the domestic total to $83 million. This disparity lead many to construe Blade Runner 2049 as a box office bomb and all-around disappointment, even though foreign box office handily netted producing partners Warner Bros., Alcon Entertainment, and Columbia Pictures an additional $142 million. I haven’t a doubt that it’ll break even when the dust finally settles.

At the risk of sounding trite, I’ll assert that matters of business and budget have zero to do with Blade Runner 2049′s cinematic merit, no matter what trades like The Hollywood Reporter might suggest. The essence and quality of any movie need only be valued by the sound and picture flickering from within the big bright rectangle. Everything else is just noise.

When the nerd holiday of Blade Runner 2049′s opening weekend finally arrived, I watched it on the best and largest screen I could, joined by a little fellowship of family, friends and coworkers. The verdict?

Few would deny that 2017′s timeline has been a non-stop deluge of terror and portent. Everything from politics and national tragedy after national tragedy to my own personal quagmires had left me craving the escape of Blade Runner’s unmistakable brand of sci-fi super-noir. Villenueve’s lavish sequel couldn’t have come along at a better time.

Once a certain father met his long-lost daughter and the movie cut to black and credits, the lights went up. My party went their separate ways, and I sullenly returned to a life bearing little resemblance to the vivid landscapes in which I had swam for three blissful hours of lucid dreaming.

The best films establish permanent residency in our creative imaginations. We long to inhabit them, even after the theater is empty and the ushers are sweeping stale popcorn away from our feet. 2049 was one such experience for me.

Despite the enormous volume of criticism already generated, I thought I’d offer my detailed take on it anyway.

In an effort to keep this essay wide-ranging and interesting, I’m going to have to spoil much of the narrative. Please watch the movie already, so we can diffuse any risk of ruining the movie’s many delightful surprises...

The advertising campaign for 2049 was brilliant at both enticing hardcore Blade Runner fans with throwbacks to the many things that made that film so iconic and unforgettable, while also giving the curious uninitiated a comprehensive tour of the countless appealing visual and thematic qualities that could be enjoyed separate any primer or context.

Each trailer seamlessly obfuscated practically every aspect of the plot that had the potential to be a narrative surprise - Except, of course, for the presence/return of a grizzled-as-hell Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford).

I was thrilled to discover upon first viewing that Ryan Gosling’s “Officer K” is himself a replicant - a cop working for icy LAPD Lieutenant Joshi (Robin Wright, unsurprisingly perfect) to snuff out certain older model replicants who managed to slip into lives of anonymity before their corporate overseers put out a product recall.

It’s easy to draw parallels between Gosling’s Officer K and today’s American ICE stormtroopers. 2049′s first onscreen replicant (played with gentle grace by human redwood trunk Dave Bautista) is brutally “retired” by Gosling while a pot of garlic boils on a range top nearby. This jolt of an opening scene deftly introduces us to a robot humbly trying to adopt a simple human life, eking out a peaceful existence in solitude, living off the grid as a protein farmer.

Using Gosling’s K as the button man, Bautista’s character Sapper Morton is brutally gunned down by the technical arm of 2049′s despicable government, crystallizing the black-hearted fascism of this future vision of LA. By the end of the sequence, 2049 manages to both brilliantly depart from and add to Ridley Scott’s established world of monolithic corporations and their mutinous android labor force.

As a movie obsessive who has always believed Rutger Hauer’s Roy Batty (the antagonist from the first film) had Blade Runner’s most charismatic screen presence AND emotionally involving story arc, the decision made by Villenueve and Ridley Scott to tell 2049′s story through the eyes of a replicant instead of a human is an inspired one.

Gosling’s Agent K is a Good German whose only extra-professional pastime is the oddly touching Stepford-meets-Siri romance he carries out with “Joi,” a holographic fellow AI. Joi adds compelling new layers to 2049′s preoccupation with the line (if we decide there even is one) separating humans from replicants.

According to blind zillionaire industrialist Niander Wallace (Jared Leto, adding another tic-filled personality to his growing gallery of loathsome weirdos), the continued and assured inability of replicants to conceive children is essential to keeping his legions of android slaves subservient. In the world of 2049, Wallace is a sort of God (or Pharaoh, as his incredible pyramidal fortress seems to signify), and replicants who reproduce of their own free will would be a mortal threat to this Pharaoh’s monopoly on slavery and world expansion.

The ideas surrounding Wallace are articulated in a violent and disturbing scene that completely repelled me upon first viewing (men’s prodigious violence towards women is a subject I’m frankly exhausted to see dramatized during these dark days), in which Leto pontificates about his ambitions while sterilizing a newborn replicant by taking a knife to her uterus.

Wallace has built - and continues to expand - an empire to rival Alexander’s, and that God complex seems to have allowed his absurdly grandiose ego to eclipse any considerations of morality or human compassion. He’s a creep.

As Wallace leaves his chattel bleeding and naked in the same spot she was minutes-ago conceived (presumably to be shuttled to some salt mine or brothel "off-world”), Wallace’s personal secretary Luv (an advanced model replicant played by Sylvia Hoeks), sympathetically regards the brutalized woman from a sentry position nearby, tears streaking across her otherwise stoic, painted face. So much is already happening beneath the surface in this film.

Through Luv, Villenueve continues contrasting human characters with scant empathy and monstrous cruelty with replicant characters who have deep reverence for life’s creation and preservation, be that human life or the lives of other replicants.

Luv's attitudes lie somewhere in the middle of that spectrum. A scene-stealer from minute one, Luv is first introduced as an HR cipher sent forth to meet K as his investigation takes him deeper into the halls of power. When she needs to be, Luv is a polite charmer and the world’s most attentive and fastidious secretary, but she can also be an asset when a coroner's head needs to be squashed like a melon, or when the chief of police requires violent interrogation at knifepoint or with shattered glass.

Luv’s finest moment of effortless aggression might just be her casual drone-bombing of a junkyard Gosling’s K investigates during a crucial sequence - she has a manicurist do her nails on one hand while she fires a volley of mortars via iPad with the other.

The crux of the film is the gradual unveiling of K’s identity, followed by an interesting subversion of what I initially assumed was a fairly predictable twist. K’s chief assignment is to kill the hidden offspring of Rachael (the replicant played by Sean Young in Blade Runner) and the long-absent Rick Deckard (Ford).

K finally deduces that he may very well be Deckard’s son, which throws his entire code of ethics and sense of purpose into disarray. He goes on the lam from his oppressive LAPD handlers to find Deckard and determine whether this whole “being half human with actual, non-implanted memories” bombshell revelation has genuine merit.

There are several amusing scenes seeded throughout the movie in which Officer K has to take a psychological evaluation or “baseline test” (conducted by an asshole robot, of course). In the early part of the film, K suffers zero identity crisis, so he passes the test with flying colors. But as his case begins to unravel the assumptions he had long held about himself and the system he serves, K’s answers to the robot’s questions become more erratic and threatening to his handlers.

A transcript of the first test might be worth printing verbatim here...

Interrogator: "Recite your baseline."

K: "And blood-black nothingness began to spin... A system of cells interlinked within cells interlinked within cells interlinked within one stem... And dreadfully distinct against the dark, a tall white fountain played."

Interrogator: "Cells."

K: "Cells."

Interrogator: "Have you ever been in an institution? Cells."

K: "Cells."

Interrogator: "Do they keep you in a cell? Cells."

K: "Cells."

Interrogator: "When you're not performing your duties do they keep you in a little box? Cells."

K: "Cells."

Interrogator: "Interlinked."

K: "Interlinked."

Interrogator: "What's it like to hold the hand of someone you love? Interlinked."

K: "Interlinked."

Interrogator: "Did they teach you how to feel finger to finger? Interlinked."

K: "Interlinked."

Interrogator: "Do you long for having your heart interlinked? Interlinked."

K: "Interlinked."

Interrogator: "Do you dream about being interlinked... ?"

K: "Interlinked."

Interrogator: "What's it like to hold your child in your arms? Interlinked."

K: "Interlinked."

Interrogator: "Do you feel that there's a part of you that's missing? Interlinked."

K: "Interlinked."

Interrogator: "Within cells interlinked."

K: "Within cells interlinked."

Interrogator: "Why don't you say that three times: Within cells interlinked."

K: "Within cells interlinked. Within cells interlinked. Within cells interlinked."

Interrogator: "We're done... Constant K, you can pick up your bonus.”

- -

Such is the cross the obedient replicants of 2049 need to bear.

The movie is long and weighty, but never a chore to watch or difficult to follow. If memory serves, top-billed Harrison Ford (as iconic replicant killer Rick Deckard) doesn’t even appear onscreen until two hours in, but his applause-worthy arrival enhances the movie without drawing any interest away from Officer K. Once Gosling’s investigation brings him to the doorstep of Deckard’s booby-trapped casino hideaway (itself contained in a stunningly radioactive, vacant and dust-caked future vision of Las Vegas), the movie’s costars initially face off as adversaries before finally forming an uneasy partnership to speak truth to power, and - on a more human level - reunite Deckard with his long-lost progeny.

I suppose it’s in this last stretch of the film that director Denis Villenueve’s soul bares itself in a way that distinguishes this new film from its famous predecessor. Instead of culminating in any kind of epic conflict affecting global change, or placing the replicant vs. tycoon class war center stage, the movie narrows its focus on what Gosling chooses to do as he contemplates whether he is human or not, and what the distinction really means to him.

The finale’s centerpiece is a vicious physical contest between replicants K and Luv on the shores of future LA’s “Sepulveda Wall,” where a spinner/prison transport vehicle has crash landed and sinks gradually into an onslaught of crashing waves. As the warriors clash nearby, a handcuffed Deckard watches patiently and waits for what could just as easily be his demise rather than his salvation.

By rescuing Deckard from certain death, K liberates himself from his previously programmed destiny, as well as any selfish baggage we can agree is very key to the human condition. Lying in the snow, bleeding out in 2049′s poignant final moments, K finds peace in having healed the only part of the world he could.

I couldn’t end a review like this without tipping my hat to the genius DP Roger Deakins, who I would insist is as much an author of 2049 as Villenueve or Ridley Scott. It was wise to select a cinematographer whose visual ambition matches the subject and content of a movie so epic and complex, and the result - hyperbole be damned - is one of the most gorgeous movies I’ve ever seen.

In a movie designed from the ground up to convincingly plunge us into an endless procession of jaw-droppingly unique and visually stunning environments, Deakins never fails to precisely, carefully discover inspired new ways of capturing the work of his similarly gifted production designers, costumers and effects artists. If there’s one aspect of 2049 that would be obvious to anybody from frame one, it’s the confident belief that the visual experience of the movie ahead is going to be unmatched and unprecedented.

“Blockbusters,” which I suppose describe any kind of film made with a large budget, featuring movie stars and wielding all of the trappings necessary for worldwide distribution, can be a tiresome proposition for those of us that consume movies frequently and ask a little more from the cinema experience than some of our less-discerning peers.

Blade Runner: 2049 accomplishes everything movies of this scale and pedigree tend to attempt, does so with perfection, and then reaches for (and attains) even higher levels of technical, narrative, and performance ambition. This truly is a tentpole Harrison Ford action movie that is also without question an “art film,” entertaining from the surface to the core, and dense with subtext, intriguingly unanswered questions and hauntingly iconic images. It will stand the test of time as all great movies do, and impressively earns its proud place alongside the revered sci-fi film that inspired it.

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‘Norman said the president wants a pyramid’: how starchitects constructed Astana

Architects have a thing for strong humen, and the big global practices from Norman Foster to Zaha Hadid have piled in in a bid to help Kazakhstans dictator, Nursultan Nazarbayev, build himself a trophy city

If you could see through the forest of selfie-sticks, the position from the upper part of the central pavilion of the Astana Expo was a prospect like no other. It was strange enough to be standing on a glass footbridge at the summit of the tallest spherical building in the world- nicknamed the Death Star- with glass bubble elevators zooming up a central neon-lit atrium behind you and a precipitous void plunging beneath your feet. All that was missing was Luke Skywalker hanging from the bridge.

But then you looked out to the horizon to see an assorted collection of pyramids, golden cones and bulging mirrored towers, lined up like a row of awardings in a particularly gaudy trophy cabinet, stopping abruptly to give way to the rolling grasslands of the Eurasian steppe. Expo sites are always surreal affairs, as souped-up fairgrounds of nationalist hubris, where novelty pavilions compete for attention with multicultural buffets, marching bands and cavorting mascots. But the weirdness on show here wasn’t the Expo. The chief novelty was the city of Astana itself.

At one end of a monumental axis stands the biggest tent in the world, the Khan Shatyr shopping center designed by British architect Norman Foster in the form of an inflated plastic yurt that glows pink and green by night. Housing dodgems, a rollercoaster and an artificial beach( with sand imported from the Maldives ), it is a tacky pleasure dome that Kublai Khan could only dream of.

At the other end of the boulevard rises an enigmatic silver pyramid, also by Foster, the Palace of Peace and Reconciliation, conceived as a meeting place for world religions, crowned with a stained-glass lantern of plunges. It stands on a grassy knoll like a venerable tomb, on axis with a pond in the shape of a bird in flight.

Foster’s Palace of Peace and Reconciliation pyramid, with the city of Astana behind. Photo: JTB Photo/ UIG via Getty Images

Between these totems of the sacred and profane are the mechanisms of state. There is the presidential palace, modelled on the White House, but eight times larger and topped with a big blue dome; a gateway of conical gold mirror-glass towers for the nation bank and insurance money; a polished grey egg for “the member states national” archives. At the centre of it all rises an observation tower, a golden orb at the top of a splayed white steel tree, like a Ferrero Rocher chocolate nestling in an upturned shuttlecock.

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Secret Stans: where are the Stans?

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Guardian City is exploring in depth the oft-ignored- and exceedingly difficult to report from- the two cities of the five Central Asian ” Stans “: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, a quarter of a century when they are became independent from the former Soviet Union.

From the bizarre architecture of the” trophy cities” to the pleasure and fights of everyday urban life in some very unequal societies, our goal is to engage with the people who actually live in the Stans cities by publishing some of our reporting in the languages spoken there: not just Russian, often considered the language of the elite, but Turkmen, Kazakh, Uzbek, Kyrgyz and Tajik.

You can read the rest of the Secret Stans series here.

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This unbridled architectural fantasy is the singular vision of Nursultan Nazarbayev, the first and only president of Kazakhstan, lifelong leader of the nation since 1989 and chief designer of the capital, who has expended the past 20 years constructing a city-sized monument to himself in the middle of the Asian steppe.

” Like people, cities have fates ,” wrote Nazarbayev in the Heart of Eurasia, his treatise on architecture and city planning, which reads a little like the booklet of an architect out to secure future run.” Each has a name and an individual biography of its own, a character which cannot be confused with that of any other place on earth .”

Nazarbayev’s presidential palace- modelled on the White House but eight times larger. Photo: Jane Sweeney/ Getty Images/ AWL Images RM

Walking the street of Astana, “youre feeling” definite echoes of elsewhere. It has the petrodollar glitz of the Gulf and the monumental axial planning of Pyongyang, but each mirror-glass facade is drenched with a more explicit desire to hark back to an imagined past, searching for legitimacy in the forms of ancient civilisations and Kazakh folk motifs.

” No other modern-day leader has utilized the myth-making power of architecture to construct a sense of national identity like Nazarbayev ,” says Frank Albo, author of a new volume on the Kazakh capital, Astana: Architecture, Myth and Destiny.” What you see here is a blend of postmodernism, Central Asian art, Islamic decor, Russian baroque, neoclassicism, orientalism, all melded into something that looks like Las Vegas fulfills Disneyland on nationalist steroids .” In a bid to cast off the shackles of the Soviet era, the president has embraced practically everything else.

Architects tend to have a thing for strong humen, and following the arrival of a dictator with a gushing pump of oil fund and a keen interest in architecture, few big practices have managed to resist beating a path to Nazarbayev’s door. Japan’s proudest export, Kisho Kurokawa, was the first to be employed, conjuring a cosmic masterplan for the city that has mostly been dismissed. Italian designer Manfredi Nicoletti designed the city’s concert hall, a mess of turquoise glass wings that writhe like a crash-landed kingfisher near the presidential palace. Calatrava Grace, the company run by Santiago Calatrava’s son Micael, is in discussions with the president about constructing an elaborated canopy the full length of the main boulevard.

The competition for the Expo site was won by Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill- long-time darlings of authoritarian regimes, as writers of Dubai’s tallest tower- while runners-up included Zaha Hadid, Moshe Safdie, UN Studio, Snohetta, Mecanoo and others. Newspapers are shut down, critics locked up and protesters tortured, but cor merely look at that parametric blob.

The new Khan

Building work begins in 2006 on the Khan Shatyry entertainment centre in Astana, designed by Norman Foster. Photo: Antoine Gyori/ Corbis via Getty Images

Nazarbayev decided to move the capital in the early 1990 s, soon after taking office. His reasoning has been the subject of considerable supposition ever since, particularly among the civil servants forced to move here. Home to the town of Akmola (” the white graveyard “) since the 1830 s, this uncovered plain, which ranges from -4 0C in winter to +40 C in summer, was an unlikely option, hundreds of thousands of kilometres north of the balmy former capital of Almaty.

Some say it was to shift the centre of gravity away from the border with China, while others argue that it was to cement Kazakh presence in an area that was predominantly ethnically Russian. Either route, it was primarily an opportunity to start from scratch, a blank slate on which the new leader could engrave his new world, following in the footsteps of Darius the Great and Persepolis.

As if there was any doubts concerning his self-image, at the inauguration of Astana in 1997 Nazarbayev performed an “alastau”, the ancient Mongolian fire-purification ritual culminating in a processional stroll along a white carpet, of the same kind used to elevate the great Khans to their position of power.

Astana by night, with Foster’s Khan Shatyr- the biggest tent in the world- light up on the left. Photo: Oliver Wainwright

The origin story of the city is say at some length in the Nazarbayev Centre, a gigantic stone bowl topped with a bulbous glass lens, tilted towards the presidential palace like an all-seeing eye and surrounded by a high-security perimeter fence patrolled by soldiers. Another product of the Foster office, it homes an exhibition of the president’s personal effects, from the suit he wore on inauguration day to the gold fountain pen with which he co-authored “the member states national” anthem, each reverentially illuminated in its own glass case.

Gifts from adoring nations fill more vitrines on the cascading levels of the building- a silver model of an oil pipeline from China, a bejewelled develop carriage from Turkmenistan- along with a 3D holographic presentation of medals that Nazarbayev has received from world leaders. My young guide was particularly keen to point out the signed photo of Margaret Thatcher, who wrote the foreword to another of the president’s works, The Kazakhstan Way, and he was eager to show me the leader’s personal collecting of 4, 000 volumes, housed in a special glass shrine.” He has read them all ,” he added diligently.” He is a very learned man .”

The centrepiece of this eerie mausoleum is a showing of architectural models, worked in silver, gold and semiprecious stones, shown alongside some of the initial napkin sketches drawn by Nazarbayev himself. There is his scribble of the shuttlecock-shaped Bayterek Tower, designed to represent the magical tree of life where Samruk, the mythical Kazakh bird of happiness, laid its golden egg. There is also the original model of Kurokawa’s masterplan, designed according to his principles of” metabolism and symbiosis “. He proposed an organic model of developing that would integrate the existing Soviet-era town on the right bank of the river with the new city on the left, surrounding the capital with a dense belt of trees to protect it from the icy gales. They have never been planted.

Zaha Hadid’s rejected proposal for the Astana Expo site. Photo: Zaha Hadid Designers

Walking the gaping boulevards of new Astana today, it is clear that Kurokawa’s plan was abandoned from the very beginning. The new city is an alienating place of six-lane roads punctuated by vast object builds, conceived with a total absence of human scale, making the former Soviet centre across the river feel like a cosy village in comparison. It is a place obsessed with sizing: Nazarbayev even had the Ishim river widened, so it would have the majesty of other capitals’ rivers, like the Thames, Danube or Seine. If you look at the map, the watercourse shrinks back either side of Astana, only bulging out in the centre of the city, like a snake digesting its lunch.

Adil Nurmakov, a political scientist and co-founder of Urban Forum Almaty, who lately relocated to Astana for his wife’s work, with their young child, is still reeling from the move.” I am honestly so embarrassed by our capital ,” he says.” I don’t understand how it is possible to build a city from scratch and make it so unfriendly to people. It is too monumental and car-centric and has no sensitivity to the harsh climate. The builds are so far apart that there can be no life on the street. In winter, it’s just about getting from one underground car park to the next, while in summer there’s no shade in these barren open spaces .”

On a warm August evening, there is little sign of life in the city centre. Groups of teens are to be found straying the promenade along the old right bank of the river, while across the water, a handful of households stroll down the central Nurzhol boulevard, admiring the illuminated builds, which twinkle like the battery-operated toys being hawked by a few lonely street vendors. Nazarbayev’s face looms from a five-storey high video screen, intercut with lurid fly-through films of the city’s weird houses, merging the monuments and their manufacturer together in one candy-coloured montage.

Santiago Calatrava’s son Micael, co-CEO of developing company Calatrava Grace, in talks with President Nazarbayev. Photograph: ADG

” The whole place is a combination of Kafka and Orwell ,” says Yevgeniy Zhovtis, director of the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law, an NGO based in Almaty.” It has cost dozens of billions of dollars to build this vanity project, yet there are towns and villages a few kilometres away which don’t have proper roads, energy or basic civic services. All the money that is spent on heating these huge houses in wintertime and cooling them in summer could be used to fund decent services and infrastructure for the rest of the country .”

It is a common sentiment for which the$ 3bn Expo has become a potent focus, as a painful emblem of profligacy when nearly half the population still lives on $70 a month. The project was mired in scandal from the beginning, accused of diverting money from “the member states national” pension fund and subject to claims of public sector employees being forced to buy tickets to bolster visitor numbers. Three top Expo officers were arrested for theft.

” The Kazakh people are now very angry ,” says one primary school teacher, visiting the Expo with her class of children from the cities of Esil, six hours’ drive away.” We are proud that the Expo is here, but the leaders of our country have expended far too much money on it, trying to show off to the world .”

The chosen theme of” future energy” also jarred with an event that is mostly sponsored by petrol companies, in a country where oil and gas accounts for 70% of exports. I was greeted into the Shell pavilion and invited to generate my own kinetic energy by running inside a Zorb. I was invited to ponder the effects of global warming in the French pavilion, with the Total oil logo looming above a glowing Earth.

Following the Expo’s announcement, heralding the country’s transition to green energy, chairman Nazarbayev was quoted saying:” I personally do not believe in alternative energy sources, such as wind and solar ,” adding that” oil and gas is our main horse, and we should not be afraid that such is fossil fuel “.

The flags and mascots have now been swept away, and the 174 -hectare site is being converted into the new International Financial Centre, intended to seduce foreign companies with the promise of English law, tax exemptions and an independent fiscal court. It is the usual free zone model favoured by dictatorships around the world, creating a thin bubble of republic that evaporates as soon as you leave the compound.

The PR pays off?

Nazarbayev on a big screen in Astana. Photograph: Oliver Wainwright

The western-friendly mirage is something Nazarbayev has been at great pains to cultivate over the years, cementing his position as the best use of a bad bunch of autocrats in charge of the former Soviet states of central Asia. Following in Thatcher’s footsteps, Jonathan Aitken wrote a fine hagiography of the president in 2009, while Tony Blair famously enjoyed a PS5m-a-year bargain advising Nazarbayev on such matters as how to deal with the massacre of striking workers in the oil town of Zhanaozen in 2011. (” These events, tragic though they were ,” Blair wrote in 2012, advising on a speech to be given at Cambridge University,” should not obscure the enormous progress that Kazakhstan has built .”)

Some of the PR is paying off. Between 2016 and 2017 Kazakhstan leapt from 51st to 35 th place on the World Bank’s ease of doing business rankings. Yet, on the world press freedom index, it languishes at 157 th out of 180 countries and stands at 131st on the corruption perceptions indicator. Now aged 77, Nazarbayev is cracking down more than ever before, stillness critics and crushing opponent, his advancing age accentuating his paranoia and passion for control.

Bjarke Ingels’ design for the Astana National Library. Photograph: BIG

Kazakhstan has not had an election that could be considered free and fair by independent monitors in 25 years of Nazaybayev’s rule, according to Human Right Watch. The chairman has exempted himself from laws limiting presidential terms and received 97.7% of the vote in the recent elections. The main opposition newspapers were all banned in 2013 and the internet is now closely controlled. Peaceful protests against the government’s proposed land reforms in 2016 conclude with the two organisers being given <a href="http://ift.tt/2zCFgVg