| 1 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/blade_runner_2049.png]] |
| 2 | [[caption-width-right:350:''"The key to the future is finally unearthed."'']] |
| 3 | |
| 4 | ->[[AC:[[red:Replicants]] are bioengineered humans, designed by Tyrell Corporation for use Off-World. Their enhanced strength made them ideal slave labor.\ |
| 5 | After a series of violent rebellions, their manufacture became prohibited and Tyrell Corp went bankrupt.\ |
| 6 | The collapse of ecosystems in the mid 2020s led to the rise of industrialist Niander Wallace, whose mastery of synthetic farming averted famine.\ |
| 7 | Wallace acquired the remains of Tyrell Corp and made a new line of Replicants who obey.\ |
| 8 | Many older model Replicants -- Nexus 8s with open-ended lifespans -- survived. They are hunted down and Retired.\ |
| 9 | Those that hunt them down still go by the name...]] |
| 10 | |
| 11 | ->[[AC:[[red:Blade Runner]]]] |
| 12 | |
| 13 | ---- |
| 14 | |
| 15 | ''Blade Runner 2049'' is a 2017 neo-noir ScienceFiction film, and the sequel to 1982's ''Film/BladeRunner''. The film was directed by Creator/DenisVilleneuve, written by Hampton Fancher and Micheal Green and co-produced by Creator/RidleyScott (who also contributed to the script). The cast includes Creator/RyanGosling, Creator/JaredLeto, Creator/AnaDeArmas, Creator/HarrisonFord (reprising his role from the first film), Creator/SylviaHoeks, Creator/RobinWright, Carla Juri, Creator/DaveBautista, Creator/DavidDastmalchian, Creator/WoodHarris, Barkhad Abdi, Creator/MackenzieDavis and Lennie James. Music/HansZimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch composed the soundtrack. |
| 16 | |
| 17 | Its plot follows an LAPD Blade Runner known as Officer K (Gosling), who is tasked to eliminate pre-Nexus-9 Replicants. One day on a mission, K makes a discovery that leads him to a former Blade Runner, Rick Deckard (Ford), who has been missing for 30 years. While doing so, he unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what's left of society into chaos. The ruthless Replicant manufacturer Niander Wallace (Leto), who bought out Tyrell Corporation and resumed its activities, is also deeply interested in this secret. |
| 18 | |
| 19 | The project spent 15 years in DevelopmentHell before [[SavedFromDevelopmentHell being released]] on October 6th, 2017. |
| 20 | |
| 21 | Three short films were made to fill in the gap between this movie and the first and expand TheVerse a little. Their page can be found [[Film/BladeRunnerShorts here]]. |
| 22 | |
| 23 | '''Character tropes go on to the [[Characters/BladeRunner Characters Sheet]].''' |
| 24 | ---- |
| 25 | !!''Blade Runner: 2049'' contains examples of: |
| 26 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 27 | |
| 28 | [[folder: Tropes A-F]] |
| 29 | * ActionFilmQuietDramaScene: Loads of them. Two good examples include K talking with Joshi in his apartment, and the "hologram love scene" between K, Joi, and Mariette. In fact, there's so many, it could be argued that it's the opposite of this trope, being a quiet drama, with some occasionally intense action thrown in there. |
| 30 | * AdvertisedExtra: |
| 31 | ** Creator/HarrisonFord receives second billing in most of the promotional material but only appears in the third act. |
| 32 | ** Creator/DaveBautista is rather prominent in many trailers and advertisements but he appears only briefly in the first act. |
| 33 | ** Creator/JaredLeto appears prominently on the posters and trailers but only appears twice in the movie, in the first and third acts. |
| 34 | * AdvertOverloadedFuture: Los Angeles is just as full of ads in 2049 as it was 30 years before. Only this time it's with giant {{hologram}}s. The nude hologram advert for the "Joi" virtual woman stands out, along with the absolutely ''massive'' ballerina which only serves to impede everyone's traffic. |
| 35 | * AerithAndBob: On the one hand, Rick Deckard, Ana, and Joi ("Joy" being a fairly common woman's name.) On the other, there's Sapper, Freysa, Luv (which is as much a pun on "Love" as Joi is for "Joy"), Joshi, Coco...Niander Wallace even provides a rare example of the "weird name/normal name" pairing in the same character. |
| 36 | * AlasPoorVillain: Like Pris, Roy, and Zhora, [[spoiler: Luv's death]] is painful, drawn-out, and unglamorous, and K visibly struggles with having to do it, especially given the small [[HiddenDepths flickers of empathy]] that we'd seen from [[spoiler: Luv]] over the course of the film. |
| 37 | * AllThereInTheManual: |
| 38 | ** The tie-ins help to establish key events that take place between the original film and ''2049'': |
| 39 | *** ''Black Out 2022'' is an anime {{Interquel}} that explains how and why things are the way they turned out in the sequel -- a pair of Replicants and a human sympathizer seek to "even the odds" against Replicants by detonating a nuclear bomb above the West Coast, which causes an EMP surge that knocks out the city's power and eventually causes Replicants to be placed under prohibition. |
| 40 | *** ''Nexus Dawn'': Taking place 14 years after ''Black Out'', Niander Wallace meets with a government committee in an attempt to have the prohibition on Replicants lifted, via demonstrating a new type, the perfectly subservient Nexus-9 model. |
| 41 | *** ''Nowhere to Run'': Set shortly before ''2049'', the short follows Sapper Morton as he goes about his daily routine, but is forced on the run after protecting a mother and daughter from thugs. |
| 42 | ** The ''[[http://roadto2049.bladerunnermovie.com/ Road to 2049]]'' website fills in some key details that aren't addressed by the shorts -- namely, that the population almost starved to death until Niander Wallace developed genetically-modified food products, which the populace relies on by the time ''2049'' begins. |
| 43 | * AllThereInTheScript: Although nothing hints at it in the movie, the script's version of the final scene [[spoiler: has Joe seeing a "ghost" of Joi as he lies dying on the memory facility steps, who asks him "Would you read to me?" like she did [[BookEnds in their very first scene together.]]]] |
| 44 | * AlternateHistory: The film pretty much states that its universe's 2010s were way more advanced than ours, and long gone brands such as Atari or regimes such as the Soviet Union are still around. |
| 45 | * AlternativeTuringTest: ''2049'' features an updated version of the VK test from the previous movie, where Replicants are berated with rapid-fire questions from an unseen interrogator watching them through a camera. Interestingly, the baseline test appears to have the opposite purpose of the VK test from the first movie - while the Voight-Kampff was intended to measure whether humans were too robotic, the baseline seems to test whether Replicants (like Officer K) are becoming too human. |
| 46 | * AmbiguouslyHuman: |
| 47 | ** The movie doesn't actually reveal if Deckard is a LongLived Replicant or not, instead going for TheUnreveal when the question is brought up, in order to preserve the mystery present in the original film, and to avoid upsetting screenwriter Hampton Fancher and Ford, both of whom have declared that they saw the character as human[[note]]Fancher insists that the interpretation of Deckard-as-Replicant came up with Scott mid-production, was not planned at the start and baffled every one of Scott's colleagues. Fancher feels that it should never become part of the film or on-screen action so as to satisfy both parties, leaving it entirely to the audience who wants to see Deckard-as-Replicant to decide how to see the film.[[/note]]; furthermore, this is actually alluded to in the movie itself, as when [[spoiler:Wallace presents the copy of Rachael to Deckard, he contemplates whether or not Deckard was born naturally or if he's a Replicant]]. When K interviews [[spoiler:a retired Gaff]] about Deckard, that character obliquely muses that Deckard's a Replicant, but it's clearly just reiterating views expressed in the original. |
| 48 | ** On a thematic level, the movie is ambiguous as to whether or not Joi is a sentient being, and whether or not she can be called human. She is a [[ProjectedMan holographic woman]] controlled by an A.I. Contrasting the Replicants, who are portrayed as unambiguously "human", whether or not Joi fits the definition of "human" is played with throughout the movie. She appears intelligent, emotional, and sentient. Like the Replicants, she is an artificial object apparently infused with humanity, and her behavior is definitely much more human-like compared to the hologram recordings of Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley. [[spoiler:However, as the building-sized naked Joi hologram shows, the intelligence, emotions, and sapient behavior might be all be a manufactured illusion, and her love for K might just be a part of the program.]] The "hologram sex scene" between Joi, Mariette, and K also thematically suggests that Joi might be merely following the forms of human behavior while lacking the actual substance to be a human being. |
| 49 | * AndStarring: "With Creator/DaveBautista and Creator/JaredLeto". |
| 50 | * AnimalMotifs: As with the original film, K's is a horse. His wooden horse he had in his childhood memories plays a large role in the film. [[spoiler:The memories are actually Dr. Ana's, Deckard and Rachael's daughter.]] |
| 51 | * AnswerCut: When Joi asks "Who makes the memories?" the scene cuts to Ana Stelline in her lab. |
| 52 | * AnyoneCanDie: [[spoiler: [[DeadStarWalking Sapper]], Coco the coroner, [[SuddenSequelDeathSyndrome Rachael]], Joshi, Joi, Luv, and finally [[TheHeroDies K]]]] don't survive the movie. |
| 53 | * ApocalypseAnarchy: There doesn't seem to be much in the way of law and order outside of the major cities, judging by how K's officially marked police vehicle is almost immediately assaulted with harpoons and gunfire when he flies to San Diego. |
| 54 | * ArcNumber: "06-10-21". It's the day that [[spoiler: the child of Deckard and Rachael was born and the date of death for Rachael.]] |
| 55 | * ArcSymbol: Water and snow. |
| 56 | ** A pot of boiling water is prominently focused on during the fateful meeting between K and Sapper Morton in the opening. |
| 57 | ** The climate of the Earth has deteriorated so badly by the time of the film's setting that it's snowing in ''Los Angeles in the summer time''. |
| 58 | ** When K and Joi leave LA to search for the missing child, the camera cuts to a ''massive'' flood of water pouring down from the LA Sea Wall, probably symbolizing the release of knowledge and truth upon the world. |
| 59 | ** The ocean is apparently toxic and clean water is incredibly rare, as K's shower proudly announces that it's "99.9% detoxified water" and sprays him for barely five seconds. Niander Wallace, naturally, has his office in a room that's ''[[ConspicuousConsumption flooded]]'' with crystal-clear water. |
| 60 | ** Luv tells Joshi "you can't hold back the tide with a broom". |
| 61 | ** Three times, the film shows an artificial being quietly contemplating the precipitation: Joi, after K buys her an expensive present that allows her to "feel" the raindrops on her skin, K, watching the snowflakes land on his hand at the memory center [[spoiler: when he thinks that he's the Replicant child]], and finally, at the end, [[spoiler: when K again watches the snow falling on him as he lies dying on the memory center steps.]] |
| 62 | *** Similarly, the first time we see Sapper Morton, he's examining a pool of some kind of liquid. |
| 63 | ** When Luv [[spoiler: stabs Joshi to death]], the camera cuts to the [[SnowMeansDeath snow falling on the window outside.]] |
| 64 | ** [[spoiler: The Replicant resistance movement hides out in a building partially flooded with ankle-deep water.]] |
| 65 | ** [[spoiler: K's encounter with the giant, pink, naked Joi and his subsequent decision to take action and realize himself is set in the biggest rain in the entire film.]] |
| 66 | ** [[spoiler: K [[BigDamnHeroes rescues Deckard from Wallace's convoy]] [[BattleInTheRain while it's pouring rain outside]], and Deckard's spinner lands half-submerged in the ocean. The battle between Luv and K takes place as the two of them are fighting the pounding ocean waves over the crashed vehicle, while Deckard is drowning in the flooding spinner. K wins by drowning Luv in the ocean waves, and while K and Deckard swim to safety and emerge from the water, Luv does not.]] |
| 67 | ** Poignantly, Ana Stelline is shown generating herself an artificial snowstorm inside her cell [[spoiler: as K lies dying in the snow for real outside, and Deckard watches his daughter, knowing that she'll never have to be stuck making her own snow ever again.]] |
| 68 | ** [[spoiler:The orphanage K visits is set in an abandoned, partially stripped ship.]] |
| 69 | ** Ironically, the ''lack'' of moisture is important for one setting. [[spoiler:Deckard is hiding from the rest of the world in Vegas, which is abandoned and covered in sand. He's also shown drinking alcohol, says he probably has the largest whiskey collection in the world, and presumably eats honey from his bees instead of proper water-based drinks.]] |
| 70 | * ArcWords: |
| 71 | ** "Cells interlinked within cells", the phrase that reappears most prominently throughout K's baseline test. It's a ShoutOut to Vladimir Nabokov's ''Literature/PaleFire'', a copy of which K has in his apartment. |
| 72 | ** "What's it like to hold the hand of someone you love?" |
| 73 | ** "Miracle", referring to [[spoiler: Deckard and Rachael's child.]] |
| 74 | ** "Dying for the right cause is the most human thing we can do." |
| 75 | * ArtificialOutdoorsDisplay: Ana gets interrupted by K while doing photography in an artificial forest on her holodeck. |
| 76 | * AsceticAesthetic: Wallace's headquarters. In a world where everything is dirty, cluttered, and overcrowded, Wallace's building is [[CreepyCleanliness unnervingly clean]], quiet, and empty, being inhabited solely by him and a few of his employees. |
| 77 | * AsYouKnow: Though it was before his time, it's safe to assume K already knew what happened during the Black Out without needing Wallace's file clerk to fill him in. Luckily, the clerk in question is a chatty, friendly sort who probably doesn't get much human contact. |
| 78 | * BackgroundHalo: [[spoiler:Considering how Wallace considers Luv his "first angel", it's quite symbolically rich that the last thing she sees as she dies is K [[https://film-grab.com/wp-content/uploads/photo-gallery/bladerunner059.jpg?bwg=1551282394 with the lights behind his head]] not dissimilar to a halo.]] |
| 79 | * BaitTheDog: Niander Wallace acts rather kindly and paternal to his newborn Replicant before [[KickTheDog cutting her stomach open and leaving her to die]] just to make a point about his Replicants' [[spoiler: inability to reproduce.]] |
| 80 | * {{Bathos}}: After an almost unceasingly bleak and moody two hours, Rick Deckard returns to cinema screens dramatically EmergingFromTheShadows and asks K about...[[spoiler:[[MoodWhiplash cheese.]]]] We promise ItMakesSenseInContext. |
| 81 | * BattleInTheRain: [[spoiler: The final battle occurs in the midst of fierce torrential rains. Taking the water motif further, K and Luv's final duel occurs on the beach as the tide comes in and he eventually defeats her by holding her under the water until she drowns]]. |
| 82 | * BecomeARealBoy: Joi wants to die ''naturally'', like a living being would. She convinces K to delete her from the hard drive in his apartment, despite his protests that the only copy of her will be left on the emitter and she'll die if it is destroyed. Joi then tells him that she's fine with that, because it just means that she's become as mortal as him or anyone else. |
| 83 | * BigBlackout: The "Black Out" was an unprecedented electricity blackout that affected Los Angeles for ten days in May 2022. It also wipes out all electronic data. |
| 84 | * BigDamnHeroes: [[spoiler: K ambushing Luv's convoy to rescue Deckard in his heavily armed LAPD spinner.]] |
| 85 | * BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Deckard is reunited with his daughter, but K probably dies of the wounds he got fighting Luv. [[BigBad Niander Wallace]], the mastermind behind the nasty Replicant business is still at large, but there's also a brewing Replicant resistance ready for revolution.]] |
| 86 | * BlackAndWhiteMorality: |
| 87 | ** Unlike the original film which had GreyAndGrayMorality with an AntiHero cop and an AntiVillain Replicant, this movie is more definite on who the bad guys are and who the good guys are. |
| 88 | ** Played straight with Wallace, but could be subverted with Luv. Luv could be trying to find the child to protect it from both Wallace and K. From Luv's perspective, K is a Blade Runner who murders his own kind and has been assigned to kill the child. She is also visibly shaken when Wallace kills a Replicant in cold blood, cries when killing others, and it is shown that she can lie like K. |
| 89 | * BloodFromTheMouth: K spouts blood when being defeated by Luv at Deckard's place. |
| 90 | * BodyMotifs: As with the original, eyes, and, to a lesser extent, hands. |
| 91 | ** Just like the original, it opens with an extreme close-up of a blue eye. |
| 92 | ** The massive fields of solar panels that K's spinner flies over are ranged in circles and resemble gigantic eyes from above. |
| 93 | ** Sapper Morton's eyes are highlighted by the glasses he wears, and [[spoiler: after his death, K scoops his eye out to scan it.]] |
| 94 | ** Niander Wallace is blind and his eyes are covered by milky cataracts. |
| 95 | ** [[spoiler: [[TheCameo Det. Gaff]]]] tells K he knew Deckard was leaving because of "something in his eyes." |
| 96 | ** Ana Stelline's job is all about digitally recreating the sights she will never be able to see with her own eyes. Fittingly, the shape of her domed room resembles a giant eyeball. |
| 97 | ** Luv frequently cries a single tear while murdering people, drawing attention to her own eyes, and she scans [[spoiler: Joshi]]'s eyes into the computer after killing [[spoiler: her.]] |
| 98 | ** When Luv kills [[spoiler: Coco]], the camera focuses on his eyes [[{{Squick}} filling up with blood]]. |
| 99 | ** During the "hologram sex scene", K and Mariette's movements occasionally become de-synchronized from each other, but their brown eyes are always perfectly matched up. |
| 100 | ** [[spoiler: Freysa, the leader of the Replicant resistance, is missing her right eye.]] |
| 101 | ** The giant pink hologram version of Joi that appears to K has her eyes tinted an unsettling solid red, in contrast to K's version whose eyes are a more natural brown. |
| 102 | ** When Wallace summons a [[spoiler: "reborn" [[TheLostLenore Rachael]] to tempt Deckard, Deckard dismisses him by saying [[ShutUpHannibal "Her eyes were green."]] ]] |
| 103 | ** When K [[spoiler:drowns Luv, the camera focuses on her wide-open, [[DiesWideOpen staring eyes.]]]] |
| 104 | ** As this [[http://correctiveoralsurgery.tumblr.com/post/169294242462/blade-runner-2049-hands Tumblr post]] points out, repeated shots of hands are prominently featured: |
| 105 | ** Among the questions in the baseline test are the phrases "What's it like to hold the hand of someone you love? Did they teach you how they feel, finger to finger?" This question is especially cruel because K is in love with a [[KissMeImVirtual holographic woman.]] |
| 106 | ** K letting the snow fall onto his palms at the beginning of the movie, and [[spoiler: as he lies dying]] outside the Memory Works at the end. |
| 107 | ** K's bloody hands as he washes [[spoiler: Sapper's]] removed artificial eyeball. |
| 108 | ** Joi's hands as she "feels" the rain on her skin. |
| 109 | ** The closeup of Luv's fingers as she gets her nails done while piloting the missile drone. |
| 110 | ** Luv squeezing [[spoiler: Joshi]]'s palm full of broken glass shards. |
| 111 | ** Joi and Mariette synchronizing their hand movements during the "hologram love scene." |
| 112 | ** K watching a bee crawling on his hand in the ruins of Las Vegas. |
| 113 | ** During the final battle, K pulls a BarehandedBladeBlock on Luv and gets his palm sliced ''deeply'' open for his troubles. |
| 114 | ** Ana Stelline simulating the snow falling on her palms. |
| 115 | ** The shot that ends the movie: [[spoiler: Deckard lovingly laying a hand on the window outside his daughter's cell]]. |
| 116 | * BondVillainStupidity: Luv leaves K alive at Las Vegas while she had the chance to off him like all her other victims. |
| 117 | * BoobyTrap: Deckard installed tripwires in his home. |
| 118 | * BookEnds: |
| 119 | ** Easy to miss if you don't read Cyrillic. The greenhouses at the farm in the opening scene are branded with the word ''ЦЕЛИНА'', or "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tselina Tselina]]" (Russian for 'virgin soil'); at the end of the film, the door to the upgrade center reads "Stelline Laboratories," 'stelline' being the plural of Italian 'stellina' ('starlet'). It's not an exact transliteration, but pretty darn close. ('Tselina' also means 'entirety' in Serbian, so it arguably even calls itself out as a Book End.) |
| 120 | ** The film begins with K killing [[spoiler: a morally upright member of his own kind at the behest of humans. He ends the film by killing a morally bankrupt member of his own kind so that other Replicants might live. The fights are also a bit inverted: Sapper strangles K and stabs him while they're grappling, but K does not react. K stabs Luv while they are grappling and she does not react, and he later strangles her.]] |
| 121 | ** The film both begins and ends with a heroic male Replicant [[spoiler: laying down his own life to protect Deckard and Rachael's child.]] |
| 122 | ** The movie opens with K [[spoiler:sleeping. It ends with him lying down for his possibly-''eternal'' sleep.]] |
| 123 | * BoomHeadshot: |
| 124 | ** Averted when [[spoiler:Deckard shoots K in Las Vegas. He's grazed on the side of the head and falls over a railing and down three stories but survives. Being a Replicant helps.]] |
| 125 | ** Played straight in other instances, including the final action sequence. |
| 126 | * BoringButPractical: How K defeats [[spoiler: Luv in the finale. For all her flashy moves and combat prowess, she's still smaller and physically weaker, so once he gets a hold of her, she's done for, as all her WaifFu is rendered useless, while she's drowned]]. |
| 127 | * BorrowedBiometricBypass: Unlike many instances of this trope, the corpse isn't even dismembered - [[spoiler:Luv just holds Joshi up so the system can scan the entire head. This time still captures the usual utilitarian disrespect for the deceased, as the body is just dropped and the head bangs against the desk afterward.]] |
| 128 | * BreakTheCutie: K is put through the wringer over the course of the movie, gaining and losing the hope of being the lost Replicant child, losing his girlfriend, coming to believe that their entire relationship was fake, and possibly even dying at the end. |
| 129 | * {{Callback}}: The Voight-Kampff test has been shortened, and the interviewer is now in another room entirely. |
| 130 | * TheCameo: |
| 131 | ** Gaff (Creator/EdwardJamesOlmos) has a cameo in one scene. |
| 132 | ** Creator/SeanYoung reprises her role as Rachael via archive footage and, [[spoiler:in one scene, via motion-capture and a body double]]. |
| 133 | * CanonDiscontinuity: ''2049'' ignores the sequel books written by Creator/KWJeter (''The Edge of Human'', ''Replicant Night'' and ''Eye and Talon''). |
| 134 | * CassetteFuturism: An interesting example thanks to ZeerustCanon. CRT monitors are still used in 2049, whilst computers and other machines look bulky, clunky, monochrome and analogued. On the other hand, advanced holographic A.I. are present. But even then, those holograms resemble a grainy, neon, used projection requiring physical buttons to operate rather than the high-tech, flashy and minimalist touch-screen graphics of other Sci-Fi franchises. |
| 135 | * CentralTheme: Much like the first film, empathy, without hope of personal benefit, being what makes us "real" and human is a central concept running through ''2049''. [[spoiler:Joi equates K being a "real boy" to being wanted and loved by parents who never got to know him. Dr. Ana Stelline discusses how giving Replicants happy memories that she herself never got to have is the one kindness as a human she can give to them. Deckard, who can be seen as either a human or a replicant who became indistinguishable from a human emotionally, states that disappearing so his child wouldn't be killed and dissected, even if he never gets to see them, is the best thing he can do for them. And K, in an attempt to perform one "real" act, reunites Deckard and his daughter, two people he barely even knows, at the potential cost of his life.]] |
| 136 | * CharacterAgedWithTheActor: Rick Deckard has aged almost as much as Harrison Ford (the character is 30 years older while the film comes out 35 years after the original). |
| 137 | * ChekhovsGunman: Ana Stelline shows up for a couple of minutes to solve one of K's doubts. [[spoiler:She sheds a tear upon watching K's memories, which is a clue that she's the long lost Replicant child.]] |
| 138 | ** The prostitute Mariette first appears flirting with K before showing up to "synchronise" with Joi so she and K can have simulated sex. [[spoiler: Then she shows up ''again'' with the Replicant resistance to save K after he's left for dead by Luv, thanks to the tracker she placed in his things.]] |
| 139 | * CityNoir: Much like the first film, there's [[TheCityNarrows a maze of]] [[EvilTowerOfOminousness overbearing black skyscrapers]] and {{Sinister Subway}}s, [[DeliberatelyMonochrome a very limited color palette]], a palpable air of [[WrongSideOfTheTracks decay and depression]], and [[WretchedHive giant slums]]. |
| 140 | * ComingInHot: When the power of K's police car shuts down and he crashlands on the San Diego junkyard. |
| 141 | * CompanionCube: K has an emotionally confusing romance with his in-house AI, Joi. He treats her like a girlfriend while still understanding that she's programmed to love him. When she tells him that he makes her happy, he gets annoyed and says that she doesn't have to say things like that. It's ultimately unclear how legitimate her love for him is. |
| 142 | * ConLang: Cityspeak - the unholy abomination of a creole language composed of Chinese, French, German, Hungarian, Japanese and Spanish that was introduced in the original movie - has a couple of brief cameos. It now also includes Korean and Finnish. |
| 143 | * ConservationOfNinjutsu: Played straight. K wins handily any time he's fighting multiple opponents but has a lot more trouble when he's facing single combatants. This includes when everybody involved is using heavily armed [[FlyingCar Spinners.]] Of course, this is justified by the fact that the one on one fights are with other Replicants, [[spoiler: and in his fight with Deckard, he's quite clearly holding back.]] |
| 144 | * ConspicuousConsumption: The Wallace Corp headquarters. |
| 145 | ** In 2049 a tiny piece of wood is worth a fortune, clear sunlight is a luxury, and almost all water is heavily contaminated. Naturally, all of the offices in the Wallace Corporation's Earth headquarters are lined with wood, lit with [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caustic_(optics) caustics]] (as if the light is being filtered through a layer of water) and natural yellow sunlight. Taken to the extreme in Wallace's personal space, which is a stretch of wood surrounded by a fish-filled pool of water. |
| 146 | ** In a place where space is at a premium not only does it dwarf the old vacant Tyrell Corp building to the point to where the viewer can't see the entire building in the mist but there are a lot of empty corridors and large rooms filled with mostly nothing. Including Wallace we only see a handful of characters even working inside the building, making it appear to be big merely for the sake of being big. |
| 147 | * ContinuityNod: |
| 148 | ** Rick Deckard still has his [[http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/(Blade_Runner)_-_LAPD_2019_Blaster iconic blaster gun]]. |
| 149 | ** Deckard had the collar of his overcoat flipped up around his neck in at least one scene in the original. K is introduced with the collar of his own overcoat covering his neck and lower face. |
| 150 | ** Both films prominently feature an extreme close-up of a blue eye in the opening. |
| 151 | ** Both films' opening chapters have a blade runner and a replicant in a confrontation, during which one of them gets smashed through a wall and put down. ''2049'' twists this around in that both are now replicants and it's not the blade runner who gets taken out. |
| 152 | ** Tyrell sported enormous owl glasses and suffered an {{Eye Scream}}, while his equivalent in this film, Wallace, is blind with scars around his eyes. |
| 153 | ** K undergoes a baseline test involving highly invasive, aggressive questions and a camera recording his responses, alluding heavily to the VK Test from the first movie. This time the interviewer isn't in the same room with the subject - evidently they learned their lesson from Dave Holden. |
| 154 | ** Gaff, during his brief cameo, crafts an origami sheep, referencing both the original film and the [[Literature/DoAndroidsDreamOfElectricSheep title of the novel it was based on.]] Appropriately, he's still wearing his signature buttoned-up white shirt and blue bow-tie. |
| 155 | ** A prostitute identifies K as blade runner in Cityspeak - using Finnish words - while the latter is eating at a street vendor, much like Gaff did in the original. Gaff also uses a Cityspeak term during his cameo. |
| 156 | ** The advertisement for the off-world colonies can be heard droning on in the background in several scenes. |
| 157 | ** Prominent depictions of pianos at Sapper's home ([[spoiler:where Rachael lived and died]]) and the casino where Deckard resides allude to scenes in the original film of Deckard and Rachael intimately playing the piano together. |
| 158 | ** The umbrella-wielding bicyclists make a reappearance. |
| 159 | ** [[spoiler:A member of the replicant resistance]] describes their kind as being "more human than human", a line that was originally the motto of the now long-defunct Tyrell Corporation. |
| 160 | ** Like the late J.F. Sebastian, a genetic disorder prevents Ana Stelline from leaving Earth for the Colonies. |
| 161 | ** [[spoiler:A replicant dies after saving Deckard's life during a rain-soaked fight scene. To drive the comparison home even further, the scene is scored to "Tears in Rain" from the original film.]] |
| 162 | ** [[spoiler: When the audience is first introduced to Rachael in the original during the scene where she first meets Deckard, she is seen approaching him with her right hand in her pocket after answering Deckard's question about the owl being a replicant. When a resurrected copy of Rachael approaches after entering the room, she puts her right hand into the same pocket in the same way she did when she first met Deckard.]] |
| 163 | ** [[spoiler: While using the drone from his Spinner, from the drone's POV, you can see a car in a similar design to Deckard's from the first film sitting on the abandoned freeway, looking like it got T-boned. Considering the theatrical cut of the film has Deckard and Rachael driving off in the same car, it could possibly be the same car that belonged to him.]] |
| 164 | ** K and Luv both give vocal directions to pieces of technology viewing a scene (K to his car's camera drone, Luv to the bomber drone) in a similar manner as the famous "enhance" scene from the original in which Deckard examines a photograph. |
| 165 | ** Luv [[TakeThatKiss kisses K]] [[spoiler: after stabbing him]], and Wallace does the same thing to a Replicant, much like Roy Batty did to Tyrell in the original movie [[spoiler: before killing him.]] |
| 166 | ** K asks Deckard if his dog is real or not. Deckard doesn't know, much like in the first movie about Tyrell's owl, Zhora's snake [[spoiler:or himself]]. |
| 167 | * ContrastingSequelProtagonist: K is a stoic who keeps his emotions buried deep, can perfectly hold his own in combat and dresses blacks and grays. By contrast, [[Film/BladeRunner Deckard]] was quicker to show his emotions and dressed in a variety of colors, and was not particularly skilled or tough in a fight. It is also unambiguous that K is a Replicant, whereas it is a mystery with Deckard. |
| 168 | * ContrivedCoincidence: [[spoiler:Subverted. The Replicant child of Rachael and Deckard being the one to [[HiredToHuntYourself discover her remains]] on Sapper's farm ''would'' be this...if K was [[RedHerring actually the child.]] ]] |
| 169 | * ConvenientlyInterruptedDocument: K goes to an orphanage to search for records but the entire year that he's interested has been ripped out of the paper ledger. |
| 170 | * CrapsaccharineWorld: The off-world colonies are implied to be this. On the one hand, the standard of living is infinitely better than on Earth, all the rich and powerful have moved there in droves and the downtrodden masses see them as paradise. However, their prosperity is built upon the enslavement of Replicants and Wallace outright states that he will have more leeway to [[spoiler:torture the information he needs out of Deckard]] once he gets him there. |
| 171 | * CrapsackWorld: Life on Earth has gotten even worse in the 30 years since the first film. The oceans have risen and become completely toxic to the point that a giant sea wall had to be built to prevent the toxic waters from flooding Los Angeles, while the climate has continued deteriorating to the point that it is ''snowing'' in southern California in July. In addition, vast sections of the city are left completely unlit, either due to the blackout or sheer degradation. Las Vegas was abandoned following a dirty bomb detonation during the chaos caused by the Black Out while San Diego has been reduced to a giant trash dump. There is no fresh food available with the populace surviving off artificial food produced by the Wallace Corporation, while the elite of society have abandoned Earth for the off-world colonies. The rich had gotten even richer in the 30 years to the point where the Wallace Earth HQ ''towers'' over the Tyrell building, and racial tensions between humans and Replicants are boiling to critical mass. |
| 172 | * CrushTheKeepsake: After having defeated K in combat, [[TheDragon Luv]] stomps on and crushes the emitter of K's holographic lover Joi [[spoiler:which equates to killing her]]. |
| 173 | * CrypticBackgroundReference: Carries on this proud tradition from the original. Even counting the prequel shorts, there are a number of things that are never elaborated on, like Wallace offhandedly mentioning that humans have colonized most of the solar system, the bombing that caused Las Vegas to be evacuated, or K noting that Sapper must have been involved in [[GreatOffscreenWar the fighting on Calantha]] and mentioning that [[WarIsHell it must have been brutal.]] |
| 174 | * CyberpunkIsTechno: Music/HansZimmer provided some variations on the synthesizer-heavy 1982 Music/{{Vangelis}} soundtrack, although noticeably less so than the snippets of Music/JohannJohannsson's unused work in the movie's trailers, which directly remixed Vangelis' work. |
| 175 | * CyberpunkWithAChanceOfRain: Appropriately for the sequel to one of the [[TropeCodifier Trope Codifiers]], there is plenty of this throughout. TheClimax in particular takes place during a huge rainstorm. What's more, climate change has increased so much that there's now heavy snowfall in Los Angeles. |
| 176 | * DaddyHadAGoodReasonForAbandoningYou: [[spoiler: Deckard]] didn't go looking for [[spoiler: his and Rachael's]] child to avoid accidentally leading Wallace straight to [[spoiler: her.]] |
| 177 | * DarkerAndEdgier: Whilst the original was already bleak, this movie is even more so. The environment is worse, the tensions between human and replicants have increased and there is a more tragic nature to K's character. |
| 178 | * DeadStarWalking: [[spoiler: Dave Bautista's Sapper Morton was prominently featured in trailers and even got his own web short, but dies in the first 10 minutes.]] |
| 179 | * DeathFakedForYou: Twice. |
| 180 | ** [[spoiler: Deckard falsified the records of his daughter's birth to say she'd died of Galatians Syndrome, so that anyone who discovered the existence of his and Rachael's child would go looking for a ''boy'' instead.]] |
| 181 | ** [[spoiler: At the end of the movie, after rescuing Deckard from Luv and her men, Deckard tells K "You should kill me." K replies, [[ThatManIsDead "I did."]]]] |
| 182 | * DeathFromAbove: A missile strike from unseen aerial drones assists K at one point in his investigation. |
| 183 | * DiesWideOpen: [[spoiler: Luv. K, too, assuming he actually dies.]] |
| 184 | * DigitalHeadSwap: [[spoiler:Rachael is portrayed through motion capture by Loren Peta and voiced by a sound-alike actress. Creator/SeanYoung was, however, on hand to coach Peta on how to replicate her original physical performance.]] |
| 185 | * DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: A huge factory-like building, full of children in essentially slavery and forced to work? It's only a wonder they're not making sneakers. |
| 186 | * DoubleTap: K does this every time that he fires his gun. |
| 187 | * DroneOfDread: A recurring musical motif that is especially prevalent in the downtown LA scenes is a ''massive'' "VRUMMMM" noise, drowning out almost all other instruments for a moment before it passes. The instrument used for the sound effect is called a bullroarer. |
| 188 | * EarnYourHappyEnding: [[spoiler: Deckard lost both his lover and his child, and a lot of people died in the process, but thanks to K's efforts, he is freed from being hunted by both the replicants and Wallace and is eventually reunited with his daughter.]] |
| 189 | * EarthThatUsedToBeBetter: Pollution and climate conditions weren't all that great in the first film. They've both been dialed up to eleven by this time frame. For example, climate change has risen sea levels so far inland that Los Angeles' coast is where ''Mulholland Drive'' currently exists in RealLife, and that's ''with'' the construction of an artificial sea wall. |
| 190 | * TheEasyWayOrTheHardWay: |
| 191 | ** K practically begs Sapper Morton to come quietly, but the man forces him into SuicideByCop. |
| 192 | ** Wallace admits that they can take Deckard off-world to be tortured, but he has more than pain to offer him. [[spoiler:Cue a Replicant in the form of [[TheLostLenore Rachael]] EmergingFromTheShadows]]. |
| 193 | ** K wants to get answers from Deckard without hurting him and admits the older man is not making it easy for him. |
| 194 | * EstablishingCharacterMoment: Most of the cast gets one. |
| 195 | ** While on assignment in the ActionPrologue, K goes out of his way to avoid conflict and repeatedly asks that his target come quietly. When the man refuses and attacks him, K retires him with ruthless efficiency despite being much smaller and less muscular. It's also during this sequence that we learn [[spoiler: [[HunterOfHisOwnKind K's a Replicant.]] ]] |
| 196 | ** Joshi first appears on K's video call, after he's been beaten half to hell by Sapper. Joshi's first line is, "You're wounded. I'm not paying for that!" This establishes that she sees K as a tool rather than a person. |
| 197 | ** In his first scene, Niander Wallace gives an ominous monologue to Luv in a hugely opulent, shadowy office and releases one of his own Nexus-9 Replicants. He [[FauxAffablyEvil speaks gently to her and almost tenderly wipes the "birthing fluid" from her naked body]] [[KickTheDog before stabbing her and letting her bleed out on the floor]] just to make a point to Luv. |
| 198 | ** Joi first appears as a disembodied voice in K's apartment, preparing him a meal and changing form to accommodate his every fantasy like a simple pleasure model AI. When he activates her emanator and tells her she can go anywhere in the world, she simply chooses to [[RomanticRain stand outside in the rain with him]], giggling and letting the rainfall "on" her body with an expression of rapturous joy, before telling K that she loves him. And thus the audience gets it immediately: K loves her deeply, and she appears to love him too, even though we're constantly aware that she's just a "product." |
| 199 | ** Luv gets a subtle one. She chitchats to K and flirts with him in typical SexySecretary fashion, until a massive vault door jams on them. Luv immediately ''[[SuperStrength shoves it open]]'' on her own. |
| 200 | ** Deckard first appears to K [[EmergingFromTheShadows out of the shadows]] while [[CulturedBadass quoting Treasure Island to him at gunpoint.]] After hunting the younger man down through his apartment and getting in a rather brutal fistfight, Deckard somewhat sheepishly tells him they could keep fighting or go get drinks to talk things over, establishing that this is an older, wiser, but no less determined Deckard than we saw in the first movie. |
| 201 | * EvilGloating: |
| 202 | ** Luv does this before murdering [[spoiler: Joshi]], mocking her efforts at concealing the existence of the replicant child. |
| 203 | ---> "You tiny thing. You can't hold back the ocean with a broom." |
| 204 | ** She does this again, in an even more sadistic manner, before murdering [[spoiler: Joi]]. |
| 205 | ---> "I hope you're satisfied with our product." |
| 206 | * ExactWords: Ana confirms that K's memory of the wooden horse is real, saying, "It happened." [[spoiler:It just didn't happen to ''him'', but to ''her.'']] |
| 207 | * ExtinctInTheFuture: Like the previous film, nearly all animals besides insects and grubs have gone extinct. When Doc Badger offers to exchange the wooden horse for a "real" horse, he explains that it will Wallace's best stuff, ie a replicant horse. The protagonist runs into a single stray dog in the desolate wilderness, but its owner isn't even sure if it's artificial or not. Trees are also extremely rare, to the point that Mariette doesn't know what one is when she sees a picture of it. |
| 208 | * EyeOpen: The opening scene shows a close-up on K's right eye-opening. |
| 209 | * EyeScream: |
| 210 | ** Hinted at with Wallace's condition, as his eyelids are heavily scarred. |
| 211 | ** Sapper Morton's right eye is gouged out post-mortem so that he can be identified by the serial number engraved on it. |
| 212 | ** [[spoiler: Freysa, the leader of the Replicant rebellion, is also missing her right eye, which she hides behind sunglasses. It's implied she cut it out herself to avoid detection through her serial number.]] |
| 213 | * FaceDeathWithDignity: Par for the course for this franchise. |
| 214 | ** [[spoiler:Despite initially fighting back, Sapper Morton lets K/Joe kill him for the sake of his cause.]] |
| 215 | ** [[spoiler:Lieutenant Joshi is attacked in her office by Luv, who [[AGlassInTheHand crushes a glass in her hand]] and forces it into a fist. Despite this, Joshi barely flinches, and when Luv announces her intention to kill her, she calmly tells her to do what she has to do.]] |
| 216 | ** [[spoiler:Joi doesn't even flinch upon realizing that Luv is about to destroy her, and spends her last moments telling K she loves him before her [[KilledMidsentence deactivation.]] ]] |
| 217 | ** [[spoiler:Despite sustaining multiple, fatal stab wounds, K/Joe musters up enough strength to fly Deckard to Dr. Stelline's lab to reunite him with his long-lost daughter. Alone at the steps of the lab, he lies down in the snow to seemingly die, in a call-back to Roy Batty's death from the original film.]] |
| 218 | * FacialDialogue: K doesn't verbally react when the giant hologram of Joi [[spoiler: addresses him with the pet name that his now-deceased copy of her used]], but the look on his face says pages about his decision to [[spoiler: go rescue Deckard.]] |
| 219 | * FailedFutureForecast: Played with. The previous film was made before the USSR collapsed, and thus played this trope straight by showing a USSR still existing in the future. ''2049'', however, creates an AlternateHistory RetroUniverse that assumes the assumptions made in the first film were true and keeps the USSR around on purpose. |
| 220 | * FakeMemories: Like in the original, Replicants have false memories implanted of a life before they were activated. Between movies it was made illegal to use real memories for this purpose [[spoiler:which is why K is shocked to find one of his memories is real, thus proving he was born, not made. However, this is later DoubleSubverted when K discovers that these memories actually belonged to the engineer who tested their authenticity for him.]] |
| 221 | * FanDisservice: |
| 222 | ** The naked female Replicant that Wallace activates and brings out of her bag. The entire time, the Replicant is covered in a slimy substance and is trying to get used to her surroundings and body like a newborn child. After musing about her inability to reproduce, Wallace promptly stabs her in the lower abdomen, letting her bleed to death. |
| 223 | ** The scene where Joi hires Mariette to “sync” her movements to have sex with K is played just as creepy, disconcerting, and dehumanizing for all concerned as you’d think it is, rather than being titillating. Given that none of the participants (except Mariette, maybe) are human, this was likely on purpose. |
| 224 | ** The giant naked ad campaign version of the Joi hologram, despite still being played by a gorgeous Creator/AnaDeArmas, has overtones of this, with its off-putting all-black eyes and echoing voice and unnatural skin and hair colors. Adding to this is that [[spoiler:she shows up shortly after K's version of Joi dies, and clumsily flirts with K. Her dialogue also echoes several of K's model's turns of phrase, casting doubt on the legitimacy of their relationship]]. |
| 225 | * FantasticNoir: Follows many FilmNoir conventions in a Cyberpunk setting. |
| 226 | * FantasticRacism: |
| 227 | ** Even more so than the original ''Film/BladeRunner''. Replicants were outright banned for ten years between 2026 and 2036, with the remaining longer-lived Replicants [[ThePurge forcibly "retired"]] en masse. The Wallace Corporation has brought them back with the Nexus-9 line, who are built to be even more subservient and slave-like than the Replicants in the original film. |
| 228 | ** K is shoulder-checked and called a skin-job ''by co-workers''. The people he shares a tenement with treat him with disgust and the door of his apartment has been vandalized, calling him a "skinner". Even the Replicants hate him for being a next gen Blade Runner. |
| 229 | ** All of the LAPD's Replicant employees are apparently required to take a highly invasive baseline test that torments them with rapid-fire, pre-conditioned emotionally loaded trigger questions. If what Joshi says is literally true, then deviation from the baseline is '''instantly''' punishable by death. |
| 230 | ** The Replicants themselves express some of this towards [[ProjectedMan Joi]], as Mariette tells her (paraphrased) "she's not as real as she thinks she is". |
| 231 | ** Happens even amongst Replicants. K makes a distinction between "his kind" (obedient) and the defiant older models like Sapper. |
| 232 | * FieryCoverup: Officer K burns Sapper Morton's house to DestroyTheEvidence of a human-replicant birth, under Joshi's orders. |
| 233 | * FinaglesLaw: Joi tells K to delete her from his apartment so he will be harder to track down, leaving the portable emitter only for Joi to exist. If the emitter is damaged, she will disappear. [[spoiler:Sure enough, Luv crushes the portable emitter later on, killing Joi in the process.]] |
| 234 | * FinalSpeech: [[spoiler: Very clearly and deliberately averted. Unlike Roy, K's final words to Deckard simply consists of two short sentences. As K lies dying and a remastered version of Vangelis's "Tears in Rain" begins to play, K's end is a [[InternalHomage homage]] to Roy's end, but is a MomentOfSilence instead of another dramatic final speech.]] |
| 235 | * TheFinalTemptation: [[spoiler: Niander Wallace decides to convince Deckard to tell him the location of the replicant child by tempting him with an almost perfect replica of Rachael, as she was when they first met. Deckard ultimately refuses, causing an enraged Wallace to kill the Rachael clone and order Deckard to be transported off-world to be tortured]]. |
| 236 | * FireWaterJuxtaposition: Compare K's implanted memory of himself as a child hiding the toy wooden horse in the furnace or K burning down Sapper's house with [[spoiler: his RedemptionInTheRain fight against Luv in the climax to save Deckard's life at the cost of his own.]] |
| 237 | * FirstTimeFeeling: After becoming non-stationary, Joi [[HappyRain enjoys the touch of rain drops]] on her skin on the rooftop. |
| 238 | * FlyingCar: The signature spinners return with greater presence and grittier 2040s tech. K is assigned an LAPD spinner that serves as his primary mode of transport, and now comes standard with an unmanned weaponized probe, as are some of the Wallace Corporation spinners. [[spoiler:A classic LAPD spinner closely modeled after the design of the original movie[[note]]and suggested by [[FreezeFrameBonus its car number]] to be the very one Gaff operated in the original movie[[/note]] also makes a brief cameo as Deckard's getaway vehicle in Las Vegas before it is preemptively destroyed in a missile strike by Luv's men.]] |
| 239 | * {{Foreshadowing}}: |
| 240 | ** Sapper Morton tries and fails to stab K in the film's opening, but K grabs his hand before he can do so. [[spoiler: In the film's climax, the same thing happens with Luv and K, but she pulls a ''second'' knife on him in other hand and stabs him, giving a wound that contributes to his eventual death.]] |
| 241 | ** K is slammed repeatedly into and then through a concrete wall to seemingly no ill effect before he is identified as a Replicant. |
| 242 | ** K's baseline test includes several phrases that later turn out to be plot-relevant: |
| 243 | *** "What's it like to hold the hand of someone you love?" and "What's it like to hold your child in your arms?", refers to [[spoiler: the birth of a Replicant child and K's quest for love and self-actualization with Joi.]] |
| 244 | *** Another phrase of the baseline is "When you're not performing your duties, do they keep you in a little box?" which fairly accurately describes the duty and confinement of Ana Stelline, who [[spoiler: like K, is ''also'' at least partially, if not entirely Replicant (depending on what [[AmbiguouslyHuman Deckard]] really is.)]] |
| 245 | *** "Do you like being separated from other people?" possibly references both Ana Stelline and Rick Deckard, who are both secluded away from other people, [[spoiler: and are father and daughter.]] |
| 246 | *** "Against the dark, a tall white fountain played." [[spoiler: The final battle takes place at night on an ocean shore, where the crashing ocean waves are lit up like white fountains against the darkness.]] |
| 247 | *** Somewhat esoteric, but the ''Pale Fire'' reference used in the baseline test also foreshadows [[spoiler:K's "birth" was not real, and his hopes were built on a false idea.]] In ''Pale Fire'', the "Against the dark, a tall white fountain played" poem was describing a person's near-death experiences, and causes another person to find the original author because they had experienced an identical near-death experience too. However, it turns out that the poem was misprinted, and the original poem had "mountain" instead of "fountain". [[spoiler: This is very similar to how K reacted to his "birth records," even though they were not his.]] |
| 248 | ** Luv muscles open a stuck, heavy door before she is in any scene that requires her to be combative. |
| 249 | ** When K goes to the orphanage, only the girls have any hair, all the boys have shaved heads. [[spoiler:This is an early hint that the person in K's memory is a girl, not a boy.]] |
| 250 | ** Ana Stillane is shown crying when she examines K's implanted memory, [[spoiler: and confirms that it's real but doesn't ask whose it is. That's because it's not his memory- it's hers.]] |
| 251 | ** Ana tells K that "there's a bit of every artist in her work." [[spoiler: The memory that she put into K was her own.]] |
| 252 | ** After leaving the memory creation facility, K tells Joshi [[ExactWords "I found the kid"]]. [[spoiler: He's right that he found the child, but it isn't him. It's Ana.]] |
| 253 | ** Luv tells [[spoiler:Joshi]] before killing her, "You can't hold back the tide with a broom." [[spoiler: Luv dies when K drowns her in the oncoming ocean tide]] |
| 254 | ** After K [[spoiler: deletes Joi from his apartment's database]], he warns her that [[spoiler: she'll die for good if her mobile emitter is destroyed. Sure enough, when in the attack on Deckard's building, Luv finds Joi and exactly that happens.]] |
| 255 | ** Attentive viewers will notice that Rick Deckard [[spoiler: never refers to the gender of his child.]] |
| 256 | ** When K first arrives home, Joi layers the image of a more appetizing meal over his bowl of noodles. Later, she does something similar with Marriette and herself. |
| 257 | ** Wallace calls Luv "the best angel of all." [[spoiler: The last thing she sees is K with (the lights of the crashed spinner making) a halo around his head, above her. He's a better "angel" than her. Or, perhaps, closer to God, or Jesus. Especially with his oncoming sacrifice.]] |
| 258 | * ForTheEvulz: Luv steps on Joi's emanator purely out of spite. |
| 259 | * FreezeFrameBonus: |
| 260 | ** [[Series/{{Mythbusters}} Adam Savage]] has a blink-and-you'll miss it cameo in ''Nowhere to Run'' in the scene where Sapper is haggling with a merchant. He's visible over Sapper's left shoulder as the guy trying to sell bags full of human blood. |
| 261 | ** Officer K's [[spoiler:serial number, identifying him as a Replicant, is visible on his car's display before TheReveal.]] |
| 262 | ** It's obscured by crashing waves, but [[spoiler:there is a quick frame showing both Luv and K doubling back after shooting each other.]] |
| 263 | ** The light on Joi's emanator glows whenever he's talking to other women throughout the film, indicating that she's listening in on their conversations - and ''only'' when he's talking to other women. [[ClingyJealousGirl Jealous, much?]] |
| 264 | ** When K is syncing her new emanator, Joi's customization settings are briefly displayed. One of them lists her nationality as Cuban, the same as Ana de Armas. |
| 265 | * FreudWasRight: [[spoiler:Wallace's complete lack of interest in understanding how Deckard is capable of reproduction, despite outright stating he suspects Deckard might be a replicant, and the statement that he is the father of the millions of current replicants, brings up disturbing implications of who he plans the biological father of the next generation replicants to be if he can make female ones who can reproduce.]] |
| 266 | * FutureFoodIsArtificial: Humanity lives off of genetically engineered artificial food made in imitation of old dishes produced by the Wallace Corporation since regular food is all but depleted at this point. One protein source is vat-grown grubs. When K makes dinner, it turns out to be an extremely unappetizing bowl of clear noodles and mysterious black balls. Joi places a holographic plate of steak, fries and veggies over it so K can fantasize about eating something tastier. |
| 267 | * TheFutureIsNoir: Like the first film, the future in which the film is set doesn't have very good lighting. |
| 268 | * FuturisticPyramid: Eldon Tyrell's gigantic pyramid-shaped (or rather ziggurat-shaped) complex in Los Angeles remains standing as part of Niander Wallace's Earth headquarters, but is now shrouded in darkness and spectacularly dwarfed by [[EvilTowerOfOminousness newer and even more imposing wedge-shaped mega-extensions]]. |
| 269 | [[/folder]] |
| 270 | |
| 271 | [[folder: Tropes G-L]] |
| 272 | * GaiasLament: The toxic pollution and environmental fallout has gotten drastically worse in 30 years. According to Denis Villeneuve, "The climate has gone berserk -- the ocean, the rain, the snow is all toxic." To go into further detail: |
| 273 | ** Los Angeles has gigantic walls all along the coastline designed to hold off tidal waves. |
| 274 | ** The city only seems to have three types of weather: constant rain, constant smog, and constant ash-snow. |
| 275 | ** Las Vegas is a [[GhostTown ghost country]] coated in a constant orange haze, but the background radiation has since returned to non-lethal levels. |
| 276 | ** San Diego is now used exclusively as Los Angeles' dumping grounds. It's only a matter of ''when'' you'll get Tetanus from all the rust, not if. |
| 277 | ** Trees are so rare that a toy horse the size of your hand-carved out of real wood is considered a sign of wealth. |
| 278 | ** The snow is a twofer: Not only is it snowing in Southern California, the film is explicitly set in the summer. |
| 279 | ** There's also a hint that the water is so polluted, there's some difficulty in completely decontaminating it, as K's shower announces it uses "99.9% Detoxified Water" every time it's turned on. |
| 280 | ** K's shower lasts exactly one second, implying that even this "99.9% Detoxified Water" is also extremely scarce and expensive to use. |
| 281 | ** There are literally no real, living plants seen anywhere. Farms are giant fields of plastic white greenhouses instead of natural green fields, and they farm artificial protein instead of natural food. |
| 282 | * GhostTown: Las Vegas is now this, coated in a constant orange haze. It's implied to have been some form of dirty bomb, because the background radiation is only just now dropping back down to non-lethal levels, and the city itself is completely undamaged. |
| 283 | * AGlassInTheHand: Invoked by Luv who squeezes Joshi's hand so the glass therein would break and hurt her. |
| 284 | * GloryDays: Deckard tells K he had the same job as him once and that he was good at it. |
| 285 | * GoodOldFisticuffs: Luv rather easily dismantles K in a kickboxing fight and knife-fight. Then [[spoiler:K comes back and simply asphyxiates her with raw strength]]. |
| 286 | * GoryDiscretionShot: |
| 287 | ** In the "Nexus Dawn" short, the camera cuts to the horrified reactions of the Magistrates right as Wallace's Replicant cuts his own throat. |
| 288 | ** K's execution of Sapper Morton only shows K firing two shots at him and then the sound of Sapper falling to the floor offscreen. |
| 289 | ** Wallace mutilating that poor replicant woman is shot from behind her back and cuts to a shot of the blood spilling down her legs. |
| 290 | ** Luv stabbing [[spoiler: Joshi]] is shot from a distance and through a window, so we don't get to see most of the gory details. |
| 291 | ** Played with in an interesting way: There's no actual blood during [[spoiler: Joi's death, obviously]], but it shows only K's expression as [[spoiler: Luv smashes Joi's emitter.]] |
| 292 | * GreatOffscreenWar: whatever it is that's going on on Kalantha, and presumably other off-world colonies. |
| 293 | * GrewBeyondTheirProgramming: The Nexus 9 series is supposed to be completely obedient and utterly subservient to humans. However, as the movie progresses it becomes clear that [[spoiler:many of them are in fact starting to think for themselves and forming a Resistance.]] |
| 294 | * GunshipRescue: |
| 295 | ** When K gets shot down and captured by rebels at the scrapyard, Luv sends an airship that kills all rebels [[PlotArmor except for K]]. |
| 296 | ** [[spoiler: K's rescue of Deckard in the climax.]] A variation in that the people he's attacking ''also'' are in gunships. |
| 297 | * HappyEndingOverride: At the end of the first movie, Deckard and Rachael retired to a peaceful life in the countryside.[[note]]In the original theatrical cut. In the Final Cut, the movie just ends with them leaving in an elevator.[[/note]] In this movie, [[spoiler:Rachael is dead, and Deckard is living in the ruins of an old city]]. |
| 298 | * TheHeroDies: [[spoiler:K ends the film laying down on snow-covered steps still heavily bleeding from earlier injuries. The film ends as the camera pans out with him lying motionless on the stairs, looking up into the sky.]] |
| 299 | * HiddenInPlainSight: [[spoiler: Not only is Deckard's child ''not'' in hiding, she's actually already a prisoner with no power to defend herself. K at least has the excuse of only visiting her when prompted by unusual circumstances, but [[FailedASpotCheck Wallace's failure is cataclysmic]] - not only could he have waltzed in and taken the Replicant child he was so desperate to find whenever he wanted to with little resistance, he could have done so legally because '''[[EpicFail she works for his company!]]''']] |
| 300 | * HiredToHuntYourself: [[spoiler: Subverted. When he discovers that Rachael and Deckard had produced a child together, K's analysis of birth records leads him to believe that he's the child in question. He's wrong - it's actually the memory scientist, [[ChekhovsGunman Ana Stelline.]] ]] |
| 301 | * {{Hologram}}s: 2010s special effects allow for the film to feature holograms prominently in urban environments. |
| 302 | * HologramProjectionImperfection: |
| 303 | ** Joi shows some glitches early on before K makes her non-stationary. |
| 304 | ** The jukebox hologram of Frank Sinatra at the Las Vegas casino goes through flickers. |
| 305 | ** There is also the malfunctioning hologram of the late Elvis Presley going in and out playing a song. |
| 306 | * {{Homage}}: |
| 307 | ** Combining K's name with his nickname gives you Joe K, a nod to Josef K from Creator/FranzKafka's ''The Trial''. |
| 308 | ** Another literary reference can be found in the baseline tests that are administered to K: The words "cells interlinked within cells" are lifted from Creator/VladimirNabokov's ''Literature/PaleFire''. K even has a copy of the book in his apartment. |
| 309 | ** The shots of K walking away from Sapper's burning house mirror a similar scene in Creator/AndreiTarkovsky's ''Film/TheSacrifice''. |
| 310 | ** At one point while flying over the wall, K and Joi pass by a [[https://i.redd.it/2zjqxea2wb601.png giant aircraft that vaguely resembles the USS Sulaco]] from ''Film/{{Aliens}}''. |
| 311 | ** K spends part of the third act with a large bandage over his nose, recalling Jake Gittes from the [[FilmNoir Neo Noir]] film ''Film/{{Chinatown}}''. |
| 312 | ** The story's general premise seems to be partly inspired by ''Literature/AScannerDarkly'', another Creator/PhilipKDick tale about a detective in the future sent to find a fugitive criminal who [[spoiler: turns out to be ''himself'']]. At least until it's revealed that [[spoiler: Ana Stelline is Deckard and Rachael's child, not K]]. |
| 313 | ** The [[spoiler: final battle]] seems to homage ''Film/Drive2011'', which also features [[spoiler: Ryan Gosling's character attacking a car the film's antagonist is driving in, running it into the sea, and then killing the villain by ultimately drowning them when they climb out (though Luv puts up much more of a fight than Nino did).]] |
| 314 | * HotterAndSexier: While the original was by no means a ''chaste'' film, actual nudity was confined to a brief shot or two of Zhora's breasts while she was changing. This film has multiple scenes of naked Replicants - albeit in a [[FanDisservice distinctly unerotic]] context - and plentiful female nudity, including two scenes of skyscraper-sized [[note]]The first example being the gigantic erotic statues in Las Vegas outside Deckard's hideout, and the second being the gigantic hot-pink hologram of Joi that appears to K[[/note]] naked women. |
| 315 | * ICannotSelfTerminate: A non-lethal variant. Joi asks K to delete her copy from the apartment console since she cannot do it herself. |
| 316 | * ICanStillFight: {{Justified|Trope}} since [[spoiler:K is a Replicant, but over the course of the film (roughly a week) he's beaten heavily by Sapper, stabbed in the arm by Sapper, blown away by an explosion, hit multiple times in the face by Deckard, grazed on the side of the head by a bullet before falling three stories, knocked back by another explosion that leaves shrapnel in his side, beaten by Luv, shot and stabbed in the side by Luv before getting kicked more, having his hand sliced open. And even then it still takes a few more hours before he potentially succumbs to his wounds.]] |
| 317 | * IJustWantToBeSpecial: [[spoiler:Deep down, K wanted to be the Replicant child, a real person born of a woman. As the resistance leader explains to K, every Replicant with Stelline's memories wishes it were them. This is why Joi was so insistent to K that it was the case; she is programmed to say "What you want to hear" as the advertisements say, and she could tell that K really wanted it to be true despite his outward protestations to the contrary.]] |
| 318 | * ImprobableAimingSkills: |
| 319 | ** As per being a Replicant, K manages to kill all of his targets with one shot [[spoiler:except for Luv due to the intense rain]]. |
| 320 | ** [[spoiler:Bringing down a speeding FlyingCar with a jury-rigged harpoon in one shot?]] Respect. |
| 321 | * InternalHomage: |
| 322 | ** [[spoiler: K sustains mortal wounds saving Deckard's life during a BattleInTheRain, just as Roy Batty did in the first movie.]] |
| 323 | ** K asking if Deckard's dog is real echoes Deckard asking if the owl at Tyrell's office is real. |
| 324 | ** [[spoiler: K dies in the rain following a final act of kindness, just like Roy Batty did in the first film.]] |
| 325 | * InvulnerableKnuckles: Averted. K's hands are noticeably bruised after his fight with Sapper. |
| 326 | * IronicEcho: |
| 327 | ** "I hope you are satisfied with our product." Doubles as a [[spoiler:Pre-Mortem One Liner]]. |
| 328 | ** Luv herself is on the receiving end of this, albeit in a subtler way. She tells [[spoiler: Joshi]] that she can't "hold back the ocean with a broom", and at the end of the movie [[spoiler: she's drowned in the ocean by K]]. |
| 329 | ** To the first movie. Roy Batty attacked Deckard after he killed the female replicant Pris, but then saved Deckard's life before expiring in the pouring rain. [[spoiler:K kills the female replicant Luv to save Deckard's life, and later expires under a gentle snowfall.]] Both death scenes have the "Tears in Rain" score as accompaniment. |
| 330 | * ItsPersonalWithTheDragon: [[spoiler:The moment Luv steps on Joi's emitter, K has a personal stake with her, particularly since by that point, K has no personal interest on rebelling against Wallace.]] |
| 331 | * IWasNeverHere: In an attempt to uphold the order Lieutenant Joshi tells K that the pregnant replicant "didn't happen". |
| 332 | * JackBauerInterrogationTechnique: K employs it successfully on the [[EvilOrphanageLady Evil Orphanage Owner]] to get him to disclose the register from 30 years back. |
| 333 | * KickTheDog: |
| 334 | ** Niander Wallace graphically slices a Replicant's belly open and lets her bleed to death just to prove a point to Luv, and just because he ''can''. |
| 335 | ** Unlike every other person she kills, Luv didn't ''have'' to [[spoiler: smash Joi's emitter.]] She seemingly does it just to be cruel. |
| 336 | * KilledMidSentence: [[spoiler: Luv crushes Joi's emitter just before she can finish telling K one last "I love you"]]. |
| 337 | * KissMeImVirtual: K and holographic Joi have at least two kissing scenes. |
| 338 | * KissOfDeath: Two of them, as an homage to the Kiss of Death from Roy Batty to [[spoiler:Eldon Tyrell]] in the original film: |
| 339 | ** Wallace kisses the newly dispatched, still-naked female replicant after slicing her belly open. |
| 340 | ** Subverted during the climactic battle between Luv and K with [[spoiler:Luv kissing K]] after stabbing him in the side, assuming him to die soon after. |
| 341 | * LaResistance: [[spoiler:A Replicant rebellion is on the rise.]] |
| 342 | * {{Leitmotif}}: The first notes of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIi_q4bNZMM Peter's leitmotif]] from ''Music/PeterAndTheWolf'' play when Joi is activated. |
| 343 | * LivingMacguffin: Several factions are searching for [[spoiler:the living child of a replicant]], due to the implications of their existence. |
| 344 | * LogoJoke: The Warner Bros. Pictures, Alcon Entertainment, Sony, and Columbia Pictures logo are monochrome and digitized, [[OminousVisualGlitch glitching]] between their usual backgrounds and a blank space with a blinding light shining behind them. |
| 345 | * LoveTriangle: [[spoiler:Of a sort: Mariette the prostitute/replicant resistant agent clearly shows attraction to K when she first meets him, and shows significant concern for him after he is found almost dead in Las Vegas. Joi speaks callously towards her, possibly envious of the fact that she can physically touch K and dismisses her after their cybersex threesome rudely. K for his part is very smitten with Joi, and is initially very uncomfortable with having sex with Mariette, only proceeding at Joi's insistence. He later shows significant grief after Joi's death, though still affectionately touches Mariette after his rescue in Las Vegas.]] It gets more complex when you factor in Luv's VillainousCrush toward K. |
| 346 | [[/folder]] |
| 347 | |
| 348 | [[folder: Tropes M-R]] |
| 349 | * MaleMightFemaleFinesse: K and Luv are both Nexus-9 Replicants but differ in their fighting styles. K is heavier and primarily uses grappling, punching, or crushing blows, while Luv is more skilled and fights with [[KickChick acrobatic kicks]] and flashier kung-fu style moves (as well as her knives.) This is highlighted in the final battle, where [[spoiler: Luv beats the shit out of him and stabs him several times but he eventually wins by holding her underwater, and his superior physical strength and weight means she's unable to escape and eventually drowns. ]] |
| 350 | * MatchCut: A couple times, most notably with the opening shot of K's blue eye cutting to an overhead view of solar panels arranged in a circular eye-shaped pattern that resembles an iris. |
| 351 | * MeaningfulName: |
| 352 | ** Rachael's name becomes a fascinating ''retroactive'' example. In the Bible, Rachael was the mother of Joseph and Benjamin, two of the progenitors of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. In this movie, [[spoiler: she gave birth to a living child, the firstborn of a Replicant-Human [[InterspeciesRomance relationship]], who the Replicant resistance believes will be the progenitor of a new tribe of humanlike Replicants. Like the Biblical Rachael, she also dies in childbirth.]] |
| 353 | ** Joi is the only person who gives K joy. |
| 354 | ** Luv wants to be the most beloved of Wallace's creations. |
| 355 | ** Joi names K Joe. As in [[Film/TheTrial Joseph K.]] |
| 356 | ** Neander Wallace: "Neander" means "new man" in Greek; "Wallace" may be a reference to Alfred Russell Wallace, the co-discoverer of evolution. |
| 357 | * MegaCity: The LA in 2049 is just as big of an example of a cyberpunk megacity as the original film, if not even more extreme. When K flies back from Sapper Morton's farm to LAPD, we see miles upon miles of tightly-packed city blocks (to the point where roads are no longer visible), surrounding a downtown of humongous skyscraper blocks. |
| 358 | * MegaCorp: The Wallace Corporation, which bought out the now-bankrupt Tyrell Corporation from the previous film, produces virtually all of Earth's [[FutureFoodIsArtificial artificial food supply]], the new Nexus-9 line of Replicants, and even the Joi A.I. companion. |
| 359 | * MetaTwist: [[spoiler:In stories featuring an adult protagonist with a mysterious past, and a plot about past events involving the birth of a chosen one and/or a long lost child, the protagonist is usually the child grown up. While K came to believe he is the lost child of Deckard and Rachael, it's eventually proved he isn't.]] |
| 360 | * MundaneUtility: Being a Replicant grants Officer K a massive advantage in speed, strength, aim, and fighting prowess. It also allows him to [[ItMakesSenseInContext read scrolling text]] really really fast. |
| 361 | * MythologyGag: |
| 362 | ** [[spoiler:Rachael's death after the original movie and replicants procreating]] had previously been used in the K.W. Jeter follow-up novels ''The Edge of Human'' and ''Replicant Night'', respectively. K being a Replicant hunting down other Replicants is also from the books. |
| 363 | *** The idea of using Androids as bounty hunters to go after other Androids was also discussed in ''Literature/DoAndroidsDreamOfElectricSheep.'' Rick suspects they'd be very good at it, since they lack empathy, [[spoiler: while expressing disgust that his temporary partner, Phil Resch, was not an Android as he suspected, but instead simply a cruel man who enjoys killing Androids.]] |
| 364 | ** The opening to the movie is reused from the scrapped original opening for the first film. |
| 365 | ** On their first encounter Deckard recites to K lines from ''Literature/TreasureIsland'', a book that Dave Holden was reading when Deckard was visiting him at a hospital in a deleted scene of the original film. |
| 366 | ** Ridley Scott always said that a sequel to Blade Runner 2 would open on a dead tree, strung up with tons of electronics. This film does that, but with fewer electronics. |
| 367 | * NeckLift: When K attacks Luv inside her sinking spinner, he grabs her by the neck and lifts her up in the air. |
| 368 | * NonResidentialResidence: [[spoiler:An older Deckard]] has the ''entirety'' of Las Vegas at his disposal after it was abandoned following a dirty bombing. In practical terms, it means he lives in the upper floors of a hotel, and uses a barroom as his living space. |
| 369 | * NoodleIncident: |
| 370 | ** In the film itself, many characters refer to the "Black Out" as a cataclysmic event that wiped out most data on the remaining Tyrell replicants. However, in order to find find out what the Black Out actually was, you would have to watch ''Blade Runner Black Out 2022''. |
| 371 | ** Even the prequel shorts give basically no information whatsoever on whatever happened to [[GhostTown Las Vegas]] that caused it to be evacuated. It's implied to be some sort of dirty bomb, but the exact level of toxicity is left ambiguous, given that the only life we see there are Deckard's bees and dog, K and Luv (who are both Replicants) and Deckard and Wallace's henchmen (who [[AmbiguouslyHuman might be]].) |
| 372 | * NoSell: When Deckard punches K's face inside the abandoned casino, K takes it without much problem. |
| 373 | * OhCrap: Mr. Cotton, the overseer at the orphanage, panics when he sees K's badge. |
| 374 | * OlderHeroVsYoungerVillain: 75-year old Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard vs. 46-year old Jared Leto as Niander Wallace. Averted with K, as both Ryan Gosling and K are younger than Leto/Wallace, and in any case [[spoiler: [[TheUnfought K and Wallace never meet.]]]] |
| 375 | * OpeningScroll: Before the film starts proper there is an opening screen of text [[DictionaryOpening explaining the term "Replicant"]] and providing background information as a courtesy to viewers who didn't see the short films in the lead up to ''2049'', as well as serving as an InternalHomage to the opening text from the original film. |
| 376 | * OrangeBlueContrast: There are many scenes with a harsh yellow and orange hue, including Las Vegas, the Wallace Corporation headquarters, and Dr. Badger's lab. Other scenes, such as various night scenes around the city, have a softer grey and blue hue. Both hues can be seen in the FinalBattle as well as quite blatantly in the [[https://twitter.com/bladerunner/status/900734006219595776 theatrical poster]]. |
| 377 | * OrcusOnHisThrone: Niander Wallace spends all of his time lounging in his headquarters, a huge, cavernous, maze-like building. |
| 378 | * OurWeaponsWillBeBoxyInTheFuture: K's handgun is quite boxy compared to contemporary models. |
| 379 | * PortalStatuePairs: K comes across a pair of huge nude women statues at the entrance of Las Vegas. |
| 380 | * PostApocalypticDog: Deckard's only companion in the deserted ruins of Las Vegas is a dog he found living there. Neither he nor K can tell if it's artificial. |
| 381 | * ProductPlacement: |
| 382 | ** As with the original film, large advertisements dominate certain areas of the city, including both modern brands such as Coca-Cola and defunct brands like Pan-Am, showing that the film takes place in a RetroUniverse. Amusingly, one of the brands is Creator/{{Atari}}, which became defunct for a while but was resurrected by other companies. |
| 383 | ** More traditional product placement also occurs in the film, such as for Peugeot (the brand of car K drives) and the film's international distributor Sony (on the holographic jukebox). |
| 384 | ** Holographic versions of Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley turn up in Vegas. Who owns their back catalogs? Sony. |
| 385 | * PronounTrouble: |
| 386 | ** [[spoiler: When Freysa talks about the replicant child, she refers to her as "baby" and "child" and avoids "she" and "daughter" until the right moment comes for the WhamLine.]] |
| 387 | ** When K asks Rick Deckard about [[spoiler: his child, K only uses the gender-neutral terms "child" or "kid", and Deckard never corrects him.]] |
| 388 | * RealityIsUnrealistic: Since she plays a holographic character and the franchise has a [[BodyMotifs prominent focus]] on eyes, a number of fans came up with theories about the symbolism behind the decision to give Joi such [[WhatBeautifulEyes intense yellow eyes.]] They weren't edited, Creator/AnaDeArmas' eyes really are ''golden''. |
| 389 | * RedHerring: [[spoiler:K discovered that his childhood memories aren't actually fake, but real, thus learning that he might be a Replicant-born child, specifically Rachael's child. It turns out that he's actually not, it's Dr. Ana Stelline. The memories are indeed real, but they're Ana's, not K's.]] |
| 390 | * RedHerringMole: The prostitute, Mariette, is seen following K around throughout the film in a suspicious manner and even rifling through his luggage. [[spoiler: She's not a FemmeFatale spy working for the bad guys, she's working for the Replicant [[LaResistance resistance movement]] and her tracking device saves K's life when Luv's men capture Deckard and leave K for dead.]] |
| 391 | * {{Retcon}}: In the original film, Rachel was special because she had no expiration date; the rest of the Nexus replicants had a fixed time of death (which was the driving conflict in the story). This film states that there were many replicants with "open-ended" lifespans. |
| 392 | * RetroUniverse: Rather than [[{{Retcon}} retconning]] the aesthetics of the ''Blade Runner'' universe for a [[EverythingIsAnIpodInTheFuture more modern sci-fi look]], the film doubles down on the clunky technology, outdated brands, a still-active USSR, and general retro-futuristic '80s visuals of the original. An example of the deliberate aesthetics is that [[https://www.reddit.com/r/MovieDetails/comments/7p6xw8/in_blade_runner_2049_the_tablet_ryan_gosling_uses/ K's smart tablet]] is actually a plate holder from a 1920s camera. |
| 393 | * RevealingHug: When Mariette/Joi and K kiss, Joi and K keep their eyes closed, while Mariette (who is spying on K) opens her eyes and peers curiously at K. |
| 394 | * RightForTheWrongReasons: After leaving [[spoiler: Ana Stelline's facility]], K tells Joshi [[ExactWords "I found the kid."]] [[spoiler: He's right that he found the kid, but it's actually ''Ana'' who's the child and [[RedHerring not him]].]] |
| 395 | * {{Robosexual}}: A weird variation where ''both'' partners are artificial: K's only non-professional relationship is with Joi, a mass-produced A.I. romantic partner. It's suggested that he feels affection for her specifically because he doesn't feel like an actual person either, and they both share a connection via their desire to be "real". Of course, Joi is programmed to love her owners no matter what, a fact that K is forced to come to terms with [[spoiler:after his copy of her is destroyed. He sees a giant holographic advertisement for Joi that approaches him the same way that a prostitute would, even calling him the pet name "Joe" like his own copy did.]] |
| 396 | * RomanticRain: When K buys Joi an emanator and asks her where she wants to go, she chooses to go outside so she can "feel" the rain on her skin, before embracing K tightly. |
| 397 | * RuinsOfTheModernAge: K eventually finds Deckard hiding out in the ruins of Las Vegas. The city was abandoned after a dirty bomb attack in the 2020s. |
| 398 | * RuleOfSymbolism: [[RuleOfSymbolism/BladeRunner On the franchise page]]. |
| 399 | [[/folder]] |
| 400 | |
| 401 | [[folder: Tropes S-Z]] |
| 402 | * ScavengerWorld: San Diego is now a vast garbage dump whose entire economy is based on salvaging material. Its inhabitants have no problem with shooting spinners from the sky for this either. |
| 403 | * SceneryPorn: With both Denis Villeneuve and Roger Deakins behind the lens, it's a given. Deakins finally won his Oscar for cinematography after ''thirteen'' previous nominations. |
| 404 | * SchizoTech: As a function of the series' ZeerustCanon, tech is both higher and lower-tech than in the real world of 2017. Joi is essentially an Alexa with a roomscale 3D hologram projector and complex emotions. On the flip side, all the screens clearly use cathode ray tubes, and cell phones don't seem to exist. |
| 405 | * ScrewDestiny: Weirdly inverted. K chooses to fulfill his "destiny" and [[spoiler: save Rick Deckard from Wallace's forces even though he's ''not'' Deckard's child]] when he decides that he wants to make a choice [[GrewBeyondTheirProgramming of his own free will.]] |
| 406 | * SecretlyDying: [[spoiler: K hides his lethal stab wound from Deckard.]] |
| 407 | * SequelHook: [[spoiler:There is an incoming Replicant rebellion, Deckard and his daughter have been reunited, and BigBad Niander Wallace is [[SavedForTheSequel still alive by the end of the film]].]] |
| 408 | * ShoutOut: |
| 409 | ** When Deckard meets K, he quotes ''Literature/TreasureIsland''. K acknowledges the reference, which impresses Deckard. |
| 410 | ** K wears a bandage over his nose in the third act after a brutal beating, not unlike Jake Gittes in ''Film/{{Chinatown}}''. |
| 411 | ** The overall plot itself [[spoiler: Replicants being able to conceive and have children]] is itself a bit of a shoutout to [[spoiler: ''Anime/{{Armitage III}}'', which is also a cyberpunk/post-cyberpunk story that involves Humanoid machines being able to conceive and have children.]] Even the major viewpoints and character motivations are referenced in detail [[spoiler: With the creator of Armitage and the Third-series androids doing so in order to boost the population of Mars, a colony world that lacked the ability to flourish due to population; nearly the exact statement made by Niander Wallace. Lieutenant Joshi's desire to eliminate the issue to stop a war is in the story as well]]. |
| 412 | ** When Joi flashes through her outfits and asks K to dance with her, she briefly wears a sparkly silver dress and blonde bob wig that makes her look like [[Film/{{Chicago}} Roxie Hart.]] |
| 413 | ** K's physical consummation of his love for Joi (an AI lover) via a human surrogate is similar to a key scene from the movie ''Film/{{her|2013}}''. |
| 414 | * ShowDontTell: The film is light on exposition and generally prefers to let the audience figure things out. |
| 415 | * SickeningCrunch: When Luv confronts Joshi in her office, she grips her hand hard enough to slowly crush the bones in her fingers. |
| 416 | * SignificantReferenceDate: [[spoiler: The birthday and ArcNumber on the wooden horse is 06-10-21. Read it in European order, and the date becomes October 6th, the day the movie is released and the metaphorical "birth day" of K.]] |
| 417 | * SinisterSwitchblade: Luv has one which she uses to stab K repeatedly and [[spoiler:gut Joshi]]. |
| 418 | * SnowMeansDeath: |
| 419 | ** When [[spoiler:Luv kills Lieutenant Joshi]], the view cuts to outside the window, where snow is falling on the pane. |
| 420 | ** In the final scene, [[spoiler:K lies back in the falling snow and probably succumbs to his injuries, though this is never made clear]]. |
| 421 | * StackedCharactersPoster: The movie poster shows all major players in a stack consisting of the villain Niander Wallace, holographic Joi and the two protagonists K and Deckard. |
| 422 | * StealthInsult: Beneath their replicant austerity, K and Luv engage in a bit of PassiveAggressiveKombat during their conversation in the data archives. After an unsubtle (and clearly unwelcome) romantic advance from Luv at the end, K merely ends the exchange with "Please thank Mr. Wallace for your time." It makes sense in the context that Luv is an employee of Wallace on the clock, so her time is also his time, but it can also be read as an intentionally dehumanizing remark. A reminder that Luv is a tool, not a person, and isn't entitled to K's gratitude. |
| 423 | * StealthPun: An [[BlackComedy extremely dark]] example: [[spoiler:Love kills Joy.]] |
| 424 | * SuddenlyShouting: |
| 425 | ** K's explosive "GOD DAMMIT!" upon learning that one of his memories is real, followed by kicking a piece of furniture. |
| 426 | ** Luv gets suddenly loud when confronting Joshi in her office. |
| 427 | * SuddenSequelDeathSyndrome: [[spoiler:Rachael died in childbirth after the events of the first film]]. |
| 428 | * SwissCheeseSecurity: |
| 429 | ** [[spoiler:Luv goes into the LAPD precinct with no legal access, steals crucial evidence, kills a coroner and proceeds out with no trouble. Next time she goes straight to Lieutenant Joshi's office, kills her and goes out, again with no trouble.]] |
| 430 | ** [[spoiler:K still has full access to his police car with surveillance drone and machine gun after being suspended and giving up his badge and gun.]] |
| 431 | * TakeThat: To all the fans who won't stop asking whether or not Deckard is a replicant himself, there's the moment of K asking Deckard if the dog is a replicant. Deckard basically tells K to figure it out himself. |
| 432 | * TakeThatKiss: |
| 433 | ** [[spoiler:Luv plants one on K after stabbing him.]] |
| 434 | ** Wallace also kisses that poor Replicant woman before [[KickTheDog slicing her gut open.]] |
| 435 | * TakeUpMySword: A subtle variation, but when K [[spoiler: [[BigDamnHeroes ambushes Wallace's convoy to rescue Deckard]] ]], he uses Deckard's old LAPD two-trigger blaster rather than his own more modern version. |
| 436 | * ThemeNaming: In-universe. Joi calls K "Joe" as he desperately wants his own name, which is very similar to her name. |
| 437 | * ThereWasADoor: {{Justified|Trope}} example -- the door in question had just been locked from the other side, so [[spoiler: Officer K]] simply charges through the marble wall besides it like it is made of cardboard. Although, judging by how quickly the latter follows on the former, it seems he doesn't even try the door before going for the most direct approach. |
| 438 | * TheseGlovesAreMadeForKillin: Coco catches Luv in the morgue stealing Rachael's remains while wearing black leather gloves contrasting her white coat making it clear she's doing something she does not want to be traced back to her. She distracts him by lying about her presence having gone through the proper channels and presenting him with paperwork before killing him by cracking his neck from behind and leaving him to choke on his blood. She then tortures and murders Joshi in her office in a later scene wearing the same gloves and coat. Luv ditches the coat for a black jacket as part of her battle outfit in the movie's third act. |
| 439 | * TheyWouldCutYouUp: Deckard and Rachel had a baby after they escaped at the end of ''Film/BladeRunner''. This was supposed to be impossible since Rachel was a replicant (genetically enhanced human "robot"), which can't have children. Deckard tells Officer K (AKA Joe) that he hid the child because he knew that it would be dissected in order to find out how it was conceived. |
| 440 | * ThreeWaySex: K's AI girlfriend Joi syncs her hologram's movements with Mariette, a local prostitute, so she and K can have sex. |
| 441 | * TimeSkip: The film is set in 2049, 30 years after the first, which was set in 2019. |
| 442 | * TitleByYear: 2049 is the setting of this film; its predecessor took place in 2019. |
| 443 | * TitleIn: New locations are announced via on-screen text. |
| 444 | * TrackingDevice: The prostitute Mariette sneaks a tracker into K's jacket which helps the Replicant resistance movement to pull a BedouinRescueService on K after he gets LeftForDead by Luv in the ruins of Las Vegas. |
| 445 | * TragicIntangibility: The main character is extremely lonely and only has his girlfriend to comfort him. The problem is, she's a hologram he bought to overcome his loneliness, so whenever he tries to kiss her, he's just reminded that she isn't real. Later in the movie, he tries to overcome this by hiring a prostitute to kiss him at the same time the hologram does, so he can at least pretend to be touching his holographic love. |
| 446 | * TrailersAlwaysSpoil: |
| 447 | ** While it happens too quickly to properly notice in the main trailer, one of the featurettes clearly showed that [[spoiler: it is K who [[ThereWasADoor charges through the marble wall]] in pursuit of Deckard, thereby spoiling the reveal that he is a Replicant.]] [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]] in that this particular reveal happens in the first few minutes of the movie, but the rest of the marketing campaign did a reasonably good job to hide it, which is why it sticks out. |
| 448 | ** Deckard's first meeting with K was plastered ''all over'' the trailers and marketing materials, spoiling the suspense and the mystery of whether or not K will actually find him. |
| 449 | * TrappedInASinkingCar: K saves Deckard from drowning in Luv's spinner. |
| 450 | * TrespassingToTalk: K enters Sapper Morton's dwelling and sits down in the kitchen waiting for Sapper to return. |
| 451 | * UncannyValley: |
| 452 | ** Wallace in general [[http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/05/08/22/4019561C00000578-4485554-First_peak_Jared_Leto_is_featured_as_well_as_he_is_shown_towerin-m-107_1494280150724.jpg just looks off]], mostly because of the glowing chip on his neck a la Frankenstein's bolts and his blind, scarred eyes. At times, his bizarre, stilted delivery and slow, mechanical movements make him seem more like a robot than any of the Replicants (which is almost certainly intentional.) |
| 453 | ** The CGI on [[spoiler:Wallace's version of Rachel]] is one of the best replications of a photorealistic human face in film to date, but it's still not perfect. Then again, considering the purpose of that scene, it's almost certainly at least partially intentional, and arguably works to the movie's advantage. |
| 454 | ** Joi's pure hologram averts this completely, but when she synchronizes with Mariette's body, the process is just imperfect enough to look at least slightly off. It's most notable on the hands because hers and Mariette's fingers rarely synchronize at all, which results in someone with twenty fingers caressing K. Face synchronization also falters slightly from time to time, leading to a strange hybrid look composed of both women's features. Given that it'd be way easier to film it with just Joi, this is probably deliberate. |
| 455 | ** Joi's ad hologram is an intentional example, with her completely dark eyes. |
| 456 | * UnnecessarilyLargeInterior: One of the signs of Wallace's wealth is not only how his corporate headquarters dwarfs the old Tyrell Corporation HQ that sits in its shadow but how spartan and empty it is, with giant rooms staffed by a single employee (or replicant) and walls covered in ludicrously expensive real wood paneling. |
| 457 | * TheUnreveal: |
| 458 | ** The film has only one direct reference to the original film's mystery of whether Deckard is human or a Replicant, and it doesn't answer this question either way. |
| 459 | ** In the opening scene, the pot that Sapper has boiling on the stove gets several insert shots. At the end of the scene, K lifts open the lid and looks inside. We then cut away without finding out what's inside. |
| 460 | * UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: [[spoiler: Stelline, by using her own memories as a basis for replicant memories. In doing so, she perhaps has directly caused the resistant movement to be born due to millions of replicants wanting to be 'real'.]] |
| 461 | * VillainousCrush: Hinted at, with Luv toward K. She compliments him and tries to question him on personal matters (right after K said that's a way to tell someone likes another person). Later she plants a TakeThatKiss on him. That also gives her [[spoiler: destroying Joi's emitter]] a MurderTheHypotenuse vibe. |
| 462 | * VillainousRescue: Luv saves K from a band of hostile scavengers who downed his car and are about to kill him by directing drone missile strikes to wipe them out or chase them away. |
| 463 | * VillainWithGoodPublicity: Tie-in materials indicate that Niander Wallace saved the country from a complete collapse via starvation, due to inventing genetically-modified food products to replace the crops that were being destroyed by climate change, and then making the patents for the food available to everyone, free of charge. By the time ''2049'' begins, much of the populace relies on Wallace's food products, which are sold from vending machines with his name on them. |
| 464 | * WalkingSpoiler: [[spoiler:K's status as a Replicant wasn't revealed in any of the marketing, but is explicitly said early on in the film. K (also known as "[=KD6-3.7=]", his full name) is a current-gen Replicant who hunts older models that don't have a finite lifespan. An even bigger case is Rachael, who was hidden from all promotion and is instrumental to the plot, starting from the fact she [[SuddenSequelDeathSyndrome died between movies]]]]. |
| 465 | * WeHaveReserves: Wallace's attitude towards his replicants, to the point where he casually murders one immediately after being born just to prove a point to Luv. It's also implied that replicants are employed as expendable shock troops in off-world wars. |
| 466 | * WeWillUseManualLaborInTheFuture: As in the previous installment, the OpeningScroll reveals that Replicants are used as slaves in off-world colonies. |
| 467 | * WhamLine: |
| 468 | ** When K meets [[spoiler:a replicant woman who helped birth the replicant child, she remarks on the child being a daughter, when K and the audience had both been led to believe that K was the child.]] |
| 469 | --->"Deckard only wanted his baby to be safe. [[spoiler:And she is. When the time comes, I will show her to the world, and she will lead our army.]]" |
| 470 | ** When [[spoiler:Freysa then comforts him over the fact that he isn't the child, what she says further destroys K's hope as even his TragicDream isn't his own.]] |
| 471 | --->[[spoiler:"[[ArmorPiercingQuestion You wished it was you?]] We all wished it was us."]] |
| 472 | ** A lesser example is [[spoiler:the giant pink hologram Joi telling K "You look like a good Joe," the same pet name his copy gave to him, which throws the nature of her feelings for him and whether she was truly unique ''severely'' [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation into question]].]] |
| 473 | * WhatHappenedToTheMouse: |
| 474 | ** Even though it's heavily implied [[spoiler:K died from his injuries, the film deliberately cuts away from after he lies down on the stairs, leaving his ultimate fate ambiguous.]] |
| 475 | ** [[spoiler:Niander Wallace, the film's unambiguous BigBad, disappears from the movie right before the climax.]] |
| 476 | ** [[spoiler:The underground replicant resistance movement is never seen again after its introduction.]] |
| 477 | ** [[spoiler:Deckard's dog, who was still alive when the Resistance members found K, is nowhere to be seen after that. With Deckard free at the end, he can presumably fetch him if he wanted to]]. |
| 478 | * WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: |
| 479 | ** The transhumanist themes of the original are taken to even further extremes in the sequel. K's emotional arc is heavily tied to his growing belief that [[spoiler:he is more "real" than he originally thought when he discovers that some of his memories were real and not fabricated like those of other Replicants. These hopes are dashed when he discovers that his memory of the horse toy, while genuine, was transplanted into him from the actual child of Deckard and Rachael. From that point on, he attempts to create a new purpose for himself in reuniting Deckard with his daughter.]] |
| 480 | ** Likewise, it's not obvious how much of Joi's affection towards K is a genuine interpersonal connection and how much of it is simply her programming obliging her to love her owner, although [[spoiler:the latter]] is implied more heavily by the end. The voiceover during that scene makes it more ambiguous, however. |
| 481 | * WhenSheSmiles: [[spoiler: K doesn't smile at all until the very end of the film when he reunites Deckard with his daughter and lays down on the stairs, [[GoOutWithASmile dying from the mortal wound Luv gave him.]] ]] |
| 482 | * WhiteVoidRoom: |
| 483 | ** The holographic chamber where Ana Stelline creates memories for the replicants has this sort of aesthetic. |
| 484 | ** The scan room at LAPD HQ is a downplayed example. While far from looking like an actual void, the claustrophobic walls give off a harsh, sterile white glare, in contrast to the muted grey tones more common throughout the city. |
| 485 | * WindowLove: [[spoiler: The final shot of the film, as Rick Deckard approaches his daughter, Ana Stelline, in her enclosure, and tenderly lays a hand on the window. Cut to black.]] |
| 486 | * WorldOfSymbolism: Much like the original, this film is stacked top-to-bottom with repeated motifs, symbols, images, and [[https://medium.com/@_tomchristie/inside-the-kaleidoscope-mirrored-heart-of-blade-runner-2049-62ee229acc14 literary allusions]]. |
| 487 | * WorstAid: Early in the movie, K treats a deep stab wound in his arm by gluing it shut. While gluing is an established medical practice in RealLife, the stuff he uses looks like some bog-standard DIY store-type superglue that shouldn't even come into contact with skin, let alone an open wound. Considering the [[CrapsackWorld world]] he lives in, it fits the tone perfectly. |
| 488 | * WrongGenreSavvy: |
| 489 | ** [[spoiler: No, K. You were ''not'' HiredToHuntYourself, you were just one of many Replicants who each believed that they were the ChosenOne.]] |
| 490 | ** Played with in Joi. [[spoiler:She isn't an AI that GrewBeyondTheirProgramming to fall in genuine love with K - that was part of the programming all along. Or maybe not. It's left ambiguous. But probably.]] |
| 491 | * ZeerustCanon: |
| 492 | ** This film has an interesting take on this trope. The original ''Film/BladeRunner'' is set in 2019, which in 1982 was thirty-seven years in the future. ''2049'' came out in 20''17'', just two years away from when the original movie is set. To get around this issue, the film is explicitly and deliberately set in an alternate future, though it isn't outright stated - for example, a holographic advertisement depicting giant ballerinas can be heard saying "CCCP", because in the world of ''2049'', the Soviet collapse never happened. Also, many of the companies that have infamously gone bust or massively restructured since the original film's release are still extant in ''2049'', as shown by an enormous Creator/{{Atari}} logo that K flies over. |
| 493 | ** The look of the film is still close to the clunky '80s cyberpunk aesthetic from the first. |
| 494 | [[/folder]] |
| 495 | ---- |
| 496 | ->''"I always told you. You're special. Your story isn't over yet. There's still a page left."'' |
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