Utopia noir

"Blade Runner 2049" is a somewhat belated sequel (2017) to the cult classic "Blade Runner" from 1982 (you know, the film that ends differently each time you watch it - weird stuff, this!). I have only seen the sequel once, so I can´t guarantee you that it will always end in the same way...

Seriously, though. Although I never been a huge fan of the Blade Runner concept, I can understand why hardline fans may have been disappointed with "2049". It lacks the magic of the original film. People new to the franchise may also have felt let down. Perhaps the special kind of romantic "noir" expressed in the first film is incomprehensible to audiences today? Nor is the film particularly "woke" (it´s not particularly "reactionary" either, even containing a barely hidden attack on Trump´s border wall, but woke themes are simply irrelevant to it). This led some feminists to attack the film, apparently oblivious to the fact that most characters are female, sorry, people-with-uteri. 

The plot is a semi-direct continuation of the storyline from the original "Blade Runner" film. The dystopian Asian-American police-state of the future has finally learned to control its army of robot-slaves, known as "replicants". Or so the establishment likes to think. It´s now official that officer Deckard and the rogue replicant Rachael from the first film really did get away. Years later, it´s revealed that they had a child. That replicants can have children (with humans or with other replicants, depending on what you think Deckard is) threatens "the wall" between humans and robots. The LAPD orders a loyalist replicant named K to find the miraculous child and kill it. 

In the course of his investigation, K finds Deckard hiding in a weird futuristic version of Las Vegas, meets an underground replicant resistance movement ready to strike against humanity, and comes to believe that *he* is Deckard´s and Rachaels child. Meanwhile, the mad scientist Niander Wallace (a really creepy guy!) and his robot enforcer Luv tries to find the mystery child, killing LAPD officers and abducting Deckard in the process. Wallace believes that his corporate power (which is already considerable - he has Messiah status in the dystopia) can be expanded even more if replicants can be made to breed, creating vast slave-armies that will terraform other planets and make them suitable for human habitation.

Although I like to think that cyberpunx dead, many people still believe (or until recently believed) in many of the themes touched on in this film: Artificial Intelligence, eating insects in order to save the world from climate change, space colonization by corporate power (think Elon Musk), flying cars, humanoid love-robots, multi-racial globalism, and so on. Maybe that´s why "Blade Runner 2049" tanked at the box office. It too effectively showed that the utopia is really noir...