The sequel came out 35 years after the original, but I've got to say, the visual continuity of the films is pretty amazing.
When I was reviewing Blade Runner (1982), I wondered about the "emptiness" and "loneliness" of Los Angeles. I was curious about the darkness and the perpetual rain. The sequel doesn't necessarily go into much more detail, but we get to see brief glimpses of life outside the city center. We are also told about the "blackout," which is a rather vague but ominous event. And, of course, there is the outer planet colonies, which may indicator that the rich people have gotten the hell away from a destroyed Earth.
The sequel makes it a little bit clearer: All forms of life, from trees to animals, have become extinct. Somehow humans survive. Los Angeles, or maybe "Lost Angeles," is a community that feels diverse, but maybe it's a diversity of survivors. Maybe they ended up stuck in Los Angeles during the blackout and then could never leave this "Hotel California."
Are people free to move about the country? Is there any place to visit? We see that Deckard (Harrison Ford) has Las Vegas all to himself. He has an endless supply of whiskey, but what does his eat? How does he get fresh water?
It's not the priority of the film to provide answers to a lot of the practical questions. We never learn about "what happened." Much is just barely mentioned, or not mentioned at all, and then we have to speculate. This world still has a lot of technology, and it still builds all kinds of Replicants, all kinds of flying cars. Where do the parts come from? Is everything recycled and built by slaves in primitive factories, and who has the money to buy the pleasure bots and flying cars?
K is a replicant AND a blade runner. That's kind of the cool twist to the sequel. His job is to hunt down the older models. Or maybe he's not even a replicant after all? Maybe he's the miracle? Maybe he's the birth child of Deckard and Rachael? It seems too good to believe that such a thing is possible. Memories cannot be trusted, but the physical evidence he uncovers seems to confirm the memories he can't trust by themselves.
Me, personally, I would like for him to be the miracle child. I really would. I wonder if the screenwriter decided it was too simple just to let K be the miracle birth. We're told also about a twin girl. What happened to her? Did she even exist? A few twists and turns in a mystery are fine and necessary, but I still wonder if the writer felt obligated to do more with the plot when doing less might have felt more satisfying.
This is a LONG movie. Maybe about an hour too long. In one of the final scenes, for example, we watch K lying alone on the outside steps as the "acid snow" falls on him. The scene feels like it goes on for 5 or more minutes, when maybe all that was needed was 30 seconds. It's shots like this that make the movie's runtime near 3 hours.
But then, in the final scene, Deckard places his hand on the glass that separates him from his daughter, and movie abruptly ends. What a contrast between those two scenes. One goes on for 5 minutes and the other lasts for a few seconds. Why? I mean, there's an impact to that final quick scene that maybe the prior longer scene works to intensify? Even so, I think some of the scenes go on for too long, and a better ending might be just allowing K to be Deckard's miracle boy.
Rating: 4/5 stars
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