Review: Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
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Yes, it’s beautiful. Yes, the 3D was done well. Yes, it’s worth seeing, especially for the threesome - I’ve not seen anything like that on film before. But… meh. Story is kinda thin. The meta narratives are emaciated.
There are some things to be said about the sexism of the film.
Female replicants. 2049 - Joi (home entertainment and cook), Luv (librarian and killing machine). 2019 - Pris (prostitute and gymnast), Zhora (sex performer with animals), Rachael (secretary and mother)
Extended death scenes. The deaths of the female replicants take many many seconds. The hologram, Joi, is erased and spends many seconds crying out for K at the window of his spinner crash site. Luv is drowned at length, almost erotic asphyxiation snuff-like by K in the womb-ish transport vehicle. Pris is shot by Deckard and has an epileptic seizure-like unreal writhing tongue-protruding death. Zhora is shot by Deckard and crashes through several, several many fashion-store windows in her see-through raincoat and bikini (love her boots).
Quick death. Anomalously, Rachael survives the first film, dies in childbirth between the first and second film, and is found buried under the only (dead) tree left. Rachael is ‘resurrected’ by Wallace and is shot summarily when Deckard betrays her, denies her, because her eyes are not the right color. Luv, the barren replicant, executes her. Deckard never was one for replacements. We know because he prefers to live with his dog now. Quick death is a tenderness reserved for Rachael because she is a mother, unique-ly able to become pregnant. Almost like Mary, mother of Jesus. “You’ve never seen a miracle,” is one of the first key things said in the film. The miracle of birth by a replicant. And the film’s story is really the search for the child of Mary-Rachael.
Women as Furniture. In Soylent Green (1973) women are referred to as Furniture. They come with the apartment and you can choose to keep the Furniture already there if the previous tenant dies, or you can get new Furniture. Joi, K’s domestic worker, is Furniture. She is installed in the ceiling and her hologram is tethered to the ceiling installation. K spends his bonus for retiring a replicant on getting Joi an eminator, so that he can take her with him in his pocket and turn her on and off. Reduced from Furniture to a remote control.
Joi’s clothes. Joi is a hologram that you can buy for domestic work in the home, a wife. K has his domestic-worker wife clothed, modest, a homemaker, and very respectable. K meets another version of her on the street in giant form. Her huge size and outdoor nakedness suggests all the other sluts in the world. There is a huge problem with having so many women who are unchaste, apparently. She is the many prostitutes and porn actresses, the half-dressed teens and the pussy-flashing celebrities. The huge Joi has blank and soulless eyes. Such flagrantly sexual women are soul dead apparently.
Sex scene. K doesn’t arrange the threesome, Joi does. The perfect woman summons a third, Mariette the prostitute, for his pleasure. Joi and Mariette synchronise into one person - madonna-whore - for the sex scene.
Bechdel-passer. The whore (Mariette) says to the madonna (Joi), "I've been inside you. There's not much there,” when Joi dismisses her the next morning. A criticism.
You don’t have to say that. Joi says she loves K and he replies, “You don’t have to say that.” Joi has no volition. She is programmed. There’s no choice on her part. When a call comes in she is put on hold like an iPhone that was playing a movie, it pauses when a call comes in. K is buying into his wishful thinking. There’s a huge amount of suspended disbelief that one needs to have a relationship with a hologram.
Overarching time theme. The past is murdered when Luv shoots Rachael’s brains out. In the present, joy (Joi) dies by accident and love (Luv) is murdered. The newly-born future is murdered when Wallace slices her belly-womb (she is infertile) open and she slowly bleeds to death.
Pale Fire. Hazel offs herself in Vladimir Nabokov’s book, ‘Pale Fire'. Joi didn’t like the book, but offers to read it to K. Nobokov’s other book, ‘Lolita', is about a pedophile that runs off with the 12-year-old object of his desire, Dolores Haze, whom he believes has ‘seduced’ him. Joi does look awfully young. And she is thrilled to be able to leave her confines even though K warns her she could suffer death by erasure. And she does die by erasure. The suggestion is that she put herself in harm’s way, she was the instrument of her own death because she didn’t stay safely at home. She wanted to participate in K’s work and it lead to her death.
Women have a problem too. Lieutenant Joshi played by Robin Wright represents the men’s rights activists (MRAs) toddler-like answer to "Men have a problem” - is that "Women have the problem too”. The sexual harassment of K, the hard-assed, instruction-giving, brook-no-dissent manner demonises her. Just like Black people can’t be racist (they have no systemically-given power over White people), so women cannot be sexist. To use patriarchally-established power is in itself a problem, don’t chase the red herring of the gender of the person exercising it. Women’s power is undermined, dismissed, unusable in the patriarchal system. There’s only one kind you’re allowed, and you should do it well to be evaluated with the patriarchal tool of ‘I got the job done’. Tick. The only real women in the film are a bitch and a whore. (Is the Rachael-Deckard child a hybrid?)
Left with. The miracle-birth progeny of Mary-Rachael, a sad woman under her glass ceiling, err, in her glass prison. She willingly stays inside her prison because... it’s better for her health.
IMDB Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
Actors: Harrison Ford, Ryan Gosling
Director: Fernando León de Aranoa
Yes, it’s beautiful. Yes, the 3D was done well. Yes, it’s worth seeing, especially for the threesome - I’ve not seen anything like that on film before. But… meh. Story is kinda thin. The meta narratives are emaciated.
There are some things to be said about the sexism of the film.
Female replicants. 2049 - Joi (home entertainment and cook), Luv (librarian and killing machine). 2019 - Pris (prostitute and gymnast), Zhora (sex performer with animals), Rachael (secretary and mother)
Extended death scenes. The deaths of the female replicants take many many seconds. The hologram, Joi, is erased and spends many seconds crying out for K at the window of his spinner crash site. Luv is drowned at length, almost erotic asphyxiation snuff-like by K in the womb-ish transport vehicle. Pris is shot by Deckard and has an epileptic seizure-like unreal writhing tongue-protruding death. Zhora is shot by Deckard and crashes through several, several many fashion-store windows in her see-through raincoat and bikini (love her boots).
Quick death. Anomalously, Rachael survives the first film, dies in childbirth between the first and second film, and is found buried under the only (dead) tree left. Rachael is ‘resurrected’ by Wallace and is shot summarily when Deckard betrays her, denies her, because her eyes are not the right color. Luv, the barren replicant, executes her. Deckard never was one for replacements. We know because he prefers to live with his dog now. Quick death is a tenderness reserved for Rachael because she is a mother, unique-ly able to become pregnant. Almost like Mary, mother of Jesus. “You’ve never seen a miracle,” is one of the first key things said in the film. The miracle of birth by a replicant. And the film’s story is really the search for the child of Mary-Rachael.
Women as Furniture. In Soylent Green (1973) women are referred to as Furniture. They come with the apartment and you can choose to keep the Furniture already there if the previous tenant dies, or you can get new Furniture. Joi, K’s domestic worker, is Furniture. She is installed in the ceiling and her hologram is tethered to the ceiling installation. K spends his bonus for retiring a replicant on getting Joi an eminator, so that he can take her with him in his pocket and turn her on and off. Reduced from Furniture to a remote control.
Joi’s clothes. Joi is a hologram that you can buy for domestic work in the home, a wife. K has his domestic-worker wife clothed, modest, a homemaker, and very respectable. K meets another version of her on the street in giant form. Her huge size and outdoor nakedness suggests all the other sluts in the world. There is a huge problem with having so many women who are unchaste, apparently. She is the many prostitutes and porn actresses, the half-dressed teens and the pussy-flashing celebrities. The huge Joi has blank and soulless eyes. Such flagrantly sexual women are soul dead apparently.
Sex scene. K doesn’t arrange the threesome, Joi does. The perfect woman summons a third, Mariette the prostitute, for his pleasure. Joi and Mariette synchronise into one person - madonna-whore - for the sex scene.
Bechdel-passer. The whore (Mariette) says to the madonna (Joi), "I've been inside you. There's not much there,” when Joi dismisses her the next morning. A criticism.
You don’t have to say that. Joi says she loves K and he replies, “You don’t have to say that.” Joi has no volition. She is programmed. There’s no choice on her part. When a call comes in she is put on hold like an iPhone that was playing a movie, it pauses when a call comes in. K is buying into his wishful thinking. There’s a huge amount of suspended disbelief that one needs to have a relationship with a hologram.
Overarching time theme. The past is murdered when Luv shoots Rachael’s brains out. In the present, joy (Joi) dies by accident and love (Luv) is murdered. The newly-born future is murdered when Wallace slices her belly-womb (she is infertile) open and she slowly bleeds to death.
Pale Fire. Hazel offs herself in Vladimir Nabokov’s book, ‘Pale Fire'. Joi didn’t like the book, but offers to read it to K. Nobokov’s other book, ‘Lolita', is about a pedophile that runs off with the 12-year-old object of his desire, Dolores Haze, whom he believes has ‘seduced’ him. Joi does look awfully young. And she is thrilled to be able to leave her confines even though K warns her she could suffer death by erasure. And she does die by erasure. The suggestion is that she put herself in harm’s way, she was the instrument of her own death because she didn’t stay safely at home. She wanted to participate in K’s work and it lead to her death.
Women have a problem too. Lieutenant Joshi played by Robin Wright represents the men’s rights activists (MRAs) toddler-like answer to "Men have a problem” - is that "Women have the problem too”. The sexual harassment of K, the hard-assed, instruction-giving, brook-no-dissent manner demonises her. Just like Black people can’t be racist (they have no systemically-given power over White people), so women cannot be sexist. To use patriarchally-established power is in itself a problem, don’t chase the red herring of the gender of the person exercising it. Women’s power is undermined, dismissed, unusable in the patriarchal system. There’s only one kind you’re allowed, and you should do it well to be evaluated with the patriarchal tool of ‘I got the job done’. Tick. The only real women in the film are a bitch and a whore. (Is the Rachael-Deckard child a hybrid?)
Left with. The miracle-birth progeny of Mary-Rachael, a sad woman under her glass ceiling, err, in her glass prison. She willingly stays inside her prison because... it’s better for her health.
IMDB Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
Actors: Harrison Ford, Ryan Gosling
Director: Fernando León de Aranoa
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