Latest movie you watched (1-10 scale)

[FVBTVS]

what are you some kind of adult?

[Necrometer]

gerald's game 6.66/10 this is basically 1408 again, in a good way I guess

spoiler test:

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[The Real MPD]

Gerald's Game - 7.5

[Liam Spengler]

The Tree of Life - 9
Pickpocket - 8
Mouchette - 8
City Lights - 10

[FVBTVS]

The Tree of Life - 9

[riley-o]

Blade Runner 2049 6.5/10

Aggregate score; visually it's just magnificent and the score/soundtrack is a perfect continuation of what Vangelis created, and I think the basic plot of the movie is a good one, but the flaws weigh heavy. I'll keep it vague so as to avoid spoilers, but they kind of made this a good vs. evil action movie that, despite a decent starting premise, doesn't stray off already heavily trodden themes, and the script execution in direction is pretty weak. There were multiple scenes of dramatic pauses in dialogue followed by the line I was already thinking it would be (which is in no way a credit to me, just that this is a very predictable film that's too by the numbers). It also has multiple dramatic reveals, where a person is in shadow speaking, before stepping into the light to show their face with pause and fanfare for implied audience gasp, which to me is about as lazy and hacky as jump-scares in a horror movie. Part of what makes the original so special is that you have these complex, troubled characters interacting, struggling against each other but with real motivations where no one is the "bad guy" and no one is the "good guy". 2049 loses that elegant thread and replaces it with fairly shallow, simplistic antagonists doing evil things for evil movie character reasons, and a protagonist racing against them to stop them.

Overall pretty disappointing.

[Necrometer]

great summary riley - you saved me a lot of typing. I think I liked the score less than you did, though. seemed overbearing and did too much of the heavy lifting.

atrocious representations of women - imagine if all the female bodies in this had been swapped out with ugly ones also if no women died

I was totally off base on this being most pleasing to fans of the original - this seemed like it wanted to keep a wide audience happy. bummer...

blade runner 2049 7.5/10 because mother of god some of those visuals

[The Real MPD]

[Necrometer]

pee-wee's big holiday 6.5/10

[elephants gerald]

I actually really liked blade runner...8? but fucking jared leto sucks

[Necrometer]

totally agreed on that

tiny type since spoilers are broken - quote me to see it big in the response window!

one problem with 2049 is probably more distinct to me than to the movie - any of these movies where there's an android/clone and the audience is supposed to buy into their otherness... it is hard for me. like battlestar galactica, by the end the cylons are indistinguishable from humans and we're still supposed to hate them? I could never get into that show so I might be off base.

in 2049, K gets some slurs yelled at him, fine, but otherwise he has a pretty solid life. (why is he getting paid? isn't the whole point of a slave underclass that you don't have to pay them?) it makes it hard for me to care about whether a guy might be a human or not when they're effectively indistinguishable. I guess not being able to have kids is a thing, but who wants to have a kid on that shithole planet anyway?

the things I like best in the first BR are not related to the "what does it mean to be human?" angle so much as the more standard narrative and the well-drawn characters we got in deckard, rachel, and the fugitive replicants. the is he / isn't he debate around deckard has always been a fun easter egg more than anything else IMO.

when movies dive into this human/not stuff, I prefer the ex machina approach where it works to build a valued life in an obviously robotic character. in 2049 the movie sort of relies on the audience to come in with this prejudice that it's bad to be an android, but never really shows us how or why. the androids seem to be doing fine, especially without the truncated lifespan of the nexus-6.

not to get TOO EDGY, but I think human lives are inherently worthless; same goes for androids or clones or aliens. we have some tests that we apply to different stuff before we feel empathetic towards it, and the replicants in BR have always easily passed that test IMO. so the BR movies, 2049 in particular, put too much weight in this distinction-without-difference.

fun fact I have the same birthday as Roy Batty

[spacehamster]

I feel like I need to think about this Blade Runner movie a bit more before I make any conclusive judgments, but it certainly did look fantastic, and I really liked that it's just as slow-paced as the first one, at least until

The last few minutes where everything suddenly happens out of nowhere and K/Joe figures out all sorts of shit with no real explanation.

I'm definitely ok with it because it didn't try to fuck with the original by inserting retcon garbage into the story, and if nothing else it was kind of a nice homage to its style, rather than some misguided attempt to "update" anything in terms of style and pacing. But the story... eh.

[FVBTVS]

tupac

[Necrometer]

looks like a fun power rangers movie more than a pacific rim sequel, and of course I'll still watch it with high hopes

glad that the two scientist goobers are back

[ghost boner]

2049 - gonna go with an 8/10. probably a 7 but i gave it an extra point for being better than most things out there. wouldnt recommend 3d. i kinda didnt have a choice in the matter

[ghost boner]

and there your posts go, like tears on a dying forum

[Necrometer]

thanks for the 3D report - I was kinda curious but suspected it'd suck

[spacehamster]

I liked the 3D fine. As with every single 3D movie ever, it was completely unnecessary, but it did look nice enough in a few places and it didn't bother me much despite the fact that the movie's 3 hours long and 3D always makes my eyes tired. And that's about the most positive thing you'll ever hear me say about 3D.

[Liam Spengler]

The Passion of Joan of Arc - 10
The Great Dictator - 9
Millhouse - 7
Tank Girl - 3

[FVBTVS]

i'm still processing 2049 but i can easily say you guys seem kinda insane. whatever your level of dedication is to the original bladerunner is i just cant accept anything other than both films being mutally complimentary masterpieces with their own little flaws. in fact i havent really seen anything mentioned as quibbles that i totally disagreed with but what about whole rest of the film??!

that 'more human than human' line

it was fucking incredible and i dont want to fight. im just sad you guys didnt feel what i felt. the women were AWESOME. didnt even have a problem with LETO

saw it in a dolby theatre and while i wish the theatre itself and the chairs didnt VIBRATE with POWER the sound design and score were crushing

[Necrometer]

it was really awesome in lots of ways but the clunky story held it back, just like the first one for ME

here's my rant I just sent to a friend - quote to read I guess. #ripspoilertags

2049 made me realize that it (and the original to a lesser extent) rely on the audience having pretty strong prejudices about which characters technically are/aren't human. The replicant characters have always *easily* passed the "empathy" test for me - in my gut, they seem/feel human, so I'll have as much consideration for them as I would with any other person. Do I care that they're going to die in a few years or that they can't have children? Of course not, just like I wouldn't pass judgment on anyone for those traits. In the original Blade Runner, we know that Batty & co. are being hunted and that even if they go free, they face the existential threat of a severely truncated lifespan. That sci-fi element works to motivate them, not to make them seem like an "other" to the viewer. On the contrary, the replicants in the original Blade Runner were exceedingly sympathetic. But what are the equivalent motivators for K and his Nexus 8 peers in 2049, now that they get to live a "full" lifespan? It seems like they are living just as well as the humans around them. Does anyone really care if another person's memories are real? Again, we'd never pass judgment if someone had amnesia. The replicants in 2049 are technically much closer to clones than androids, and - even worse - the movie doesn't really show us much reason for that "other" status to hold much weight. Sure, they can't reproduce, but it's hard to imagine the desire to bring a child into such a miserable existence anyway. In particular, K's life seems pretty damned good, all things considered. Am I failing to enjoy this movie to the fullest because I find replicants too lovable?
I guess that's pretty similar to what I put on the previous page...

I know this is pedantic shit, but when the whole story hinges on a silly or confusing idea, I'm going to be distracted about that. in this sense, the new one is less successful than the first, which at least told a lean (if ambiguous) story.

it's a goddamned TRAGEDY that this is tanking at the box office - of course I want this sort of movie to persevere.

[riley-o]

The Dark Tower - 7/10 better than Blade Runner 2049

Professional wrestler Dave Batista was the best part of BR2049

[FVBTVS]

madness

[Rev. Christberg]

it was really awesome in lots of ways but the clunky story held it back, just like the first one for ME

here's my rant I just sent to a friend - quote to read I guess. #ripspoilertags

2049 made me realize that it (and the original to a lesser extent) rely on the audience having pretty strong prejudices about which characters technically are/aren't human. The replicant characters have always *easily* passed the "empathy" test for me - in my gut, they seem/feel human, so I'll have as much consideration for them as I would with any other person. Do I care that they're going to die in a few years or that they can't have children? Of course not, just like I wouldn't pass judgment on anyone for those traits. In the original Blade Runner, we know that Batty & co. are being hunted and that even if they go free, they face the existential threat of a severely truncated lifespan. That sci-fi element works to motivate them, not to make them seem like an "other" to the viewer. On the contrary, the replicants in the original Blade Runner were exceedingly sympathetic. But what are the equivalent motivators for K and his Nexus 8 peers in 2049, now that they get to live a "full" lifespan? It seems like they are living just as well as the humans around them. Does anyone really care if another person's memories are real? Again, we'd never pass judgment if someone had amnesia. The replicants in 2049 are technically much closer to clones than androids, and - even worse - the movie doesn't really show us much reason for that "other" status to hold much weight. Sure, they can't reproduce, but it's hard to imagine the desire to bring a child into such a miserable existence anyway. In particular, K's life seems pretty damned good, all things considered. Am I failing to enjoy this movie to the fullest because I find replicants too lovable?
I guess that's pretty similar to what I put on the previous page...

I know this is pedantic shit, but when the whole story hinges on a silly or confusing idea, I'm going to be distracted about that. in this sense, the new one is less successful than the first, which at least told a lean (if ambiguous) story.

it's a goddamned TRAGEDY that this is tanking at the box office - of course I want this sort of movie to persevere.

I actually really loved Blade Runner 2049. It has great visuals, a plodding pace and nails the ethical beats it's shooting for. I've heard a lot of interesting complaints about it, for sure. But to me as long as you understand the fundamentals of a movie like this and nail that the small subtext moments I can overlook a lot of sin.

In response to the issue you're discussing, I found myself thinking of the K character as a sort of privileged class of Replicant during my watch of the film. He enjoys a bed in the house because he's a slave hunter. So he gets to have books and a fake wife, but really, we're talking about a 1 bedroom apartment in a drug infested ghetto, holographic food projected over shitty colorless gruel, 1 second showers and having to glue himself back together if he gets an injury. They probably should have made the decor more dingy but the gist of it seems accurate.

I think of it as a sort of tiered racism where you have upper class humans that live off world, poor whites (the remaining genetically damaged humans that are forced to live on earth,) the Irish slave catchers and the blacks.

Really, the only thing that came off maybe a little stilted was the story beats that ended with 2 human officers getting murdered. I mean, I get that the replicant in question is a high end representative of the company that owns the rights to their manufacture but still. Seems much cheaper and more expedient to send in a police model, blame it on a malfunction and retire it than to exert political pressure to cover it up after the fact.

And yeah, it's a damned tragedy the thing isn't doing better at the box office, but then the original film was something of a flop as well.

[RY4N]

i saw 2049 in imax on thursday night, and then dragged my friend to see it last night in a theater with a bunch of noisy black people that got bored about 90 minutes in and started snapchatting and shouting bruuuuuuuhhhh. 10/10 first viewing, 10/10 second viewing.