Roger Deakins, it appears that you have outdone yourself. And since you’re Roger Deakins this means everything.
The new trailer for Blade Runner 2049 premiered this morning, online as well as at a Facebook Live Q&A event held at the IMAX headquarters in Los Angeles. I was there to watch the Q&A with Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford and filmmaker Denis Villeneuve (Arrival), and to see this new footage in a theater because – I can say with absolutely confidence – that is how the Blade Runner 2049 trailer should be seen. The scale and depth of the imagery is not done justice on a computer screen. Not even close.
I have no way of knowing whether or not the story is any good, or even – beyond the generalities – what the plot is about. I have my theories and I’ll get to one of them in a minute. But what does seem clear is that Blade Runner 2049 has given Roger Deakins, one of the greatest cinematographers working today (or ever), a canvas on which to paint some of his most fantastic imagery.
If you don’t know his work, Roger Deakins was the director of photography on such films as The Shawshank Redemption, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Skyfall and Sicario. He’s working in a more imaginative realm than usual in Blade Runner 2049. In the Facebook Live Q&A, Denis Villeneuve said, “Roger is always focusing of course on the logic of light, and naturalism, but this time – and that’s a kind of expression Roger would hate – but he went wild, okay? The thing is that he was allowed to go more in an impressionistic way. He was, because of the nature of the project, allowed to do things that I think he was not daring to do in the past.”
“And honestly,” Denis Villeneuve concluded. “I can tell you right now that it’s going to be… it is now one of his most stunning works, and I’m very proud of what Roger did on [Blade Runner] 2049.”
What we get from the trailer, beyond that gorgeous imagery, is an enigmatic look at what will presumably be another high-concept, noir-ish mystery. The official synopsis reads as follows: “Thirty years after the events of the first film, a new blade runner, LAPD Officer K (Ryan Gosling), unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what’s left of society into chaos. K’s discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), a former LAPD blade runner who has been missing for 30 years.”
But it’s Blade Runner, regardless of the year the story takes place, and so audiences are probably going to be eager to dissect this trailer for clues about who in the cast, whether or not they even realize it, is a replicant. You may recall that in the original Blade Runner, Ridley Scott used eye lights to make replicants appear otherworldly, and to tease that Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford’s protagonist) might also be a replicant with false memories of a human life. Here’s an example…
Warner Bros.
Now, take a look at the last shot of the trailer, and take a close look at Ryan Gosling’s eyes…
Warner Bros.
Coincidence? Almost certainly not. The makers of Blade Runner 2049 have obviously – if this trailer is any indication – gone to great lengths to replicate the look and feel of the original film and the odds that the eye light trick, one of the most famous images from Blade Runner, would have escaped their attention are a million to one.
But it may be an intentional misdirect, so don’t consider this so much a theory as a specific observation to keep in mind for later. You may want to file it right next to the anecdote Ryan Gosling told in the Facebook Live Q&A about Denis Villeneuve’s direction, to imagine that Harrison Ford was on set with him, and to consider whether Ford would approve of Gosling’s performance. Then consider that Ryan Gosling doesn’t look entirely unlike a young Harrison Ford, and consider that if Deckard was once a replicant that there could, conceivably, have been more…
Hmmm… I guess we’ll find out more when Blade Runner 2049 comes out on October 6, 2017.
13 Action Movies That Deserved to Have Sequels
Top Photo: Warner Bros.
William Bibbiani (everyone calls him ‘Bibbs’) is Crave’s film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and Canceled Too Soon, and watch him on the weekly YouTube series What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
13 Action Movies That Should Have Had Sequels
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Battleship (2012)
Peter Berg's big, dumb, entertaining adaptation of the board game Battleship is just as entertaining (if not more so) than any Transformers movie. But for some reason it was dead in the water.
Photo: Universal Pictures
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Big Trouble in Little China (1986)
John Carpenter's subversive and hilarious action comedy starred Kurt Russell as a trucker who thinks he's an action hero, but winds up sidelined in the centuries-old fight between good and evil. Maybe it was too clever for its own good, but the adventures of Jack Burton could have easily continued into more kooky cult classics.
Photo: 20th Century Fox
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Chronicle (2012)
This surprisingly rich and engaging found footage superhero film started off as a lark and evolved into the American equivalent of Akira, setting the stage for more exciting stories to come. Plans were made for a follow-up, but they seem to have fallen through, leaving Chronicle fans hanging after only the first chapter.
Photo: 2oth Century Fox
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Commando (1985)
The Arnold Schwarzenegger action thriller Commando is one of the most iconic films of the 1980s, an over the top explosion of absurd machismo that still boasts legions of fans today. There's no reason why it had to be done-in-one. All you had to do was piss John Matrix off and set him loose and you've got cinematic gold.
Photo: 20th Century Fox
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District 9 (2009)
Neill Blomkamp's sci-fi thriller District 9 earned an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. That's how good this innovative parable for apartheid - and xenophobia in all its forms - is. The film ends on a bit of a cliffhanger and Blomkamp claims to want to produce a follow-up someday but he hasn't provided any concrete updates in years, and the project seems - for now - to be a non-starter.
Photo: TriStar Pictures
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Dredd (2012)
Forget the Sylvester Stallone movie. Pete Travis's adaptation of the Judge Dredd comic books is a hard-edged, exciting, impressive action movie that was supposed to lead to a multi-film franchise. Dredd has a cult now but theatrical audiences didn't notice it the first time around, and it seems as though a sequel - which everyone involved says they'd be up for - is a pipe dream at best.
Photo: Lionsgate
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Foxy Brown (1974)
Foxy Brown is one of the most famous action heroes in motion picture history. People know her name whether or not they've actually seen her movie. But for whatever reason this Pam Grier classic never led to any sequels, even though many of Foxy Brown's contemporaries - like Shaft and Cleopatra Jones - earned their own follow-ups.
Photo: American International Pictures
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Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005)
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are hired assassins who, secretly, are married to each other in Mr. and Mrs. Smith, an exciting, funny, sexy action-comedy that became a box office hit but never turned into a franchise. Which is weird, if you think about it, since the original film never actually resolves the plot of who was trying to kill them, and you'd think they would want to get to that eventually in future films. Plans were made for a follow-up, and a TV series almost came together, but so far nothing (and after Jolie and Pitt's divorce, it seems more unlikely than ever).
Photo: 20th Century Fox
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Point Break (1991)
The original story of a hunky FBI agents who falls in with a gang of extreme sports thieves remains one of the biggest cult classics of the 1990s. But even though The Fast and the Furious took the exact same concept and transformed itself in a multibillion dollar franchise, the original film was a done-in-one endeavor. We never saw Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze team up again.
Photo: 20th Century Fox
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Salt (2010)
Angelina Jolie's best action movie is Salt, an unpredictable spy thriller about an American agent accused of being a Russian spy. The film's incredible action and surprising twists led to lots of sequel buzz but it's been over five years since we've heard any news about it whatsoever. Sigh...
Photo: Columbia Pictures
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Serenity (2005)
Joss Whedon's cult classic tv series Firefly was canceled before it could even finish its first season, but the fans demanded more so eventually we got Serenity, a feature film that answered many of the series' lingering questions and set the stage for future adventures. Unfortunately Serenity failed to attract casual audiences who weren't familiar with the show, but it's been over a decade and the fanbase hasn't forgotten this franchise, and they're still clamoring for more. Maybe someday they'll produce a follow-up to this series... but probably not.
Photo: Universal Pictures
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The Shadow (1994)
Alec Baldwin was a dapper superhero in The Shadow, a slick, amusing, inventive adaptation of the classic pulp hero that made its money back in the mid-1990s but was hardly the next Batman. It's a shame because The Shadow holds up rather well, and the character had an important role to play in the history of superhero movies. The film deserved better. It deserved at least a sequel.
Photo: Universal Pictures
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Torque (2004)
Joseph Khan's Fast and Furious knockoff was accused, at the time, of being over the top and ridiculous, but ironically those were the same qualities that eventually made the Fast and Furious films into megahits. Torque beat the Fast movies to the finish line but it lost anyway, and that's a shame, because this is a dynamite motorcycle chase movie with fun characters and absurd action. It's at least as good as most of the Fast and Furious movies. It's a pity that Torque never took off.
Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures
