But I think he meant for there to be a final one to follow it, and so it closes off somewhat unsatisfactorily.
(Possible spoiler:)
I was a little surprised in my last read through how small a part Duncan Idaho played until I got to the second book and remembered
The Brian Herbert books are very bad.
The SciFi channel had zero budget and it showed; but I think they stuck to the book a lot better; but I don't think I'll ever rewatch them, because the visuals are so bad.
Anyway --- we can always treat adaptations as inspired by rather than based on. I, Robot is a fun action film that name drops the three laws, but is otherwise unconnected to the book. The song retains the name, as they say.
To be honest, it didn't stand a chance with me: BR2 is a movie that didn't need to get made. Someone else in this thread called it "fanfiction", and that's what it is: technically very well made, but pointless fanfiction nonetheless.
But if I had a slightly open mind about it, the inclusion of old Deckard, the chew-the-scenery overacting of Jared Leto (and actor that is always hard to like), and that ridiculous "I'm the best" Luv -- which is miles behind the marvelously inspired Roy Batty -- were the final nail (nails?) in the coffin of this trainwreck of a movie.
The only saving graces are set design, K and the implications about Joi and her mass-produced but convincing displays of affection. The rest of the story is pointless and most of the characters are unlikable and badly acted.
Again, no movie would have satisfied me. I think the very concept of a Blade Runner sequel is wrong and a mistake; but Hollywood must march on, I guess.
I agree Ford and Leto were distractions to the detriment of the film. Would have been fine as an independent original film and not blade runner although the reflections of the original did help highlight the themes.
I do agree there were some good questions asked by the film (just not anything to do with Wallace's "vision" -- boy did this ruin the movie for me!).
> Would have been fine as an independent original film and not blade runner
Yes. I would have received this way better had it been an original film with echoes of Blade Runner (so I would have been spared, for example, the ridiculous execution of clone-Rachael) instead of an official sequel.
I can accept "I'm a director who admires Blade Runner and want to do a film that is a homage to it", but cannot accept "I want to do Blade Runner 2".
For the record, I think Villeneuve is a good director and also think this was a genuine attempt at doing something good. It just happens that it was a bad idea, doomed to fail.
Aliens and Terminator 2 are beloved by fans, but most sequels seem to be either overt cash grabs, or a director trying and failing to recapture what made the first movie special.
> Again, no movie would have satisfied me. I think the very concept of a Blade Runner sequel is wrong and a mistake; but Hollywood must march on, I guess.
I hope out hope that a very special directory/writer team could pull off something wonderful, but in practice you're probably right.
The "fanservicy" stuff in this movie fits really well with the rest of its themes. It's not like Indiana Jones 5 or Star Wars 9, where the directors are just pulling back old characters in the hopes that you'll overlook shoddy writing because you like the characters. K is a well-developed character, without a sense of purpose, identity, or agency, caught in the crossfire of cartoonish and 1-dimensional characters who are just using him to advance their cause. The reprisal of old characters, and the eccentricity of other characters, all of it adds to the feeling that K doesn't belong.
There's so much more that I want to say about it but I'm worried about spoiling the movie to people who haven't seen it. I'd recommend it to anyone remotely interested in it.
I do like K and I agree with you his lack of agency and his helplessness is a plus. Gosling does a good job, too. And Joi is an interesting reflection on manufactured feelings and appealing to consumers who all think they are special.
But seriously it's hard to defend the other, cartoonish characters, who constantly ham it up to 11. Contrast, you say? Maybe.. but you cannot have a movie of bad actors (or good actors acting badly) and expect me to enjoy it.
Also, Roy Batty is so much better an antagonist than Luv (or anyone else in BR2, really) that it hurts. Luv and Wallace are seriously the worst in this movie; every second of Wallace is painful to watch.
Harrison Ford didn't seem particularly inspired, either.
The story is pointless. The movie aimless. The visuals and acting and directing absolutely stunning. As lovely as it was to look at, I'd just like my 3 hours back. The original movie was a somewhat campy but beautiful film-noir sci-fi detective thing that actually didn't take itself that seriously, despite being aesthetically quite serious. The new thing took itself way way way too seriously.
But Dune 1 is amazing. Highly recommended, and I'm a deep Dune nerd (... but not the Brian Herbert crap, that's not Dune) for decades.
It's not the "same" as the book -- it lacks a lot of what's there -- but it's enough of the book and amazing in its own right that it's absolutely worth the experience.
The second one was too, and though it was quite different in tone, I liked both.
Good news about Dune! It's actually a good movie. It's both close to the book and makes the right calls in changing what needs to be changed for the big screen. It looks amazing, too. Give it a chance.
Bad news about Blade Runner 2: it's not good. It looks good, but the movie is pointless and jarringly bad acted at times (Jared Leto, enough said). And I say this as someone who absolutely loves Blade Runner, so I'm not one of the naysayers who found it "boring". It's not boring -- it's bad and pointless. Someone here called it "fanfiction", and that's what it is: fanfiction by a very competent director who doesn't truly understand the source material.
The screenshots from Blade Runner 2 and Dune do look cool though.