Blade Runner 2049 is a great film, and you should definitely go and see it. It's visually stunning, explores a lot of interesting ideas, and deftly guides the audience through the story, with a good balance of intrigue and information. If you haven't seen the original Blade Runner, though, I recommend you do that first, or you won't understand some of what 2049 has to say. That said, the sequel has a great relationship to its predecessor- it leads on from it and ties to it, but has its own story, and allows us to get involved with the new plot and characters before bringing in the old ones, almost teasing us with the mention of Deckard and the others. The old characters are relevant but not overpowering- it's not Deckard's story any more, and he is demoted to the status of supporting character (despite obviously featuring prominently in marketing)- a good thing, because it's been 30 years since the last film, and it's a new and fresh story being told for a new and fresh world. This film actually reminded me of the book that serves as Blade Runner's source material, Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, even more then the original. While I thought Blade Runner focused too much on action sequences at the expense of really exploring the interesting philosophical ideas brought up by Dick's book, this film brings some of those ideas back to the forefront. It's not afraid to slow down and think. It also reflects today's society and favoured narratives, which is what I'm going to talk about now. If you haven't seen the film and don't want spoilers, stop reading, but if you don't mind spoilers, even without having seen the film I think you'll find this interesting. SPOILERS FOR BLADE RUNNER 2049 AHEAD!So now we've all seen the film (or don't care about spoilers), let's talk about Ryan Gosling's replicant character K, and those twists and turns the narrative guides us round. To recap, K has been asked to destroy Deckard and Rachael's child as evidence of replicants that can reproduce could start a war. K then comes to believe that he is that child, as do we. He gains a new sense of self from this idea that he might have been born rather than made, and his holographic girlfriend Joi gives him the name Joe. When he comes across a group of rebel replicants, he discovers finally that he is not the missing child, deducing her real identity, and takes Deckard to his daughter, sacrificing his life to do so.
K's story engages with the idea of 'Chosen One' narratives, which are so popular in our culture. They've been around for decades, from Star Wars: A New Hope to Harry Potter to The Mortal Instruments. They explore the idea that a young person discovers something about themselves which means that they are special, and the only one that can face a villain or start a revolution, etc. Similarly, there' s another group of films, for the most part slightly more recent, in which the protagonist is not inherently special, but is plucked by fate from obscurity and taken through a plot which puts them in the position of a 'Chosen One', becoming the hero they never were, specifically in a leadership capacity. Think The Hunger Games and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. The protagonists of these films are 'Chosen Ones' not because of anything specific about them, but because of how the plot of the story treats them, singling them out for a higher purpose. There are a few factors at play in Blade Runner 2049's use and inversion of the Chosen One narrative which make it particularly interesting. Firstly, charting the trends in these narratives from 1977's Star Wars to 2016's Rogue One displays a clear decline into cynicism. The Chosen Ones of modern day are more likely to be reluctant heroes and more likely to display the negative effects of the plot on both the mental and physical wellbeing of the protagonist. This trend has culminated in Blade Runner 2049, showing a postmodern dystopian world that displays our current culture's disillusion with images of perfection. Our hero stumbles into the rebellion after essentially working against them (though reluctantly) when commanded to destroy the child, and then dies for his efforts. Secondly, we as a culture have almost become sick of constant Chosen One narratives, similarly to how we are almost sick of the superhero film genre. Blade Runner 2049 acknowledges this, and deals with it by presenting us with what we are led to believe is a traditional Chosen One narrative and then taking us in a different direction, using the trope to create surprise, and using our assumptions, based off a familiarity with the trope, to provoke a mixture of emotions in us during the sequence where K and Deckard spend time together with K thinking he's his son and Deckard having no idea. Finally, the reason Chosen One narratives are so popular in the first place is because they appeal to our individual sense of self. In the words of Freysa, the leader of the replicant rebels, "We'd all like to believe it was us." Every one of us who has watched Harry Potter has fantasised about getting that letter from Hogwarts and being told we're special, and have been 'chosen' from our Muggle surroundings to enter this elite world of magic. I'd say it's pretty common for us, especially as children, to watch or read a chosen one narrative and then fantasise about something similar arriving into our own lives to introduce us to a new fantastical world in which we are special. However, those of us who grew up with Harry Potter, and those before us who grew up with Star Wars, are growing up now, and acknowledging that life simply isn't like that. Blade Runner 2049 expresses our disappointment with the mediocrity of our roles in life. This is all very downhearted so far. But looking at the film's narrative further, is K not still a hero even though he isn't the Chosen One? He acts heroically, fighting off the film's villain Luv and struggling with his own concerns over his identity and 'soul' (or possible lack thereof), and finally dies a heroic death in service of the replicant rebellion and of reuniting father and daughter. Again we can look at Freysa's words, "Dying for the right cause. It's the most human thing we can do." His heroic death cements his identity, displaying something innately human about him and bringing his arc to an end. Even though K didn't turn out to be the Chosen One, and was not a leader of the rebellion or a highly recognised martyr, his life, actions and death all still had value, both to the world he inhabited and to us, the audience. Perhaps the message of the film is that we cannot all be special above everyone else, we cannot all be Chosen, but that's okay. We are all important.
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