I had a very cynical take on joi personally, but I love that it can be read in so many ways and thought their relationship was easily the best thing in the movie
To me it read like saying unconditional love is one of the easiest human emotions to simulate. It's also the one that we will be the least suspicious about when it's given to us.
I also saw Joi as a criticism of our retreat away from each other and into devices.
Joi was programmed to love K and that's all she could do, but because K was so alone he could connect with an emotional reinforcement machine better than a real android prostitute with complexities and needs.
I thought the prostitutes comment to Joi when she left was intended to show us that she saw the hollowness in Joi's love.
I had a very cynical take on joi personally, but I love that it can be read in so many ways and thought their relationship was easily the best thing in the movie
To me it read like saying unconditional love is one of the easiest human emotions to simulate. It's also the one that we will be the least suspicious about when it's given to us.
I also saw Joi as a criticism of our retreat away from each other and into devices.
Joi was programmed to love K and that's all she could do, but because K was so alone he could connect with an emotional reinforcement machine better than a real android prostitute with complexities and needs.
I thought the prostitutes comment to Joi when she left was intended to show us that she saw the hollowness in Joi's love.
Aha! I've been waiting for someone with your take!
If Joi was 100% a construct meant to fill a void, we have to consider the pivotal action she takes that hints she may have intelligence and agency: when she asks K to dump her into the emitter.
Until this point the Joi unit was Wallace's only source of intel. We can only imagine that Wallace would be opposed to losing his surveillance point, and would not have allowed her to cut that string, but she did. She abandoned immortality. She sought less life, not more life (GOD THEMATIC CALLBACKS ARE SO GOOD). Out of programmed love for K? Out of actual love that was strong enough to override her core function and self preservation? Out of support for the possibility of K being a replicant child who could lead synthetic and digital humans to freedom?
I think one other important action worth mentioning is when she asks K to break the antenna/transmitter. I haven't seen anyone mention that yet in this argument about Joi's agency, but it may be an important moment.
Many of the others could be argued to possibly be results of intentional programming for the product i.e. does she enjoy the emitter and experiencing the first touch of rain on her skin because she's a real person with wants, needs, and desires? Is that moment as real for her as the snow falling on K? or is Wallace just trying to sell more emitters, knowing owners would have an emotional attachment and want to make the program happy? Even risking her own existence by being offloaded to the emitter could theoretically be explained away from a cynical consumerist standpoint: have the program show sincere interest in the owner's cause and a desire to run away with them, and if the emitter gets destroyed with Joi in it then they've just sold another Joi unit to replace her. Hell, it's apparently an intentional feature: Both K and Joi were aware you could offload the entire AI to the emitter and it didn't seem like a very difficult process.
However, she also asks K to break the antenna sending data back to Wallace. As Knob mentions above, it's hard to imagine this was an intentional bit of programming: Joi programs looking out for their owners best interest over that of the Wallace Corp? We know, as a result of that scene, they use Joi's to track and spy on their customers. Luv was obviously furious about it. Also, contrasting the AI offloading, this couldn't be done at the press of a button; K had to physically break the device.
I suppose you could argue it was a moment of programming gone awry, or simply an action needed for the plot, but I think it has interesting implications.
I still think the most illustrative moment about Joi is when she tries to lead Mariette's hands, rather than the other way around, and their actions start to radically diverge
I had a very cynical take on joi personally, but I love that it can be read in so many ways and thought their relationship was easily the best thing in the movie
To me it read like saying unconditional love is one of the easiest human emotions to simulate. It's also the one that we will be the least suspicious about when it's given to us.
I also saw Joi as a criticism of our retreat away from each other and into devices.
Joi was programmed to love K and that's all she could do, but because K was so alone he could connect with an emotional reinforcement machine better than a real android prostitute with complexities and needs.
I thought the prostitutes comment to Joi when she left was intended to show us that she saw the hollowness in Joi's love.
Aha! I've been waiting for someone with your take!
If Joi was 100% a construct meant to fill a void, we have to consider the pivotal action she takes that hints she may have intelligence and agency: when she asks K to dump her into the emitter.
Until this point the Joi unit was Wallace's only source of intel. We can only imagine that Wallace would be opposed to losing his surveillance point, and would not have allowed her to cut that string, but she did. She abandoned immortality. She sought less life, not more life (GOD THEMATIC CALLBACKS ARE SO GOOD). Out of programmed love for K? Out of actual love that was strong enough to override her core function and self preservation? Out of support for the possibility of K being a replicant child who could lead synthetic and digital humans to freedom?
Oh boy, I LOVE THIS SHIT
re joi
I guess what makes it feel dark to me is that it seems pointless to try to distinguish between 'real' love and a built in desire to sacrifice everything for the owner. Because in a way Joi's love will always be more perfect than the love of an independent being. It's the love that you get from a loyal pet.
Sure Joi goes against the will of her makers, but everything she does is for K. She sacrifices everything for him because loving him is her only function.
Honestly, the one thing I'm most interested in getting to a character's head about:
When K explodes because the memory is real, and Stelline is crying, what is she thinking? Is she crying because it's her own memory? Is she crying because she knows K thinks it's real, and it isn't? Is it both? Does she even know K now believes he was born, and his entire life has been nothing but shadows on a cave wall? Has this happened to her before, with other replicants? She doesn't seem to react in fear from K's outburst, but how does that instantly rewrite her interpretation of this whole discussion?
Honestly, the one thing I'm most interested in getting to a character's head about:
When K explodes because the memory is real, and Stelline is crying, what is she thinking? Is she crying because it's her own memory? Is she crying because she knows K thinks it's real, and it isn't? Is it both? Does she even know K now believes he was born, and his entire life has been nothing but shadows on a cave wall? Has this happened to her before, with other replicants? She doesn't seem to react in fear from K's outburst, but how does that instantly rewrite her interpretation of this whole discussion?
In the scene, I thought she was crying when she saw the memory (she's crying before K's outburst) because she understands what this means for him and how it will effect (and greatly shorten) his life.
After the reveal, I assume she's crying because it's her memory, and not a particularly happy one to bring back up, in addition to the above.
I had a very cynical take on joi personally, but I love that it can be read in so many ways and thought their relationship was easily the best thing in the movie
To me it read like saying unconditional love is one of the easiest human emotions to simulate. It's also the one that we will be the least suspicious about when it's given to us.
I also saw Joi as a criticism of our retreat away from each other and into devices.
Joi was programmed to love K and that's all she could do, but because K was so alone he could connect with an emotional reinforcement machine better than a real android prostitute with complexities and needs.
I thought the prostitutes comment to Joi when she left was intended to show us that she saw the hollowness in Joi's love.
Aha! I've been waiting for someone with your take!
If Joi was 100% a construct meant to fill a void, we have to consider the pivotal action she takes that hints she may have intelligence and agency: when she asks K to dump her into the emitter.
Until this point the Joi unit was Wallace's only source of intel. We can only imagine that Wallace would be opposed to losing his surveillance point, and would not have allowed her to cut that string, but she did. She abandoned immortality. She sought less life, not more life (GOD THEMATIC CALLBACKS ARE SO GOOD). Out of programmed love for K? Out of actual love that was strong enough to override her core function and self preservation? Out of support for the possibility of K being a replicant child who could lead synthetic and digital humans to freedom?
Oh boy, I LOVE THIS SHIT
re joi
I guess what makes it feel dark to me is that it seems pointless to try to distinguish between 'real' love and a built in desire to sacrifice everything for the owner. Because in a way Joi's love will always be more perfect than the love of an independent being. It's the love that you get from a loyal pet.
Sure Joi goes against the will of her makers, but everything she does is for K. She sacrifices everything for him because loving him is her only function.
A valid interpretation. On the other hand, I found it significant that in the last scene where the idea of Joi is communicated to the audience, they revisit the line "dying for a cause we believe in is the most human thing we can do".
It may not be the script suggesting to us she was a real thinking person (in the same way that the Replicants are affirming their legitimacy as people), but it could be. The scene would fit either way.
Honestly, the one thing I'm most interested in getting to a character's head about:
When K explodes because the memory is real, and Stelline is crying, what is she thinking? Is she crying because it's her own memory? Is she crying because she knows K thinks it's real, and it isn't? Is it both? Does she even know K now believes he was born, and his entire life has been nothing but shadows on a cave wall? Has this happened to her before, with other replicants? She doesn't seem to react in fear from K's outburst, but how does that instantly rewrite her interpretation of this whole discussion?
I think she starts crying when she's viewing the memory - she's already wiping away a tear when she says "this happened". Seems to still have a lot of personal meaning to her, could be why she stuck it in (at least some)
replicants.
FishmanPut your goddamned hand in the goddamned Box of Pain.Registered Userregular
I watched this last night and I've spent all day still thinking about it.
Holy shit.
I have a lot of thoughts and love for this film, most of which has already been covered (especially by @Wyborn, and probably in a clearer way than I can do myself).
Seeing as this is where the conversation is at though, Joi:
I think of her as carrying the dark mirror subplot of this movie.
Like, if the there a subtheme of the first movie that asks to what extent is Deckard real, then Joi basically spend this movie asking us to what extent she is fake.
And it doesn't present any easy answers. It constantly shifts the ground on this, first leading us to give agency but constantly pulling back, hard, and slapping you in the face with her artificiality.
A warm voice to welcome the protagonist home, followed by the holo-emitter. A kiss in the rain, broken by an incoming voice message. Screaming concern of love and care, garbled by digital glitches. The film gives you moments to believe in her that are warm, and soft and human; each one comes with the counter punch. Her selfless begging to be deleted from the home to be destroyed via technological frailty. Her dying words of love and commitment, undercut at the end by a hundred foot naked digital advertisement.
She might not have been active to the story. But to me, she carried a vast degree of thematic weight, all tied up in it's own narrative plot thread.
And that's just one facet of this utterly amazing movie.
That's unbelievably cool. Your new name is cool guy. Let's have sex.
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Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
Something that has stuck in my head:
When Luv says "now there is only one of us" is she under the mistaken impression that herself and K are the two replicant children with matching DNA? Does she think that one of the replicant children did not die?
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knitdanIn ur baseKillin ur guysRegistered Userregular
When Luv says "now there is only one of us" is she under the mistaken impression that herself and K are the two replicant children with matching DNA? Does she think that one of the replicant children did not die?
I assume you're talking about the line after she "beats" K? She says "I'm the best one!" But a lot of people hear it as "I'm the last one!"
“I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
Something interesting about the bees was brought up in the D&D thread:
There are 9 hives of different sizes, just like the 9 colonies Wallace mentions. They are placed in an unhospitable surrounding, only kept alive by artificial feeders. They might be a metaphor for humanity's state of being in that universe.
When Joe first gets her the emitter, he says "You can go anywhere in the world now. Where would you like to go?"
And her choice is the roof of his building? It just really drove home what a sad, confined existence she has. Regardless of whether or not she's real, there's a really unhealthy degree of codependency in their relationship.
3DS: 2234-8122-8398 | Battle.net (EU): Ladi#2485
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Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
When Joe first gets her the emitter, he says "You can go anywhere in the world now. Where would you like to go?"
And her choice is the roof of his building? It just really drove home what a sad, confined existence she has. Regardless of whether or not she's real, there's a really unhealthy degree of codependency in their relationship.
One of my favorite moments in this movie is when K is doing the manual DNA search and he's fiddling with the machine, and he has to quickly adjust something on it right before the search begins - it looks like he kind of forgets a step in turning it on - and it's incredibly subtle and the movie doesn't point it out, but it's one of those world-building details that I exist for.
Something interesting about the bees was brought up in the D&D thread:
There are 9 hives of different sizes, just like the 9 colonies Wallace mentions. They are placed in an unhospitable surrounding, only kept alive by artificial feeders. They might be a metaphor for humanity's state of being in that universe.
I'll just throw my whole post in here because I'm curious whether anyone else has input on it. I had a longer, prior post about bees as metaphor before it, and I think chunks of it still apply but this one is really core to my personal interpretation of the movie.
I'll add that I've read interviews and stuff with the director that make me think my interpretation may not be the official intention, but death of the author and all that, this is what I got out of the movie.
I am revising my view of the movie specifically around the bees as metaphor.
There are two stories told in this universe. The most obvious one we come away with is a defiant recognition that slavery is bad, individuality is important, and deriving meaning from your choices is life. That's the direct narrative plot of the movie.
But this is a long ass movie, and a big part of it is about framing people in a way that diminishes them as small in the larger picture. And I think that's part of the story too. I go back to the bees for this. The bees are a fragile organism, living on a limited number of hives, clinging to that survival in the death desert wasteland, artificially fed and unable to spread further. And that brutal, harsh life in a limited unforgiving place is directly analogous to humanity, limited to nine planets and forced to eke out a living in part by surviving on their disposable, reproducible work force that has no inherent meaning in the broader context of the desert/universe. No individual bee truly matters. No individual human/replicant truly matters, ultimately. We can assign the story and take our small scale meaning inside these individual stories, but that broader cosmos really doesn't care.
One thing I wanted to figure out was what was in the scene with K reaching into the hive and seeing the bees on his hand. And I think now maybe he starts to realize that he's a bee, and there's something like Wallace out there, a literal god figure, who can just reach into the hive and he can't even grasp the scope of what something so immensely larger and different than him means.
I think Blade Runner tries to tell all that as the story. There's the self-derived value and family and emotional bonds and deciding your own fate, and there's the fact that in the broader context that only matters to those characters, not to the universe. And trying to slice out why a human is more valuable than a replicant is more valuable than a less real AI is more valuable than an individual bee. But ultimately any individual is PROBABLY just a bee, and wouldn't even be able to grasp the larger forces at play when that hand comes into the hive.
And to link that back to some Joi stuff above in the thread
I think Joi is a pretty shallow AI ultimately. By shallow I mean not a rounded character, since she's pretty hard locked into subservient love. I think there's a duality here, as well, because the movie both kicks us in the pants over how empty it might be and whether there's moral ambiguity to this weird AI prostitution, (remember when Luv says "I hope you enjoyed our product" after destroying the AI? Reducing it down to just a product, a prostitute). But I think also the movie asks, "But how exactly do you draw the line on what sentience is meaningful and what isn't?" K is quite clearly, to me, ultimately sort of a product of the things that happened to him, the memories that were put into him, and all that. But I think most of us would still agree that ultimately while he's heavily influenced by external factors, he's also still a sentient being who makes MEANINGFUL choices. Even though the AI is a lesser intelligence, staggering human over replicant (which is half a human really, since it's born half created with adult memories) over AI over bees ultimately... It's super not clear how and why you'd draw the line on meaningful existence. I'd also posit that Wallace would be ranked above normal human in this x > y > z list, in terms of intelligence and capacity for self determination. Is one of the reasons that an AI is less real because it's limited in what it can go and do? Joi can't learn outside the realm of K's apartment at first. Adding the broadcaster gives her freedom to experience new things and EVOLVE. But then she's still locked into the places and things of K's choosing ultimately. I'd argue most humans are restricted in their self determination by people like Wallace.
Wiki has this now taking $158 million on a $150 million budget not including marketing I think.
So still a way to go to be profitable but it's chugging along.
I'm very interested in seeing what Denis Villeneuve does next considering I loved this and Arrival.
word is he's going to direct a Dune adaptation
Wait for real
I've been joking that if Villeneuve did a Spice World remake I'd be there opening night.
yes
it's still in early pre-production though so we don't really know anything about it
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DimosarI am the Brain GeniusRegistered Userregular
As immensely powerful as this movie was to experience, I think it had blinders on for how it treated/depicted women and ultimately ended up slightly sabotaging some of the dialogues it is trying to spark re: personhood/commodification:
like it's not ok to go "it's gross how women are treated in this society. Now let's proceed to have every instance of a woman existing in this story be really fucked up and hypersexualized, cause we are brave storytellers"
and have any women who aren't sex objects for the camera to glide over be subordinate in regards to a male characters' motivation/story (IE Luv or to a lesser extent Joshi)
This troubles me more because there's a lot of really wonderful discussions to be had about the story and these characters, who are very interesting and deep... but first this oblivious and dehumanizing fog has to be contended with. Notably re: Joi.
Basically sexualizing the hell out of a woman onscreen and then asking "whoa but ARE they a person??" felt gross.
like, you tell me! you're the storytellers who are objectifying people! then saying objectification is bad!! But that's a bad thing in real life and doing it in a hip, self-aware way doesn't change the fact that now I can't be sure you actually respect these characters
or even have the complexity to understand that you should be aware of that dichotomy if you're telling this sort of story.
so trying to analyze this can sort of feel like I'm chasing my own tail
Guys, I love this movie and I also love reading you guys talking about it. I agree that there are some gender and racial issues, but also that its an amazing movie that blew me away every step of the way.
I had never seen blade runner before, so last night I watched the original's final cut, and then today watched 2049.
I think I like them?
I'm not fond of their treatment of women.
I'm not fond of the pace at times, though I can appreciate it a bit.
I do think that whoever had control over the background music in 2049 could have used some hearing aids.
Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
Just watched this today. I feel like this movie does a lot of things really well, but suffers from many of the same problems as its predecessor, such as the dialogue. Ironically, there are several lines, particularly at the tail end of the movie, where they beat the audience over the head when a simple "show, don't tell" would have sufficed. Or, it could have not said anything and left things open to interpretation.
Also, Jared Leto annoys the fuck out of me.
Overall amazing cinematography and direction and acting and themes. But still some pretty glaring flaws that would have been exposed in a less fantastical setting.
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Clint EastwoodMy baby's in there someplaceShe crawled right inRegistered Userregular
Well I finally saw this. Overall I think my initial feelings about the movie were completely justified by the final product.
The visuals, sound design, and acting were amazing. Gosling was solid, Harrison Ford was excellent, Sylvia Hokes and Ana de Armas were both very effective in their roles. Jared Leto was good in a deeply stupid and utterly pointless role.
The plot and dialogue were absolutely ridiculous, contrived and intelligence insulting. About the nicest thing I can say about the story this movie tells is that it can't retroactively ruin the original film. The runtime was absolutely ludicrous. I just keep coming back to one thing. This was not a story that needed to be told! Entire characters should have been cut (Wallace, the resistance group).
The climax of the film was awful, mindless action movie schlock. I like action movie schlock mind you, not being a snob here. But the fight scene between K and Luv was laughable. The fight scene between Deckard and K was equally pointless. The missile strike scene was pointless. I'm sure I could come up with others if I thought I could keep any of this movie's contrivances straight off the top of my head. I feel like the entire movie was missing what made the original so good. Deckard gets knocked around plenty in the original, but the action, such that it is, is never the point. The showdown between him and Batty is about being scared shitless and watching what's supposed to be a robot suffering a very human meltdown. What's the subtext of K and Luv having a knife fight on the shore of the dam? Apparently they're trying to figure out who's "the best one"? I don't know.
Also I realize it's a different movie and shouldn't just resort to copying the original but aside from the house in the opening scene the whole thing felt very sterile. My favorite thing about the original is how lived in and real everything felt, so I was pretty disappointed in that this time around.
Overall I'd have to say I'm glad I caught it while it was still in theaters because it was a sensory treat, but as a film I thought it was capital B Bad. Very disappointing. That being said the trailer for Ready Player One looks like the worst thing Steven Spielberg has ever done by a fucking country mile. Good Lord.
My girlfriend and I watched the original Blade Runner because she loves Noir and I love Android: Netrunner (and am only now reading Neuromancer.) I was spellbound with how well it holds up in 2017. And we watched the sequel today, which she adored because she loves Her. And the themes of what it really means to be human.
MrMonroepassed outon the floor nowRegistered Userregular
This movie was suuuuuper cool
although I couldn't tell whether the director just wanted a bunch of naked lady robots and holograms and such or they were trying to make a point about feminized technology design and how the male gaze in engineers turns out products that are built for men
Because at the end of the day what would you do differently between those two objectives?
although I couldn't tell whether the director just wanted a bunch of naked lady robots and holograms and such or they were trying to make a point about feminized technology design and how the male gaze in engineers turns out products that are built for men
Because at the end of the day what would you do differently between those two objectives?
Make the camera shots a hell of a lot less pandering, for starters.
Some critics accused the “world” in Blade Runner 2049 of being hostile to women.
"I am very sensitive to how I portray women in movies. This is my ninth feature film and six of them have women in the lead role. The first Blade Runner was quite rough on the women; something about the film noir aesthetic. But I tried to bring depth to all the characters. For Joi, the holographic character, you see how she evolves. It’s interesting, I think.
What is cinema? Cinema is a mirror on society. Blade Runner is not about tomorrow; it’s about today. And I’m sorry, but the world is not kind on women.
There’s a sense in American cinema: you want to portray an ideal world. You want to portray a utopia. That’s good—dreams for a better world, to advocate for something better, yes. But if you look at my movies, they are exploring today’s shadows. The first Blade Runner is the biggest dystopian statement of the last half century. I did the follow-up to that, so yes, it’s a dystopian vision of today. Which magnifies all the faults. That’s what I’ll say about that."
I think his position probably makes a lot of logical sense to himself, but he doesn't really understand how what he feels is a critical eye, even harshly so, is more contributing to the objectification of women in society than damning it.
It's interesting how what is ostensibly an objectifying movie was potentially intended as a feminist statement. I think that says a lot about the disassociation between art as intended and art as it's actual real result.
I suppose if his point is that he wants you to be aware of objectification of women in society through his art then it works, but I don't think in the way he wanted it to.
Blade Runner is a world of slavery and its beauty is hollow. Every aspect of the world must be artificial and superficial, with real and positive nuggets few and far between. You are supposed to look at the impressive visuals and feel empty inside.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I think his position probably makes a lot of logical sense to himself, but he doesn't really understand how what he feels is a critical eye, even harshly so, is more contributing to the objectification of women in society than damning it.
It's interesting how what is ostensibly an objectifying movie was potentially intended as a feminist statement. I think that says a lot about the disassociation between art as intended and art as it's actual real result.
I suppose if his point is that he wants you to be aware of objectification of women in society through his art then it works, but I don't think in the way he wanted it to.
It reminds me of Sucker Punch. Zack Snyder made a very similar statement about that movie. It seems to me this is directly caused by men seeing and understanding that sexism exists and trying to write commentary about it without really speaking to woman about it.
This also reminds me of the rash of portraying transpersons as victims of assault. That move was probably intended as with sympathetic eye but maybe ya’ll should have talked to a transperson, beo?
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I also saw Joi as a criticism of our retreat away from each other and into devices.
Joi was programmed to love K and that's all she could do, but because K was so alone he could connect with an emotional reinforcement machine better than a real android prostitute with complexities and needs.
I thought the prostitutes comment to Joi when she left was intended to show us that she saw the hollowness in Joi's love.
https://medium.com/@alascii
That was the most obvious aural callback to Vangelis and them saving it for when they did was so amazing
Aha! I've been waiting for someone with your take!
Until this point the Joi unit was Wallace's only source of intel. We can only imagine that Wallace would be opposed to losing his surveillance point, and would not have allowed her to cut that string, but she did. She abandoned immortality. She sought less life, not more life (GOD THEMATIC CALLBACKS ARE SO GOOD). Out of programmed love for K? Out of actual love that was strong enough to override her core function and self preservation? Out of support for the possibility of K being a replicant child who could lead synthetic and digital humans to freedom?
Oh boy, I LOVE THIS SHIT
Many of the others could be argued to possibly be results of intentional programming for the product i.e. does she enjoy the emitter and experiencing the first touch of rain on her skin because she's a real person with wants, needs, and desires? Is that moment as real for her as the snow falling on K? or is Wallace just trying to sell more emitters, knowing owners would have an emotional attachment and want to make the program happy? Even risking her own existence by being offloaded to the emitter could theoretically be explained away from a cynical consumerist standpoint: have the program show sincere interest in the owner's cause and a desire to run away with them, and if the emitter gets destroyed with Joi in it then they've just sold another Joi unit to replace her. Hell, it's apparently an intentional feature: Both K and Joi were aware you could offload the entire AI to the emitter and it didn't seem like a very difficult process.
However, she also asks K to break the antenna sending data back to Wallace. As Knob mentions above, it's hard to imagine this was an intentional bit of programming: Joi programs looking out for their owners best interest over that of the Wallace Corp? We know, as a result of that scene, they use Joi's to track and spy on their customers. Luv was obviously furious about it. Also, contrasting the AI offloading, this couldn't be done at the press of a button; K had to physically break the device.
I suppose you could argue it was a moment of programming gone awry, or simply an action needed for the plot, but I think it has interesting implications.
re joi
Sure Joi goes against the will of her makers, but everything she does is for K. She sacrifices everything for him because loving him is her only function.
https://medium.com/@alascii
Wait for real
I've been joking that if Villeneuve did a Spice World remake I'd be there opening night.
After the reveal, I assume she's crying because it's her memory, and not a particularly happy one to bring back up, in addition to the above.
It may not be the script suggesting to us she was a real thinking person (in the same way that the Replicants are affirming their legitimacy as people), but it could be. The scene would fit either way.
replicants.
Holy shit.
I have a lot of thoughts and love for this film, most of which has already been covered (especially by @Wyborn, and probably in a clearer way than I can do myself).
Seeing as this is where the conversation is at though, Joi:
Like, if the there a subtheme of the first movie that asks to what extent is Deckard real, then Joi basically spend this movie asking us to what extent she is fake.
And it doesn't present any easy answers. It constantly shifts the ground on this, first leading us to give agency but constantly pulling back, hard, and slapping you in the face with her artificiality.
A warm voice to welcome the protagonist home, followed by the holo-emitter. A kiss in the rain, broken by an incoming voice message. Screaming concern of love and care, garbled by digital glitches. The film gives you moments to believe in her that are warm, and soft and human; each one comes with the counter punch. Her selfless begging to be deleted from the home to be destroyed via technological frailty. Her dying words of love and commitment, undercut at the end by a hundred foot naked digital advertisement.
She might not have been active to the story. But to me, she carried a vast degree of thematic weight, all tied up in it's own narrative plot thread.
And that's just one facet of this utterly amazing movie.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
And her choice is the roof of his building? It just really drove home what a sad, confined existence she has. Regardless of whether or not she's real, there's a really unhealthy degree of codependency in their relationship.
I'll just throw my whole post in here because I'm curious whether anyone else has input on it. I had a longer, prior post about bees as metaphor before it, and I think chunks of it still apply but this one is really core to my personal interpretation of the movie.
I'll add that I've read interviews and stuff with the director that make me think my interpretation may not be the official intention, but death of the author and all that, this is what I got out of the movie.
There are two stories told in this universe. The most obvious one we come away with is a defiant recognition that slavery is bad, individuality is important, and deriving meaning from your choices is life. That's the direct narrative plot of the movie.
But this is a long ass movie, and a big part of it is about framing people in a way that diminishes them as small in the larger picture. And I think that's part of the story too. I go back to the bees for this. The bees are a fragile organism, living on a limited number of hives, clinging to that survival in the death desert wasteland, artificially fed and unable to spread further. And that brutal, harsh life in a limited unforgiving place is directly analogous to humanity, limited to nine planets and forced to eke out a living in part by surviving on their disposable, reproducible work force that has no inherent meaning in the broader context of the desert/universe. No individual bee truly matters. No individual human/replicant truly matters, ultimately. We can assign the story and take our small scale meaning inside these individual stories, but that broader cosmos really doesn't care.
One thing I wanted to figure out was what was in the scene with K reaching into the hive and seeing the bees on his hand. And I think now maybe he starts to realize that he's a bee, and there's something like Wallace out there, a literal god figure, who can just reach into the hive and he can't even grasp the scope of what something so immensely larger and different than him means.
I think Blade Runner tries to tell all that as the story. There's the self-derived value and family and emotional bonds and deciding your own fate, and there's the fact that in the broader context that only matters to those characters, not to the universe. And trying to slice out why a human is more valuable than a replicant is more valuable than a less real AI is more valuable than an individual bee. But ultimately any individual is PROBABLY just a bee, and wouldn't even be able to grasp the larger forces at play when that hand comes into the hive.
And to link that back to some Joi stuff above in the thread
yes
it's still in early pre-production though so we don't really know anything about it
and have any women who aren't sex objects for the camera to glide over be subordinate in regards to a male characters' motivation/story (IE Luv or to a lesser extent Joshi)
This troubles me more because there's a lot of really wonderful discussions to be had about the story and these characters, who are very interesting and deep... but first this oblivious and dehumanizing fog has to be contended with. Notably re: Joi.
Basically sexualizing the hell out of a woman onscreen and then asking "whoa but ARE they a person??" felt gross.
like, you tell me! you're the storytellers who are objectifying people! then saying objectification is bad!! But that's a bad thing in real life and doing it in a hip, self-aware way doesn't change the fact that now I can't be sure you actually respect these characters
or even have the complexity to understand that you should be aware of that dichotomy if you're telling this sort of story.
so trying to analyze this can sort of feel like I'm chasing my own tail
I think I like them?
I'm not fond of their treatment of women.
I'm not fond of the pace at times, though I can appreciate it a bit.
I do think that whoever had control over the background music in 2049 could have used some hearing aids.
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Also, Jared Leto annoys the fuck out of me.
Overall amazing cinematography and direction and acting and themes. But still some pretty glaring flaws that would have been exposed in a less fantastical setting.
The plot and dialogue were absolutely ridiculous, contrived and intelligence insulting. About the nicest thing I can say about the story this movie tells is that it can't retroactively ruin the original film. The runtime was absolutely ludicrous. I just keep coming back to one thing. This was not a story that needed to be told! Entire characters should have been cut (Wallace, the resistance group).
The climax of the film was awful, mindless action movie schlock. I like action movie schlock mind you, not being a snob here. But the fight scene between K and Luv was laughable. The fight scene between Deckard and K was equally pointless. The missile strike scene was pointless. I'm sure I could come up with others if I thought I could keep any of this movie's contrivances straight off the top of my head. I feel like the entire movie was missing what made the original so good. Deckard gets knocked around plenty in the original, but the action, such that it is, is never the point. The showdown between him and Batty is about being scared shitless and watching what's supposed to be a robot suffering a very human meltdown. What's the subtext of K and Luv having a knife fight on the shore of the dam? Apparently they're trying to figure out who's "the best one"? I don't know.
Also I realize it's a different movie and shouldn't just resort to copying the original but aside from the house in the opening scene the whole thing felt very sterile. My favorite thing about the original is how lived in and real everything felt, so I was pretty disappointed in that this time around.
Overall I'd have to say I'm glad I caught it while it was still in theaters because it was a sensory treat, but as a film I thought it was capital B Bad. Very disappointing. That being said the trailer for Ready Player One looks like the worst thing Steven Spielberg has ever done by a fucking country mile. Good Lord.
My girlfriend and I watched the original Blade Runner because she loves Noir and I love Android: Netrunner (and am only now reading Neuromancer.) I was spellbound with how well it holds up in 2017. And we watched the sequel today, which she adored because she loves Her. And the themes of what it really means to be human.
And I want K's fuckoff Bloodborne trenchcoat.
although I couldn't tell whether the director just wanted a bunch of naked lady robots and holograms and such or they were trying to make a point about feminized technology design and how the male gaze in engineers turns out products that are built for men
Because at the end of the day what would you do differently between those two objectives?
Make the camera shots a hell of a lot less pandering, for starters.
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/11/denis-villeneuve-blade-runner-2049-dune
It's interesting how what is ostensibly an objectifying movie was potentially intended as a feminist statement. I think that says a lot about the disassociation between art as intended and art as it's actual real result.
I suppose if his point is that he wants you to be aware of objectification of women in society through his art then it works, but I don't think in the way he wanted it to.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
It reminds me of Sucker Punch. Zack Snyder made a very similar statement about that movie. It seems to me this is directly caused by men seeing and understanding that sexism exists and trying to write commentary about it without really speaking to woman about it.
This also reminds me of the rash of portraying transpersons as victims of assault. That move was probably intended as with sympathetic eye but maybe ya’ll should have talked to a transperson, beo?
What a trash movie