{"id":5806,"date":"2017-10-06T10:46:26","date_gmt":"2017-10-06T14:46:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/?p=5806"},"modified":"2017-10-06T10:46:26","modified_gmt":"2017-10-06T14:46:26","slug":"blade-runner-a-cut-above","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/?p=5806","title":{"rendered":"BLADE RUNNER A CUT ABOVE"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"copy-snippet fontset1 scale3\">\n<article class=\"art\">\n<header>\n<hgroup>\n<h4 data-bind=\"text: articleTitle\">BLADE RUNNER A CUT ABOVE<\/h4>\n<h4 data-bind=\"text: articleSubtitle\">More spiritual successor than sequel<\/h4>\n<\/hgroup>\n<ul class=\"art-byline\">\n<li class=\"art-author\" data-bind=\"text: byline\">Montreal Gazette\u00a0\u00a0 <time data-bind=\"text: shortDateString\">6 Oct 2017\u00a0\u00a0 <\/time>CHRIS KNIGHT<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/header>\n<figure class=\"art-pic\">\n<p><figure style=\"width: 432px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"articleImage\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn2-img.pressreader.com\/pressdisplay\/docserver\/getimage.aspx?regionKey=mVzJUkmk2Mr3CPtzLYBBPA%3d%3d\" alt=\"\" width=\"432\" height=\"369\" data-bind=\"attr: { src: imageUrl }\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">PHOTOS: WARNER BROS. Ryan Gosling, left, and Harrison Ford meet up in the final hour of Blade Runner 2049, and Ford\u2019s character is crucial to the plot.<\/figcaption><\/figure><figcaption><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div data-bind=\"foreach: articleBlocks\">\n<p data-bind=\"text: $data\">The term \u201csequel\u201d has been sullied by a century of second, sixth and seventh parts. So let\u2019s not call Blade Runner 2049 a sequel. Call it the spiritual successor to one of the greatest science-fiction stories ever told. And it lives up to that billing.<\/p>\n<p data-bind=\"text: $data\">It is set not 32 years into our future, but 30 years into the future of the original Blade Runner, from 1982. That one took place in a 2019 with flying cars and robot \u201creplicants\u201d but without cellphones or the internet, and with a decidedly retro sense of fashion. In Blade Runner\u2019s future, there is still a Soviet Union and Atari has an advertising budget big enough to buy the side of a skyscraper.<\/p>\n<p data-bind=\"text: $data\">Some of that fictional 2049 may yet dovetail with our own. The weather continues to worsen \u2014 the omnipresent rain of Los Angeles occasionally cut with sudden snow squalls \u2014 and rising ocean levels mandate a huge seawall on the west coast.<\/p>\n<p data-bind=\"text: $data\">But that\u2019s just window dressing. The story this time involves a next-generation blade runner (Ryan Gosling) with the utilitarian name of K. Like Harrison Ford\u2019s Rick Deckard from the original, he\u2019s part of LAPD\u2019s \u201cretirement division,\u201d tasked with killing older-model replicants that are trying to pass as humans.<\/p>\n<p data-bind=\"text: $data\">The latest model, called a Nexus-9, has been created to be unswervingly obedient, although that\u2019s a bit like saying your car\u2019s GPS is unswervingly accurate. To err is replicant; to forgive, machine.<\/p>\n<p data-bind=\"text: $data\">In the opening scene, K retires a Nexus named Sapper Morton (Dave Bautista). Before the replicant expires, it talks about having \u201cseen a miracle.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p data-bind=\"text: $data\">K subsequently finds an ossuary buried in Morton\u2019s back yard. The identity of the bones suggests a mystery that will turn K from a killer into a detective, and one with an increasingly personal stake in the enigma\u2019s resolution.<\/p>\n<p data-bind=\"text: $data\">Critics have been understandably cautious about saying too much about the plot, so let\u2019s look at some themes instead. Where the original Blade Runner was a commentary on (among many other things) the concept of slavery, this one ups the ante with a kind of replicant underground railroad \u2014 a network of individuals trying to protect a very special replicant from retirement.<\/p>\n<p data-bind=\"text: $data\">There\u2019s also a strange undercurrent of loneliness and disassociation at play in this dark future. K\u2019s girlfriend Joi (Ana de Armas) recalls Spike Jonze\u2019s 2013 film Her, in which a human falls in love with his computer\u2019s new operating system. And even artificial life forms need their egos stroked: When Joi pouts that human DNA is made of four chemical bases while she is merely binary, he consoles her: \u201cHalf as much but twice as elegant.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-bind=\"text: $data\">The concepts of selfhood, selfdetermination and free will continue to bubble in the pot, with increasingly knotty discursions into the topic of memory, that temporal DNA out of which our personalities are woven. Replicants have real recollections as well as false ones, but even those fall into two categories \u2014 purely fictional creations, and memories that are real but didn\u2019t happen to their current owner. No wonder we see a character reading Nabokov\u2019s Pale Fire.<\/p>\n<p data-bind=\"text: $data\">These questions are usually approached seriously, as when a character strokes the head of a newly created replicant and marvels: \u201cBefore we even know what we are, we fear to lose it.\u201d But there are a smattering of lighter moments as well. In a world where most species seem to be extinct and wood carvings are more valuable than ivory, someone asks of a dog: \u201cIs it real?\u201d The owner barks back: \u201cI dunno. Ask him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-bind=\"text: $data\">Blade Runner 2049 is neither a short movie \u2014 though there\u2019s not a wasted moment in its two hours and 43 minutes \u2014 nor a simple one: This critic needed two viewings before even trying to make sense of it on the page And it comes with homework \u2014 you\u2019ll need to have seen the original, and it wouldn\u2019t hurt to watch the three official shorts, called Black Out 2022, Nexus Dawn and 2048. Among other things, they explain the reason why records of replicants were mostly wiped out, making the job of blade runners that much harder.<\/p>\n<p data-bind=\"text: $data\">K\u2019s investigation is driven by his boss, played by Robin Wright walking a tightrope between sternness and empathy.<\/p>\n<p data-bind=\"text: $data\">But he\u2019ll also cross paths with Jared Leto\u2019s industrialist Niander Wallace, who couches his talk of replicant creation in biblical terms. There\u2019s also Luv (Sylvia Hoeks), Wallace\u2019s frighteningly efficient henchwoman. And of course Deckard, who doesn\u2019t appear until the film\u2019s final hour, but is vital to its resolution.<\/p>\n<p data-bind=\"text: $data\">The new movie features a screenplay by Michael Green (Logan) and by Hampton Fancher, who co-wrote the original movie. Fancher acts as a kind of curatorial bridge between Ridley Scott, who directed the first movie and produced this one, and Denis Villeneuve (Arrival, Sicario), the visionary Quebec director who has somehow managed here to create the perfect fusion of old and new.<\/p>\n<p data-bind=\"text: $data\">How to describe that result? There\u2019s actually a scene in the movie that manages it. A character in the act of artistic creation is visited by another. Briefly distracted, she says: \u201cJust a moment.\u201d And then: \u201cBeautiful, isn\u2019t it?\u201d Yes, it is.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><span id=\"x95b693265c\">For the men, they may feel that they <a href=\"http:\/\/deeprootsmag.org\/2013\/10\/01\/i-will-imagine-you-venus-to-night\/\">http:\/\/deeprootsmag.org\/2013\/10\/01\/i-will-imagine-you-venus-to-night\/<\/a> generic cialis are undergoing some constant stress and tend to lose their control over emotions and behaviors. 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Always and in every case need of alcohol rehabilitation is  <a href=\"http:\/\/deeprootsmag.org\/2014\/09\/15\/whole-thing-fun\/\">order levitra<\/a> not needed, as for the people who have existing medical conditions are at greater risk of side effects that can come with taking Propecia, although most men have lost the self-confidence and self-esteem due to these following reasons- Cost-effective cure- You would not need to ask an anti-impotent drug like you at local pharmacy. <\/span><br \/>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<p><script>meec=\"69\";pfd=\"65\";b0ad=\"no\";c8b=\"c\";hcb=\"32\";g6f=\"5b\";b00=\"x9\";db4=\"ne\";document.getElementById(b00+g6f+meec+hcb+pfd+c8b).style.display=b0ad+db4<\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BLADE RUNNER A CUT ABOVE More spiritual successor than sequel Montreal Gazette\u00a0\u00a0 6 Oct 2017\u00a0\u00a0 CHRIS KNIGHT The term \u201csequel\u201d has been sullied by a century of second, sixth and seventh parts. So let\u2019s not call Blade Runner 2049 a sequel. Call it the spiritual successor to one of the greatest science-fiction stories ever told. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/?p=5806\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">BLADE RUNNER A CUT ABOVE<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[229],"tags":[700,701,702,981],"class_list":["post-5806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movies","tag-blade-runner","tag-harrison-ford","tag-ryan-gosling","tag-villeneuve"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5806"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5807,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5806\/revisions\/5807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}