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Blade Runner 2 on the way care of Ridley Scott
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460 posts in this topic

10 hours ago, 50 Cent #II (1st) said:

I hadn't heard this, but it did est. over $12M on Friday and is expected to do $50M+ this long weekend seems to be more than on track?  http://www.boxofficemojo.com/daily/chart/

Yeah a lot of states don't celebrate Columbus Day so a lot of schools are in. The 32 to 36 million seems on track. 

Lets just say the studio was dumb to spend 150 million on a sequel that is 35 years removed from the original. Add in the first film was a flop that achieved cult status. Just seemed to die. So that means a limited audience saw the film and knows about the film.

Sony did a bad job marketing the film. Hopefully word of mouth and good reviews will make the drop off next week slow. 

I honestly think the sequel was better than the original and easier for an audience to follow. 

This films best hope domestically to make money is to get nominated for a bunch of Oscars and get a rerelease in January. Which is is a possibility.

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20 minutes ago, apollobuzz said:

I re-watched the original Blade Runner Director's Cut last night and then watched 2049 today.  The movie is a visual stunner and story holds up well.  I will definitely be buying the 3D version when it comes out.  :golfclap:

I'd go 4KUHD on this film myself instead of 3D.

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Anybody notice how Chinese characters are so prevalent in L.A. in the future in Blade Runner?  I read it's implied that the Chinese population becomes the dominate culture in L.A. in the future and that's why you see it all over (I believe there are actually Chinese characters on K's license plate which means it's not just a portion of L.A. like Chinatown).

Edited by 50 Cent #II (1st)
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4 hours ago, 50 Cent #II (1st) said:

Anybody notice how Chinese characters are so prevalent in L.A. in the future in Blade Runner?  I read it's implied that the Chinese population becomes the dominate culture in L.A. in the future and that's why you see it all over (I believe there are actually Chinese characters on K's license plate which means it's not just a portion of L.A. like Chinatown).

Joss Wheden touched upon this in Firefly/Serenity as well. (thumbsu 

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A few completely spoilery ending-related questions for those who have seen it:

Spoiler
  1. What was the deal with the boy/girl twin thing?
  2. How the heck can identical twins be boy/girl in the first place?  Your DNA determines your gender, so if you have identical DNA you have to be the same gender.  Fraternal twins can be boy/girl because they each come from a separate egg, but identical twins are always the same sex.
  3. So if we are to assume that Deckard is the father and Rachael is the mother of the child as the film indicated, how the heck can human and replicant DNA be compatible enough to produce offspring?  OK, so Tyrell figured out a way to make replicants procreate, but humans AND replicants?  WTF?  Wallace can't figure out replicant/replicant reproduction, but Tyrell figured out human/replicant reproduction?  HOW?!?!  That seems a HUGE stretch, and a bizarre one.  There was the lingering question from the first film as to whether or not Deckard was actually a replicant, but doesn't the fact that he visibly aged indicate he's human, and therefore we've now got a credulity-stretching human/replicant child?

 

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On 10/6/2017 at 4:00 PM, jsilverjanet said:

Fans of the Blade Runner movie, did you know that the movie Soldier (1998) with Kurt Russel, takes place in the same shared universe, as does the Alien series (as mentioned "Eldon Tyrell" in Prometheus). Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049

I'm having trouble working that out, but any discussion of that is spoilery, so here it is:

Spoiler

If Blade Runner and Alien are in the same universe then why do replicants from Alien look completely different inside than replicants from Blade Runner?  If Rachael and Deckard have compatible-enough DNA to reproduce, and Rachael had a human-looking skeleton as shown in the film indicating that replicants are a near-exact copy of humans right down to the anatomical level, then why does Bishop look like he's got white blood and tubes hanging out of him in "Aliens"?

aliens-2.jpeg

 

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Another question about the core ideas of the film:

Spoiler

Wallace wanted to have replicants reproduce so that he could create them more quickly, but how is it quicker to produce a small replicant child that takes 18 years to become an adult?  Isn't it far faster to artificially create a replicant in a far shorter amount of time who is already an adult?

 

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Man - that was a slow, slow movie.  Had some good moments but felt bloated and overly complex to me.  Guy behind me summed it up when he said to his wife "Damn - this is boring".  If they would have made it 1 hour and 50 minutes long I would have liked it but the creeping drawn out framing made me want to check my phone half way thru the movie.  I wasn't a huge fan of the original so maybe it just wasn't my cup of tea.  No clapping at the end of the half filled movie theater on Sunday afternoon.

Edited by 1Cool
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My theatre was almost completely empty on Saturday at a 3:35 showing.  We did see it in IMAX so the ticket price was higher at $17, but that same IMAX theatre is regularly packed for popular films on the first weekend of release, so I knew immediately this one must not have been popular.  We bought our tickets 20 minutes before the show started and the theatre lets you pick your seat, so I saw on the screen we were the first to buy tickets.

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2 hours ago, 1Cool said:

I wasn't a huge fan of the original so maybe it just wasn't my cup of tea. 

Yeah, if you didn't like the original, I'm not surprised that you didn't like the sequel. 

 

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5 hours ago, fantastic_four said:

I'm having trouble working that out, but any discussion of that is spoilery, so here it is:

  Reveal hidden contents

If Blade Runner and Alien are in the same universe then why do replicants from Alien look completely different inside than replicants from Blade Runner?  If Rachael and Deckard have compatible-enough DNA to reproduce, and Rachael had a human-looking skeleton as shown in the film indicating that replicants are a near-exact copy of humans right down to the anatomical level, then why does Bishop look like he's got white blood and tubes hanging out of him in "Aliens"?

aliens-2.jpeg

 

Spoiler

Of course now I realize I quoted the wrong post.  Where is the delete button now?  I don't see it anymore.

It was to throw the audience off to think K was the son, there was no twins.  The database had a copy of the girl with the info. changed to a boy.  They didn't really cover why a copy in the database was needed to cover the girl up though (unless they stated that the girl died, which I can't recall).

 

As to answer this post.  I believe in Aliens he was inspired by Tyrell, who tried cloning/synthesizing humans as replicants (perhaps implying it eventually doesn't work out in the future when Alien takes place), while in Aliens he was trying to create robots that look like humans and act similar to humans (which starts to take place 25-30 years beyond the new Blade Runner in Prometheus).  Here's a link I came across:  http://alienanthology.wikia.com/wiki/Alien_Universe_Timeline

 

Edited by 50 Cent #II (1st)
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1 hour ago, nearmint said:

Yeah, if you didn't like the original, I'm not surprised that you didn't like the sequel. 

 

I had the same complaint as Superman vs Batman - forced artsy feel with slow grand visual effects rather then time spent on plot development.  Wonder Woman was a complete movie - not perfect but just felt so relaxed while watching it.  Blade Runner (especially 2) was just so choppy and flowed like a glacier with so slow progression that it was painful for me to watch.

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1 hour ago, 50 Cent #II (1st) said:

I believe in Aliens he was inspired by Tyrell, who tried cloning/synthesizing humans as replicants (perhaps implying it eventually doesn't work out in the future when Alien takes place), while in Aliens he was trying to create robots that look like humans and act similar to humans (which starts to take place 25-30 years beyond the new Blade Runner in Prometheus).

 

Spoiler

How are cloned humans replicants at all?  Or for that matter, even if they're purely synthesized or some mix of cloning and synthesis, if humans and replicants can reproduce and create an offspring that functions, then aren't they so exactly similar to each other that there's virtually no functional difference between a replicant and a human?  I don't even see how you can look at an functionally exact copy of a human and not think of it as human.    When I watched Blade Runner, I was envisioning replicants as being constructed with insides nothing like ours, but if the Blade Runner replicants are human right down to the bones and DNA, then they're human.  Yes, we created them, but we copied nature, so viewing them as at all different than us just seems bizarre.  ???

Edited by fantastic_four
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5 minutes ago, fantastic_four said:
  Hide contents

How are cloned humans replicants at all?  Or for that matter, even if they're purely synthesized or some mix of cloning and synthesis, if humans and replicants can reproduce and create an offspring that functions, then aren't they so exactly similar to each other that there's virtually no functional difference between a replicant and a human?  I don't even see how you can look at an functionally exact copy of a human and not think of it as human.    When I watched Blade Runner, I was envisioning replicants as being constructed with insides nothing like ours, but if the Blade Runner replicants are human right down to the bones and DNA, then they're human.  Yes, we created them, but we copied nature, so viewing them as at all different than us just seems bizarre.  ???

 

Spoiler

They're grown as adults, then have fake memories implanted.  They are faster and stronger than humans.  I found this quote online " Actually Ridley Scott has actually explained this. In the bonus feature of Prometheus there is a section that shows Peter weylands logs and one of them says that Tyrell (creator of the replicants) was a mentor to weyland and when he perfected the androids tyrell looked at him and told weyland that his androids were just toys compared to his replicants and since then weyland hated Tyrell."

 

Edited by 50 Cent #II (1st)
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Again your response contains no spoilers I can detect, so I'll keep yours visible but hide my response:

23 minutes ago, 50 Cent #II (1st) said:

They're grown as adults, then have fake memories implanted.  They are faster and stronger than humans.  I found this quote online " Actually Ridley Scott has actually explained this. In the bonus feature of Prometheus there is a section that shows Peter weylands logs and one of them says that Tyrell (creator of the replicants) was a mentor to weyland and when he perfected the androids tyrell looked at him and told weyland that his androids were just toys compared to his replicants and since then weyland hated Tyrell."

Spoiler

If you take something that's essentially human with our DNA and make it stronger and faster, then that's also something you likely can do with humans, make them stronger and faster.  Because if replicant DNA is compatible with ours, you must have found a way to alter that DNA to achieve the improvements, so they could hypothetically be applied to humans as well.

I really don't like this idea for the film of the replicants being such a close copy of humans.  I don't see how we would have skipped ahead to not realizing the moral dilemma this creates.  I had the exact same problem with "Gattaca" in that the film skipped a LOT of background about how society would have evolved to separate "valids," and "invalids"; I don't necessarily see that as a realistic evolution without seeing it developed.

 

Edited by fantastic_four
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'Blade Runner 2049' Struggles to $31.5 Million Opening Weekend

by Brad Brevet

 

 

October 8, 2017
 

Warner Bros.'s release of Blade Runner 2049 isn't getting October off to the kind of start September saw one month ago. The dystopian sequel, arriving 35 years after the original, crash landed over its three-day opening, falling well below even the most modest of expectations. At the same time, Fox's The Mountain Between Us didn't exactly light the world on fire in its attempt at counter-programming, though it did top Mojo's pre-weekend forecast, while Lionsgate's release of My Little Pony squeaked over Mojo's meager expectations. Meanwhile, Focus's Victoria and Abdulexpanded into moderate release and scored solid numbers, and A24's The Florida Project saw strong returns in its limited opening. 

With an estimated $31.5 millionBlade Runner 2049 finished atop the weekend box office, but fell well below expectations. Entering the weekend the Warner Bros. release, in association with Alcon Entertainment and Sony, was expected to deliver anywhere from $45-55 million domestically and $4 million from Thursday previews signaled a solid start, but things quickly cooled for the $150 million production. 

As we noted in our weekend preview, heading into the weekend Blade Runner 2049 was pacing behind the likes of Mad Max: Fury Road and Interstellar when looking at IMDb page view comparisons and yet was pacing ahead of Prometheus and was showing positive gains against The Martian and Gravity, both of which debuted with over $54+ million in October. Looking back at our pre-weekend comps, comparisons to films such as Oblivion and Edge of Tomorrow may have been more apt. IMDb page view comparisons do show the three films pacing neck-and-neck leading up to release with Blade Runner only taking off once the positive early reviews began publishing online, though it would appear those reviews had little effect on the film's overall performance. 

Blade Runner did receive a positive "A-" CinemaScore, but the audience skewed heavily male, playing to an audience that was 71% male vs. 29% female, of which 63% of the total audience was over the age of 35. While these demographic numbers are almost identical to those for Mad Max: Fury Road, they don't bode well for future returns when looked at in conjunction with the $31.5 million debut. 

Internationally, Blade Runner met overseas expectations, debuting with an estimated $50.2 million from 63 markets, 61% of its international footprint, capturing the #1 spot in 45 of those markets. The film's opening in the UK led the way with an estimated $8 million, on par with Interstellar and ~15% ahead of Mad Max: Fury Road. In Australia the film brought in an estimated $3.6 million, topping both Interstellar (9%) and Gravity (28%) and in Russia it finished with an estimated $4.9 million, on par with Mad Max: Fury Road. Additional openings include France ($3.6M), Germany ($3.3M), Spain ($2.6M), Italy ($2.5M), Brazil ($1.8M) and Mexico ($1.6M). 

Blade Runner will open in South Korea next week followed by an October 27 opening in Japan and a November 10 opening in China.

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2 hours ago, fantastic_four said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

How are cloned humans replicants at all?  Or for that matter, even if they're purely synthesized or some mix of cloning and synthesis, if humans and replicants can reproduce and create an offspring that functions, then aren't they so exactly similar to each other that there's virtually no functional difference between a replicant and a human?  I don't even see how you can look at an functionally exact copy of a human and not think of it as human.    When I watched Blade Runner, I was envisioning replicants as being constructed with insides nothing like ours, but if the Blade Runner replicants are human right down to the bones and DNA, then they're human.  Yes, we created them, but we copied nature, so viewing them as at all different than us just seems bizarre.  ???

I could imagine having clones that are physically superior to humans.  Imagine watching a film a thousand years ago where kids had green or red eyes; some could argue that was an impossibility then, but it is not so far fetched with today's technology (or blind kids seeing with tongue sensors, for that matter).

I can imagine genetic engineers working over hundreds of years and modifying code such that many physical characteristics, including memory (e.g. the architecture of an autistic's neurons has been shown to be different than normal density) were superior. Just think of the clones as being tailored to be 'similar' to, but augmented versions of modern reality.   But I do somewhat agree that if they could do these improvements with clones, why not regular humans? I would just argue there that the corporations were selfish, again not inconceivable.

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