"Blade Runner" is a movie about "invisible",
"Blade Runner 2049" is a movie about "visible".
──The moment I walked out of the theater, this thought came out of my mind unconsciously.
Before talking about this, let's talk about the original novel first. For many people, "Blade Runner" has long become synonymous with Cyberpunk's art style: a mixture of science fiction speeding cars and the real third world, and futuristic technology buildings are strewn with dirty neighborhoods and bloat. The post-modern life, chaos, filth and dirt, dragons and snakes, and a mixture of Chinese and Western, are all tributed or embarrassed by future generations. However, the original novel "Bionic Man Will Dream of Electronic Sheep" in "Blade Runner"? "(Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, 1968) In fact, there is not so much visual narrative about the world view. It's not like "short", "tall", "small", "big", "old" and "new" when you write "arrival." The real scene-scribing person in the book is only this paragraph:
"He lives alone in this decayed and hidden building with thousands of unoccupied houses. Like all other buildings, this movement only decayed day after day, becoming more wasteful ruins. In the end, everything in this building will be put together, becoming blurred, indistinguishable from each other, only pudding-like waste, piled up to the ceiling in each space. 』
"Fuzzy faces, it is difficult to distinguish each other"-this sentence is the theme behind all the visual styles of "Blade Runner" in 1982. In a nutshell, it is to make the audience "invisible."
Different from the smooth and beautiful appearance of normal movies, the screen of "Blade Runner" is full of obstacles that prevent the audience from seeing it at a glance. The colorful neon signs of the Kowloon Walled City, the complicated staircase movement, the irregularly littered indoor furniture, and water chestnut chairs. The placement of these objects keeps the audience's sight blocked... these obstacles From time to time, things block the line of perspective that the audience’s sight should be. (Technique) Stacking on top of each other makes these already messy pictures more disorganized, overlapping each other layer by layer. Double shadows, double shadows, and double shadows... The flow shielding composed of three layers of obstacles: scenes, props, and lights completely deprives the audience of the impulse and eyeballs at a glance.
This is a logic completely different from normal movies. In other words, the longer the movie, the more things the audience will see. However, in "Blade Runner", things are reversed. The physical discomfort that these superimposed images inevitably bring in the first time (even if the obstacles themselves are sometimes very artistic), the audience will not stop every time they watch a new scene. Physiologically and psychologically, I am reminded that I can’t see some corners and things; as the story progresses, the unseen things gradually accumulate, and the fact of "invisible" gradually turns into specific cognitive information, allowing the audience to finally produce The illusion: Is there more things I can't see than I see?
As a result, this "invisible" private imagination turned art into aesthetics, giving "Blade Runner" a layer of white space. Just like The Voight-Kampff machine (The Voight-Kampff machine), the problem of this cold machine is so poetic of observation of life, as if what Blade Runner really wants to test is not a replica but a poet (although replicas also Everyone is really like a contemporary poet), this dirty city of bloated, chaotic, dirty, dragon-snake, Chinese and Western mixed, and because it is impossible to understand at a glance, a mysterious ritual has been generated in the audience’s understanding. Similar space. If it is said that the main story of the original novel is to use sound and rational debate to disintegrate the mystery of religious rituals layer by layer, the 1982 movie "Blade Runner" deleted all religious stories on the one hand, but on the other hand With a silent visual style, re-emerge this mysterious and unique aesthetic charm to this cyberpunk city and the hero Rick's extremely inefficient but poetic pursuit, pervasive, omnipresent, and omnipresent. can not.
Therefore, the audience must be aware of how strange and heterogeneous "Blade Runner 2049" is as a sequel.
Not only because, the visual style of "Blade Runner 2049" has greatly changed from cyberpunk to Wasteland; it is also because the thinking behind this style is completely the same as the first episode of "Blade Runner" It's all in the opposite direction-it wants the audience to "see" and see as clearly as possible.
At the beginning of the movie, a close-up of a pupil the size of the screen comes out from the front; in the next scene, an aerial shot, the silver-painted future farmland spreads endlessly on the extremely flat ground. The shape of the farmland is so similar to the surface of the pupil, as if the movie was just looking at the audience directly, observing whether the audience is guessing whether this scene is only a tribute to the first episode; if it is, then it is too despised "I". Blade Runner 2049" now! It seems to be such a provocative scene.
It's endless-the information given at the beginning is exactly the core logic of "Blade Runner 2049" dealing with depth of field.
When the era progressed from 2019 to 2049, the architectural development of the entire world seemed to be reversed. Those complex branches and leaves of the walled city water chestnut were gone. The new Blade Runner K and every building he traveled through this new pursuit Buildings are not the ruins of human nature that "fuzzy and indistinguishable from each other" like the original novel, nor are they the 1982 movie that emphasizes "invisible" and the three-layered obstacles overlapped by the scene props and lights, but clear. Extremely empty space. A farmhouse with only one door and two windows, an apartment with only one corridor leading to the bottom, an office with many screens but neatly laid out, a memory science research institute with a single staircase forming the main body of the composition, complicated pipelines but magically symmetrical left and right The construction site, the single-room house standing on the yellow sand, even the new temple that replaced the religious shrine of Taylor’s corporate headquarters in the previous episode (don’t tell me you can’t see that Taylor is a metaphor for God), but only striped lights are arranged as an arrangement. For the wall decorations, the inexplicable but inexplicably empty open space, there is no sundries, no idlers, no obstacles, endless and clear.
This is how different from the first episode of "Blade Runner"! These are certainly not coincidences, but deliberate. One of the proofs is: When "Blade Runner 2049" appeared two spaces that never appeared in the previous version of "Blade Runner": the human slums in the north (from the original novel) and the Institute of Memory Science (new creation in this film) At the time, things that never appeared and shouldn’t appear in Blade Runner: water (waterfall) and grass (jungle), with the new matching the new, also declared their position between the old version, because As everyone knows, the old version of the movie silently ignores most of the settings of the original novel.
On the other hand, some conspicuous and huge features emphasized in the old version are deliberately shown in the sequel to show micro-details that have not been seen in the past, such as the faces of advertisements projected on the facades of high-rise buildings. On the rooftop--when people can no longer look up but look at it from a head-up angle--what is the dazzling gaze of a human face, and like a huge human body advertisement animation projected in the air, how are the toes of the white ballerinas cast? The irony of dancing on these Asian poor and prostitutes who "stepped" on the ground from time to time.
I once joked to the neighbors who watched the demo together: What we just watched in the theater was not "Blade Runner 2049", but "Frontier Runner 2049".
This is actually serious. "Border Killer" (Taiwan's "Rage Border", formerly known as Sicario), this 2015 film, is not only the film crew such as director Denis Villeneuve (Denis Villeneuve) and photography leader Roger Deakins (Roger Deakins) The first collaboration between) and others is the aesthetic source of the "visible" style of "Blade Runner 2049".
This must be a compliment. "Border Killer" is a true masterpiece. In this death year when many filmmakers consciously or unconsciously were led by the nose of the rapid advancement of video games, the visual creativity and image power were gradually exhausted. In fact, "Border Killer" once again showed the audience what it means to be "camera look" instead of "video game look." When the heroine of the American agent in the film entered Mexico and was photographed in a cross-border caravan that can be regarded as the most classic in recent years, she can only defend herself in the car and behind the window, which has completely implied that "Americans are being The core of the story. She was not allowed to participate in any hunts, and even prying eyes were taboo. When she couldn't stand the restraint and rushed into the cellar, she was immediately punished by "peeping" and seeing the killer lynching and was shot; when she returned to the United States, she was killed again. Asking to sign the cut-knot book, she cried. The killer didn't point a gun at her, but silently slapped her hands covering her face away, forcing her to "watch" the (American) truth that she didn't want to see..." "Seeing" has become a real purpose, and "seeing" takes up a large proportion, and even swallows the superficial anti-drug story, which is enough to be unforgettable for a lifetime.
Isn't this "visible" style the same as "Blade Runner 2049" now? It's just that FBI agents have been replaced by Blade Runner, cars have been replaced by speed vehicles, and satellites have been replaced by space stations.
Danny Villeneuve once said that he has been a super Blade Runner since he was a child, hoping that he can faithfully restore the charm that the old version of "Blade Runner" brought him back then; but in the end, "Blade Runner 2049" has become a movie. Existence completely contrasted with "Blade Runner". "Visible" vs. "Invisible", endless contrasting layers of barriers, wasteland style versus game bopunk, mystery contrasting photography... everything is contrast, and even competing. Not to mention those scenes that have nothing to do with the old version of the movie, such as the northern slum scene, when K was forced to leave the car for the first time and was shocked by witnessing the mob standing on the same level as him being brutally bombed by artillery fire from outside the sky. The murderer behind the scenes in the office uses a satellite image from God’s perspective to massage while commanding. This graphic design that presents the level of power with a wide field of vision is completely out of touch with the atmosphere of Blade Runner. It became the US military night attack in "Border Killer". An alternative transformation in Mexico.
If there is a word to explain the story of "Blade Runner 2049" this time, I would say it is: cunning.
What is cunning? The cunning lies in that on the one hand, it seems to want to continue the old story, but on the other hand, nothing continues. The two-and-a-half-hour film length and the new protagonist and the new world form a snake-like loop, like many New ideas are actually old questions.
Those who bear the brunt of the novel are the settings from the original novel. As everyone knows, "Blade Runner" is adapting the original novel "Can a Bionic Man Dream of an Electronic Sheep?" In the process of ", a large number of plots have been deleted, such as the protagonist Rick’s wife, religion, and pet topics of considerable length. "Blade Runner 2049" picked these back. Some plots are reproduced in the original flavor, such as the slums of human slums in the north of Los Angeles (the city location of the story), specialized institutions for memory implantation, the sky where the stars are always invisible, and the animals are almost extinct on the earth. Tian Gao, bees are declared extinct on the earth. Some plots reappear in the freshness of the old bottle, especially Rick, who appears again. Many of his characters are completely close to the description of the novel version, such as how much he desires to keep pets, and the distinction between real horses and replica horses that he once talked about. , The important line "I know what is true!" is more reborn in the novel Rick's words "Everything is true. Every thought that everyone has ever had is true." The only thing that hasn’t been reproduced is probably Rick’s house that suddenly changed from petty bourgeoisie to big bourgeoisie, as broad as... uh, Harrison Ford in reality?
However, what is really cunning is to retain the language of the classic mysteries of "Blade Runner".
When it comes to "Blade Runner", it is bound to mention the story mysteries that have risen to the level of the cultivating culture. Is the actor Rick Dyke a replica? Are there any correct answers to the poetic test questions of The Voight-Kampff machine? What is the beauty of the Orion constellation Roy said before his death? Where did Rick Dyke finally escape? …Every few years, there is a new netizen explanation or a new official editing edition to try to solve the mystery of these problems. These mysteries both confuse people, but also make the film, because whether it is deliberate or unintentional, these unsolved mysteries have long been the same as the visual style of the layered shadows of "Blade Runner". The beauty of the blank space in this film.
Not many people want the blank to be filled with poor answers. So, "Blade Runner 2049" has been a sequel to the story for thirty years, how to respond to these mysteries?
The answer is: no response at all.
Director Danny Villeneuve once said that he based his imagination on the director's cut version of "Blade Runner" that came out in 2007. However, this "selection" is not of much reference value, because a new type 8 (Nexus 8) clone appeared in "Blade Runner 2049", which has a biological life span comparable to that of human beings; and the clones before the type 8 The data were all destroyed during the world's power outage in 2022 (in the rumor, it was stated that this was a terrorist attack initiated by a cloner). As a result, Rick, who is still surviving thirty years later, may be either a human, or a Type 7 or Type 8 lifespan improvement model. Either one makes sense. This setting is really silly. Geniuses such as Dr. Terry will also worry about the cleverness and toughness of Type VI clones (type VI Roy is even metaphorically referred to as Jesus and Superman) and have to provide them with the insurance of premature death. How can one unscrupulously develop an eight-type clone with no life limit? If Type 8 clones have this kind of natural power and normal life expectancy, and their emotions can grow normally, why should they be willing to be the servants of the human police to kill their own kind? (According to the victims, Type 8 cloners are generally happy to do so.) Obviously, the purpose of the birth of this setting is to justify the mystery of Rick's life experience.
Yes. It’s not just Rick’s mystery. The whole script of "Blade Runner 2049" is based on this kind of wind-blown game where the bricks and tiles of the first episode are moved over and over again without adding another brick. Set of mirror mirrors that last two and a half hours.
On the surface, everything in "Blade Runner 2049" is new. The male protagonist K is a new type of clone. He finds a new clone crisis in the new world and embarks on a journey to find Rick's trace; but a closer look will reveal that , What K did was actually to take the pursuit and dream that Rick experienced in "Blade Runner" to go backwards again:
Rick is a human who
is suspected of being a human being, and k is a human being who is suspected of being a human being. ;
Rick always living in a dream saw a unicorn,
k will always see a unicorn carvings in the memory;
Rick often stood looking at the blocks of high-rise buildings that rule the ruins,
K will often make in flying The police car overlooks the low-level scenery of this ruin;
Rick does not believe in memory and is strong,
K believes in memory too much and is crazy;
Rick has to prove himself
because he is dead , and K is dead because he proves himself;
Type 6 copy Human beings poached out the eyes of human beings because of anger, the
type 8
clones poached the eyes of the same kind because of official duties; the poems of the type 6 clones were to express the true self, and the
type 8 clones were poems to deal with the police. The entry code for ...
All of this seems to have more plot than the first episode of "Blade Runner", and in the end it is a circle back to the original point, becoming a set of snake-like loops. "Blade Runner 2049" and "Blade Runner" are like a mirror of light and shadow, one side is the deity, and the other side must be just the shadow; the shadow can move in the opposite direction of the deity, but it will never get rid of the fact that it is a projectile. I have never seen this kind of script logic, and "Blade Runner 2049" is the sequel movie I have seen in the past ten years. It is the most ingenious and outstanding, but at the same time the most conservative and most consistent sequel, even though it is so clever.
Therefore, "Blade Runner 2049" also appears contradictory.
If the adaptation style of "Blade Runner 2049" chooses such a conservative and stopped path, why does the visual style of "Blade Runner 2049" appear so subverted and ruined?
Director Danny Villeneuve and the original actor actor Harrison Ford once said in unison that they were all persuaded by this new script, and they nodded and agreed to let this movie be a sequel 35 years later. , Rather than restarting (the two studios, Warner and Sony, have long been mentally prepared to lose money). However, if they all dare to erase the cyberpunk art and the "invisible" construction of the blank beauty that "Blade Runner" most praised by fans, let "Blade Runner 2049" be a wasteland style and "Border Runner" ( Sicario) established the "visible" talisman to replace (still the old joke, this film can actually be renamed "Border Killer 2049"). Is it not a violation of replacing the classics of film history with a personal mark? If you deliberately disobey and have the courage to disobey, then why do you follow the same path in the tribute to the script? Compared with "Blade Runner" director Raleigh Scott's new film this year, "Alien: Covenant", which completely inherits the proposition of the copy of Blade Runner, the difference is even more obvious.
Or, the crew of "Blade Runner 2049" really believes that their "visible" style can coexist with the old version of the "invisible" theme? They have the ability to make the audience open their eyes while closing their eyes?
If it is, there is probably only one scene in the entire film of "Blade Runner 2049". It is the best scene of the film to achieve this demand and achievement: K goes to the research institute and asks Dr. Anna to solve the mystery of his memory. They were sitting in an empty room separated by a transparent mirror, facing each other on the left and right. When Anna turned on the microscope-like instrument and began to peek at K’s memory, K’s gloomy profile face was printed on the left side of the mirror with the light, just behind Anna’s head. At this time, the screen suddenly became a plane without perspective. As if he and her were on the same plane at the same time, he looked at her brain, she looked at the memory in his brain, he was looked at by her, and he looked at himself at the same time, four "looks" that shouldn't coexist. The incredible happens in a single scene of the movie at the same time, where "visible" and "invisible" coexist. This short scene is more meaningful than any scene in the whole film, and more thoroughly shows the enthusiasm of this cold-faced man; at a certain level, this scene is even more "Blade Runner" and "Blade Runner 2049" The two serve as the best visual interpretation of the mirror image relationship. Although the audience will soon realize that the coexistence of the four levels of this beautiful visual memory will be a cruel blow to this person.
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