Isn't the line more along the lines of "we all wish we were", which seems to deliberately leave the question of the uniqueness of that memory hanging. Should it matter to K that the memory is not unique? This seems played on shortly afterwards when the hologram of Joi calls him a Joe.

The film could be accused of trying too hard with this stuff, but I think it really pulls it off.

I'll agree to disagree. I think it puts some really interesting questions into a decent, beautiful narrative. Some of the characters motives are a bit contrived, but overall I think it works really well.

poprock wrote:

I took it that it was a common replicant memory – replicant memories being patchworks of fiction bundled together, so lots of (but not all) replicants got the wooden horse one. K used it as a clue because he saw the date on the tree. He wasn’t unique, he was in the right place and luckily had that memory. We shouldn’t assume that he was the orphan boy with the faked DNA match. All we know is that there was a boy. K didn’t know it was him, he just made that leap because of the horse memory and because he was an orphan of about the right age too (or at least thinks he was, because of that memory). I think that the one-eyed woman was just making a general comment about everybody wanting to be special, and referring to every replicant who helped the cause thinking, at some point, that they could be the miracle child.

That was pretty much exactly my reading of it.

I didn’t pick up on the DNA not being his. That was eary on and you just assume it’s him. But yeah that makes it much less contrived.

voices wrote:

I'll agree to disagree. I think it puts some really interesting questions into a decent, beautiful narrative. Some of the characters motives are a bit contrived, but overall I think it works really well.

I didn’t mean to really disagree with you. I think it’s works on some level but not as a film that you can spend ages poring over the details of, expecting to get some brilliant insights from. It’s the visuals, the atmosphere and the ambiguity that make it, not the story.

poprock wrote:

...He wasn’t unique, he was in the right place and luckily had that memory. We shouldn’t assume that he was the orphan boy with the faked DNA match. All we know is that there was a boy. K didn’t know it was him, he just made that leap because of the horse memory and because he was an orphan of about the right age too (or at least thinks he was, because of that memory)....

I saw the film a week ago, I've a bad memory and Im not 100% sure anyway but I didn't think there wasn't another relevant child. I thought that they just duplicated the DNA record of some child whose age matched and created a fake record for Bubble. A fake record of a "boy" who was in the orphanage and then the record "goes missing". Trail to the child cold and dead.

I don't think it matters though tbh. I agree (at least on just one viewing) that this is more about the audio visuals than about a story to be forensically examined.
As for questions, I don't think this film asks any new ones. I think its quite simplistic. Its well done though, I think the films carries on the themes from the original in a somewhat logical way,puts it's own spin on things and doesn't rock the boat too much.

I think placing the wooden horse in the disused furnace shows that the implanted memory is more likely to be unique to K. 

Whether that was done to draw him out or not as part of a plan is a different thing altogether.

Dan wrote:

Why? It's pretty obvious the memory wasn't unique. The hooker touched the horse in his apartment and said something about memories. Likely to make you question whether he was the child or not. It was referenced quite a few times. It's meant to be ambiguous.

Don't remember that bit about the hooker.

I just reckoned that if enough people had that memory the odds of the horse being found by multiple people would increase.  OK - it was in a pretty hard place to find - so maybe that was insurance enough.

Maybe it was used as a honeypot by that one eyed woman to catch everyone who had the implant? Maybe.

Aye, and no, not a honeypot - but potentially a way to recruit people for the cause.

The film's not meant for intricate plot point picking, but yeah, I'm seeing lots of points picked when the opposite seems to the case.

K is a replicant - that's not an issue

The horse memory isn't unique - and that's not an issue

On Deckard - Villeneuve intentionally made it ambiguous whether he's a replicant or not.

That's obvious in the film.

It doesn't matter if he's human - which I see him as being.
Rambling on why he can be human: It's out of respect for the source material, and the original film.

But yeah, he said it in interview anyway:

http://www.indiewire.com/2017/10/blade-runner-2049-denis-villeneuve-replicants-best-cut-interview-1201882907/

Scott finally got his hands back on “Blade Runner” in 2007, and when his “Final Cut” was released, he laid to rest the great debate surrounding his lead protagonist: Scott said Deckard was a replicant who thought he was a human, contradicting co-screenwriter Hampton Fancher, Ford’s interpretation, and the original intentions of Phillip K. Dick, whose 1968 novel, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” inspired the film.

In preparing for “Blade Runner 2049,” Villeneuve also referenced Dick’s novel, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”, noting key issues of identity within the book’s characters.

“I loved that some of the characters are doubting about their identity,” he said. “Some cops are asking to be given the Voight-Kampff test because they aren’t sure if they are replicants or not. If someone played with your memory, you don’t know if you might be a replicant, so I like the idea that the characters are doubting about themselves; that kind of inner paranoia about your own identity. I thought it was quite interesting and relevant in the ‘2049’ project.”

When asked if he preferred the ambiguity such questions invited, Villeneuve was emphatic.

“Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,” he said. “I think it’s more interesting to have an unanswered . I think it’s better to not know. For me, it’s more interesting if Deckard is not sure if he [is a replicant]. I like the ambiguity. I liked it because it created a vertigo. That’s the beauty of sci-fi: that it’s lore outside of our zone of comfort, of knowledge, and goes into the unknown. And that when you cross there, it’s a beautiful sensation.”

As for the crossover between “Blade Runner” and “Blade Runner 2049,” Villeneuve said the sequel is “in between” the theatrical and final cuts of the original.

So if people take issue with that decision that's fine, but that's clearly the intent.

People are discussing whether Deckard is a replicant or not, not just because that was the case with the original, but because Villeneuve chose an in the middle position - which works as a follow on from either the theatrical cut where he wasn't a replicant, or the later cuts where he was.

Anyway, I might get slated for fans of the original for this, but that shows a lot more respect and understanding of the original story than Ridley Scott seemed to show.

The story doesn't really make any sense if Deckard is a replicant. It's not what Philip K Dick intended. Scott for whatever reason went against everyone on that.

The ambiguity also feeds into the classic paranoia present in a Philip K Dick novel, where characters question their existence and reality.

I'm reading We Can Build You at the moment - which is like a precursor to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and in it the protagonist goes and sees a shrink and says to him jokingly that he's not real and he's an android etc. It's massively focused on mental illness.

They test all children for mental illness and a huge number get put in institutions etc.

The androids in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep are apparently meant to be a metaphor for people that behave in a non human way - sociopaths - people with no empathy:

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/philip_k._dick_on_sex_between_humans_and_androids

So you've got a story about a guy that's sociopathically hunting down sociopaths, questioning if he's one himself, etc.

The androids etc. are only metaphor or framework with which to examine these issues.

So why does it matter how they're made/born/created? This isn't hard sci fi.

It's socio / philosophical exploration. It's regularly said that dystopic fiction and sci fi is simply used as a mirror to examine current society and issues. That's what Dick was doing.

So yeah, I'd just enjoy the visuals and experience while thinking about some of those things maybe. Explaining it now I'm not sure I even like the Dick's core premise. It seems potentially to lack the very empathy he's saying is missing. Only read the book once and over a decade ago. It wasn't my favourite.

Anyway, will spare you more rambling.

First thought, when I saw the hives was, 'ooh clever Deck - stuck out there 300 miles from L.A. using bees for Honey'.  But were they real?  Was it, we are all drones or a reproductive metaphor, or a link to the flower on Rachel's tree-grave, have i smoked too much?

I saw it as a reproductive metaphor, and wondered if they were real or not.
A beehive teeming with bees surrounded by the female form. Like a nexus
Also their child was likely conceived there no?
The cradle of new life

It's exploring quite a different theme from the novel.

The novel was about the dehumanising effect of killing non humans - becoming what you destroy - I believe
Making you think about what it means to be human/alive

The film seems very much about birth, life, the freedom to live
Making you think about what it means to be human/alive

superflyninja wrote:

I never read the novel, from the sounds of it Scott created his own thing so im not in any way hung up on authenticity to the novel.

Aye, same here. The book was only a jumping off point for writing the original movie. They didn’t keep much in common. This is a sequel to the film, not the book.

Yeah, there's a quote from Villeneuve above referencing the book. He made his own film, and took inspiration from both, with respect for both. So respect to Villeneuve.

SpaceGazelle wrote:

I missed a plot point because I was trying to figure out what flavour one of them was. 

Weaving ambiguity into your cinema-snacking experience is some next level film making.

Bravo, Villeneuve.

Just out of this, thoroughly enjoyed it, with some caveats. 4/5

Tampering with the original is not welcome (the meeting between Deckard and Rachael was set up?). And the whole baby thing is a bit sus (which is a fairly big caveat seeing as it's the premise). But apart from that the mood and look and feel were all great. I enjoyed the music too, thought it was a modern nod to Vangelis' original score. I'll need to see it again but in the end I thought it did a fairly good job of expanding on the 'what is human' of the original.

Watching Dangerous Days at the moment.  For those that like to complain about the unicorn scene, it was actually in the original cut shown to producers and test audiences, which then ties to the origami unicorn left by Gaff at the end.  Producer interference and some degree of audience confusion led to Scott having to remove it.