That's an entirely valid point. I guess I view cinema differently in that I can see it's 30 years or so since the original and cinema itself has moved on so I don't mind if it deviates substantially from an original. You understood me fine it's just something I always like to hear opinions on. Just a trend I see more and more across the internet (which as a whole means crapshoot, akin to voices in a hurricane).

I liked Luv and the Bladerunnerrunner as strong, independent women in it (the former by the end at least). So I don't think it was wholly misogynist. The Joi stuff could have been handled more delicately for sure, and it's interesting that there were no make AIs shown at all, given women of notable roles. So yeah hmm not quite sure if I can defend it or not, even playing devil's advocate.

From what I remember, you don't see anything but Joi's naked back during the sex scene.  The one scene that is genuinely about 2-3 people/machines connecting features no nudity at all.  It's certainly not gratuitous.  And the times when she is naked were not exactly sexy - giant Joi leaning down to speak to K, and saying the exact same phrases that "his" Joi used to say was, for me, one of the saddest moments in the film.  Her nakedness serves a clear narrative purpose in underlining that she is nothing but a product for sale, available to all, and no longer someone special or unique to K.

(I did think the Naked Ladies of Vegas statues were slightly over the top, but more as a design decision then as a piece of misogyny.)

Damn straight. Deckard goes full Weinstein.

I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned it here or not, I’ve certainly mentioned it to friends; in the last five years or so (basically, as long as I’ve had streaming services) I’ve revisited a lot of the 80s films I watched growing up. Deckard sexually assaulting Rachel stands out to us now, but it didn’t stand out then. I have found it disturbing seeing how many films back then had very similar scenes. Hollywood seemed to be telling the world that ‘no’ means ‘use force and it’ll turn into yes’.

tin_robot wrote:

From what I remember, you don't see anything but Joi's naked back during the sex scene.

You’re right, sorry, I had conflated the sex scene with the repeated nipple-shots of the replicant that Wallace killed as soon as it was created. Nevertheless, I still felt that the sex scene went on too long, although that’s possibly because the cinema had sold the seat right next to me (the only seat taken in a row of four when I bought it) to a single female, which may have amplified my discomfort with the scene.

What was the deal with murdering the new replicant? Why did Wallace do that?

I thought there would be more to it than that. The taunting made it a bit torture like too.

My only plausible reason is that he uses the scanners to check the new replicant has working reproductive organs (ultrasound or something) and as soon as it’s clear she’s not going to work he’s basically binning her.

It’s quite good a good sign the film basically makes one infer that. (And that we are in general agreement would suggest that is true)

It doesn’t say “hey look I made this woman for a baby but she didn’t have a baby so I’m gonna murder her”.

I think, i can’t remember that precisely now, it was done in quite a general way, and it wasn’t explicit what he was scanning (I guessed the presumption was merely normal eyes but you figure out afterwards it wasn’t).

It would have been at least a little remedy to the misogyny in the film if there’d been chopped testicles.

Er: violence against women is tho’ - not just that vulnerable and defenseless one for no real reason.

And: in a world where any pleasure is available all pleasure is derived from only Hetero men getting women to do what they want/need or punished.

Was it just me who thought that Luv knifed Liutenant Joshi the same way that Wallace knifed the replicant?

Saw this today and really enjoyed it. It is beautiful to behold. Fuck that soundtrack though. I might be in my forties but I’m not deaf.

Caught this last night. Enjoyed it, kinda. A visual and aural treat, but the plot doesn't bear up to much scrutiny, as I think the posts here have highlighted nicely.

Quick question regarding bubble girl: I presume her memory building operation can't be entirely bespoke. As in, was K the only replicant with her implanted memory from the child factory? If so, why? With hundreds and thousands of replicants running around I'm assuming that they're not all being given unique memories, as that's a bit time-intensive (especially for a one-woman show). So are there several other replicants kicking about that have her same horsey memory? And if that's the case then isn't that a little risky, given that she admits to K that it's illegal for replicants to be given real memories? Is it then just pure coincidence that K happens to have it, and be led on this big quest that's related to it, or had he been created and set up by the rebellion folks years in advance with a view to one day unlocking the puzzle and setting in motion the events that will lead to their uprising? They do seem to treat him with a particular sort of reverence at the end, when it seems that an operation that big and well-connected shouldn't have had a problem shooting down three flying cars to stop Deckard leading Wallace to them. K doesn't really to bring any particular skills or expertise in that area to the table, apart from his nifty LAPD car I suppose. Actually with that in mind where exactly were they taking Deckard at that point in time? Wallace hints at having methods for making him talk 'off-world' and Luv says that they're going 'home', but surely taking him all the way off-world in order to get him to reveal the location of a rebel alliance that's distinctly on-world is a little bit inefficient. 

Having that paragraph running through my head all night is basically the reason I couldn't sleep. Phew.

K was meant to be a decoy, which was why he had the same DNA record as the naturally born replicant. So he may have had a bespoke memory given to him. Or it might just be a huge coincidence upon another huge coincidence that that was the memory that stood out for him when he stumbled upon a case that would unlock his own origin, and that memory was the key to it.

When he meets the one-eyed rebel lady, I think she says something like "You thought you were the child. Don't worry, a lot of them do" or something that implied the memory was given to more than one child, but then they'd also need enough context on that memory to know that it represented a natural replicant birth, which is impossible really. 

I don't know if there's enough information given that you can work out precisely what happened with all of that, and trying to fill in the blanks leaves things not making much sense either.

Kazuo wrote:

monkey wrote:

When he meets the one-eyed rebel lady, I think she says something like "You thought you were the child. Don't worry, a lot of them do" or something that implied the memory was given to more than one child, but then they'd also need enough context on that memory to know that it represented a natural replicant birth, which is impossible really.

Ah, missed when she said that because I was so convinced she was laughing at him in a "You thought you were the one? Ahahaha, oh that's classic, you honestly thought it was you" kind of way. Then when all of her rebel army walked in and stood behind her perfectly on cue it was me doing the laughing, so probably missed more subtext regarding the following scenes.

I'm not 100% certain that happened. She said something, I can't remember what precisely. 

If Bubble Girl gave him the memory knowing it was real, then why? Or was it taken from her and planted in K? But unless Bubble gave it to him, why else would he go and see her about it? Unless she designs all of them (implied by the 'Wallace needs me' line) and they're distributed out to many replicants but then that's a whopper of a coinky-dink that he was the only one with that. Unless loads of them have that memory but then that's not exactly covering their tracks if loads of replicants are walking around with that memory of the one piece of evidence that can lead back to Bubble Girl. 

In summary,