Watch (and Love) the Official Blade Runner 2049 Trailer
As we wrote last year, after director Dennis Villeneuve’s Arrival proved to be a sensational, Oscar-nominated sci-fi thriller, any fears that he wasn’t up for the monumental task of helming Blade Runner 2049 were obliterated. Arrival was last year’s best sci-fi film by a wide margin, and it made it clear that the Sicario director took inspiration from the very best sci-fi directors, most notably Steven Spielberg’s work on Close Encounters of the Third Kind, while striking out on his own path. Now we’re getting a new trailer for Villeneuve’s sequel to Ridley Scott’s 1982 classic, and it cements Blade Runner 2049 as one of the true must-see films of the year.
The new footage follows an in-depth and wide-ranging Facebook Live conversation with Villeneuve, the original Blade Runner Harrison Ford, and new star Ryan Gosling. You’ll see much more footage of Gosling’s character, Officer K, more of Ford’s reprisal as Rick Deckard, and your first look at Jared Leto (as some kind of replicant creator and creepy guru). We also get Robin Wright as a police commander setting K on his path to find Deckard. Leto’s character in particular seems crucial (check out his eyes, for starters—is he blind or are they augmented?), as we watch him welcome a new replicant into the word with this bit of wisdom: “Every civilization was built off the back of a disposal work force…but I can only make so many.”
Fans will get a much better look at how Villeneuve decided to follow, and stray, from Scott’s original and very singular dystopian metropolis style. We're back in the grimy, rain-soaked Los Angeles that was so arresting when we first saw it—only, Blade Runner was set in the distant future of 2019, now, 30 years have passed since Rick Deckard was hunting replicants. Blade Runner's look has inspired sci-fi films and TV shows ever since (think everything from Minority Report to Firefly), yet from this first glimpse it looks as if Villeneuve and his Sicario cinematographer Roger Deakins have managed to create a look that is of a piece with Scott's original without being mere pastiche or homage. The dark city streets, the synth-heavy sound design, the neon, and the rain are all there, but there are striking flashes of art design, monolithic sets, flashes of color, and, new to the Blade Runner world, dust (which looks to be primarily what Las Vegas has become). The moment in the trailer when K finds Deckard, gingerly stepping over a tripwire, you may be excused for feeling some goosebumps.
Light on plot details but heavy on style, the official trailer suggests just enough plot (there something special about Gosling’s K, and Ford’s Deckard likely holds the key) and more than enough action to warrant you remembering the below date:
Blade Runner 2049 hits theaters on October 6th.
Featured image: Ryan Gosling in Blade Runner 2049. Courtesy Warner Bros.
