There are certain movies that you would never imagine being followed up by a sequel: The Shawshank Redemption; Leaving Las Vegas; Rosemary’s Baby; Donnie Darko. Okay, so Donnie Darko is the only film in that list that had a sequel, but it doesn’t mean it should have.
The point is that most of the great films never have a sequel because they are perfect. They end. There is no reason to force the story to continue. Most sequels a criticized because they stretch the original story thin.
I thought that Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner was one of those films that would never have a sequel, no matter which version of the film you saw. Whether or not Rachael and Deckard would be allowed to fade off into the sunset and whether or not Deckard was a replicant himself did not need to be told. The unknowing was part of the charm of the film’s ending. But here we are, 35 years into the future, and Blade Runner 2049 is on its way.
The press teaser plot is as follows: Thirty years after the events of the first film, a new blade runner, LAPD Officer K (Ryan Gosling), unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what’s left of society into chaos. K’s discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), a former LAPD blade runner who has been missing for 30 years.
While Ridley Scott may not be directing Blade Runner 2049, you can bet money that he won’t just be a sideline producer. This is a filmmaker that called out his studio on how it interpreted a Director’s Cut of the original film, and strong-armed them into letting him be part of the re-editing process. Twice.
The teaser trailer may be short, but it brings to light two important things. 1) The atmosphere and futuristic environments seem right in line with the original. hopefully that really is the case. 2) The question of whether or not Deckard is a replicant is still up in the air.
We will know for sure when the film is released on October 6th, 2017.