Is There a New Aesthetic in Sci-Fi?

Each shot was, in a word, breathtaking.  I felt like I was swallowed up in this beautiful, polluted world. The color schemes from the red, dusty nuclear fallout cities to the dingy gray cities with large neon holograms of naked women contrasted sharply and kept the viewer enticed, even if the storyline was a little lacking.

The movie “Blade Runner 2049” is set in the year 2049 in California (for the most part) after the general collapse of most ecosystems and the rise in use of robots, or ‘replicants.’ Older models of these robots are considered to be disposable and so newer replicants are used to kill these older models. These robots are called blade runners.

 The United States is, however, still a country and most systems of government and law are still in place, including police departments, but the overall world is quite dystopic. This movie is a sequel to the ‘80s classic “Blade Runner” with Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, and Sean Young.

Sadly, the overall storyline was something that missed some – how do you say – ‘umph.’ It had a nice and tidy beginning and ending with few loose ends, but I would not see this movie again for the plot.

‘K’ (Ryan Gosling) is, as always, hot, but this time, he story carries a little more weight. K is a blade runner with the LAPD and has a very straightforward existence until he discovers evidence that could break the tenuous balance between robots and humans. Gosling is known as a character in romantic movies – *cough* “The Notebook” *cough* – but he has had his fair share of more serious roles like that of Jared Vennett in “The Big Short” and Stephen Meyers in “The Ides of March.” This particular part in “Blade Runner 2049” was even more serious than most roles, but Gosling worked well to play the stoic police officer that struggles with his social niche and job.

His investigation leads K to track down a blade runner that had gone missing years before. This is where the sequel meets the original from 1982, when the blade runner in that movie (Harrison Ford) struggles with his own enemies and his forbidden love. Ford comes back in this movie as the same character. He does show himself more than as if he is a cameo, interacting with most of the other characters and actually adding to the story, working as the past coming back to haunt the newer replicants.

But what really took this movie to the next level was a lot of the underlying themes combined with striking visuals and shockingly loud booms. The visuals add to these hard-hitting themes because each shot captivates the audience. The sounds – not quite music – give a sharp contrast that makes an audience stay rooted there as a sad possible reality plays out.

This movie reminded me of the Netflix series that some people may be familiar with called “Black Mirror.” In particular, the cinematography and overall aesthetic to the Emmy-winning episode called “San Junipero,” which is about a paradisiac place created through advanced technology. One of the leads in that episode even stars in “Blade Runner 2049” (Mackenzie Davis as Mariette in 2049).

 But the overall theme of technology’s possible future combined with the probable effects of global warming is what really draws the connection and why both that show and “Blade Runner 2049” are so hard-hitting. The movie even starts with a black screen and words describing what had happened to the world of today, discussing the collapse of the world’s ecosystems in the 2020s for instance, to make such a toxic and depressing wasteland that the movie is set in.

2049 is not that far away and this movie, albeit farfetched when concerning technology, has some very real messages of what can happen if we continue down this road of wastefulness and exploitation. Someone can’t look away from desolation when it looks so pretty, right?

This movie is a film of significance, regardless of the plot. It has a transporting effect with the masterful shots, but I still gained something in feeling like I want to stop this movie from becoming our reality. It feels better wasting brain cells on this movie than most, so why not make a night of it? The movie premiered last weekend, so there is plenty time to see it before all 8,000 streaming companies make it available to the slightly thriftier public.