Movies
Blade Runner 2049
Are memories, backstories, childhoods, the thing that make us human? Is the physical body of humanity what makes it human? Is the will to live, and to strive in ones environment the element that contains our humanity. Or is it our soul? Blade Runner (1982) seeks to ask these questions.
Blade Runner 2049 is a series of 4 films. “Blade Runner Black Out 2022,” “Blade Runner 2036: Nexus Dawn,” and “Blade 2048: Nowhere to Run” are the short films that bridge the gap between “Blade Runner” (1982) and the new film. Black Out is an animated short which looks incredible and is an incredibly stylized depiction of Blade Runner LA. Some of the stunts are out of character from the usual tone of the film, but the animated quality of it lends itself to more fantastical stunts. It looks correct. Blade Runner in animated form would probably be profoundly boring and even out of character for animation. Nexus Dawn feels much more traditional. 5 people sit in a room and have a very tense and violent conversation at each other. Nowhere to Run is a direct introduction to the new film as it shows the events preceding the opening of the film. The 4th film in the 2049 series is of course “Blade Runner 2049.”
“Blade Runner Black Out 2022” is an animated short set in the Blade Runner universe that tells the tale of the black out. Set 3 years after the events of the original film it is used to bridge the gap between 2019 and Dennis’ 2049. “Blade Runner 2036: Nexus Dawn” shows the Wallace corporation picking up the pieces after Tyrell was destroyed in the black out. Wallace himself wishes to recreate the
Blade Runner 2049 is an incredible showcase in cinematography. Roger Deakins does an incredible job, although this should be no surprise to anyone who knows his pedigree.
The soundtrack is incredibly background. Much like Sicario it is less music and more dread inducing sound effect played over and over at just the right times, with just enough differentiation to make it newly terrifying.
The editing is top notch as is to be expected by Mr. Joe Walsh. Every scene is slow and prodding and thoughtful and contemplative. The film is long, almost 3 hours, but every scene is exactly the length it needs to be. Nothing is ever rushed. Blade Runner is a very slow methodical thing and this film seeks to emulate that aspect.
The set design is a funny thing. I can’t quite wrap my head around it. On the one hand it is beautiful and striking, and yet….Blade Runner wasn’t pretty. It was striking but it was certainly not pretty. It’s dingy and wet and gross. It’s not a place you want to be. It looks awful, and smells worse. But 2049 doesn’t seem to smell weird. Everything looks surprisingly clean. With the events in between the first film and now I would expect the city of Los Angeles to be even worse somehow.
Ryan Gosling is serviceable. He is not incredible, he is not bad. He pulls the scenes he needs to and doesn’t drag anything else down. Serviceable. Harrison Ford actually puts in a pretty good performance at least for Harrison Ford, a low bar I do admit.
Okay okay. Elephant in the room time. Jared Leto is in this movie. Ughhghghghghghghg. He is the best performance in this film. I said it! I hate it. I hate that I said it. I hate him. I hate that I said it. But I did indeed say it. So that’s that. Elephant dealt with.
And that’s all the acting roles. No not really, but this movie seriously only has like 6 characters. 27 acting credits total. Wonder Woman (2017) had 106 for comparison.
Blade Runner is famous for it’s look. It’s look was the creation of a new invention that allowed them to make the city scapes in real life. They used scale models and a trick to make the camera do the same motions over and over to re-expose the film hundreds of times. The new film uses standard CG and while it looks incredible now, I worry how it will hold up for generations as the original has.
But all that being said none of this matters. The soundtrack, editing, set design, acting, special effects. None of it matter. That’s not what Blade Runner is. Blade Runner is a question. What makes us human? When I first learned of this films existence I said “If they have a new idea for the question ‘What makes us human?’ It has a shot. A small shot.” Blade Runner 2049 does not have a new question. It has 2.
Toy Story 4
Toy Story is about childlike wonder where toys literally come to life. It’s a perfect premise for the metaphor it’s searching for. How better to investigate an inner child than to have a magical world in which children’s toys go on adventures.
Toy story 2 is about…finding a long lost family that you were originally part of and realizing that you actually belong with your foster family, but you should bring your birth sister and the horse with you and also the toys go on adventures. The metaphor doesn’t work. The toys aren’t essential to the metaphor and are only there because it was the premise in the first film.
Toy Story 3 is about realizing that your childlike wonder can be passed on. You don’t have to bottle up the memories of your childhood to make you happy sometimes someone else’s happiness comes above yours and you’ve hit the time in which you should move on. The metaphor is back and so the premise works again. It has to be toys because that’s the literal object that’s being passed on.
Toy Story 4 ends up kind of just being a rehash of that same idea again but now it’s been done before and so it’s almost certainly going to be forgettable.
The reason Pixar sequels don’t work is because their premise and their metaphor are tied to one another. They work off each other in perfect harmony. I know Toy Story 2 is really important for a lot of people because of how it made the series more inclusive but the metaphor simply doesn’t work as well. It’s a flimsier film BECAUSE it’s a sequel.
Tree of Life
Tree of Life is a 2 and a 1/2 hour movie that tells a story I could explain in 5 minutes and all the dialogue could be written on just a few pages. But the movie isn’t interested in just the story. It wants you to know about the kids but also about how small this story is as it is backdropped against the literal entire history of the universe. The movie also is trying to deal with God. Characters are constantly speaking to god and trying to make deals with him. Because it’s so autobiographical it all feels incredibly real and like the filmmaker is actually trying to deal with all of these issues. The dad is abusive, god is not helping and his brother committed suicide. These are all real problems in Jack/Terrance’s life and yet in the history of the universe these are small issues. So we have to try to keep all of the universe in our heads in order to deal with god, but also remember that these are real issues that are negatively impacting many of these human beings for a large portion of their lives.
Aladdin
The plot rests on this idea that the princess can only marry a prince of her choosing and the movie does actually realize that laws are arbitrary and that the Sultan could just change that law (granted at the very end).
It kind of realizes money makes you a dick but there’s also definitely a read where love is the thing that makes Al being a dickhead for 1/3rd of the movie.
They don’t go into the idea of whether or not Aladdin can be Sultan, they only say he can marry Jasmine. So if he does become Sultan maybe he would make life better for the kids he gave his only scraps of bread but it’s unclear. It’s obvious he feels bad for them but the movie isn’t interested in the societal issues at all just to establish that he’s poor and nice.
There’s also a weird thing with visual language in this movie. Genie is largely represented in one off gag’s like this.
Which is kind of cool but the whole movie operates on these same types of visual rules. So in one sequence Jafar makes a tower of the castle shoot off like a rocket and I’m left wondering if that was real or just another visual gag because the towers have tips on the end kind of like a bottle rocket. And then it’s just a matter of waiting to see if that becomes plot relevant or not.
Also this movie is way earlier than I thought. They make reference to places and things that happen in later 90’s Disney films. They visit Greece and I expected Hercules to show up, China and Mulan, they have a “losin to a BIRD” moment except it’s slightly less weird and almost a full decade earlier. It seemed like a bunch of callbacks but it’s before those movies so….. I don’t know it’s just kind of weird from my perspective after the fact.
Also the CG vs Hand drawn is SUPER apparent here and it’s WEIRD
Blade Runner...
I know, I know. Hold on.
Blade Runner doesn't fly away. It stays close to home. Earth, undisclosed city on our very own home planet of earth. But it's not like any place I've ever seen. Close to some sort of spread out Kowloon the Walled City. But now we have these people, these robots, these replicants. They look human, they feel human, they bleed human. But...they aren't human. They're robots right? They don't have emotions, or feelings, or...right? Right?
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time... like tears in rain..."
Okay okay so they have memories. Does that make them human? Are they still robots? They still don't have feelings though.
"Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave."
But they can't fear. They don't die. They simply cease to exist. They never had life.
This is the question that Blade Runner poses. What is life? What is life worth? If a thing says it has life who are we to argue with it? This is Blade Runner.
Jason Bourne (2016)
Warning Spoilers Ahead
Jason Bourne is procure on sight. Jason Bourne is International. Jason Bourne is perceptive.
In 2002 Doug Liman and Tony Gilroy wanted to make a reimagining of the Spy Thriller “The Bourne Identity” written by Robert Ludlum. The opening of the film is identical to the beginning of the book. Bourne is shot twice in the back and thrown off a boat. He is picked up by an Italian fishing vessel later that night. From there, the story diverges greatly but holds onto the power of Bourne and why he is so scary.
The Formula
“I can tell you the license plate numbers of all six cars outside. I can tell you that our waitress is left-handed and the guy sitting at the counter weighs 215 pounds and knows how to handle himself. I know the best place to look for a gun is the cab of the grey truck outside. And at this altitude, I can run flat out for a half-mile before my hands start shaking. Now why would I know that?”
The Bourne Identity
Jason isn’t a world class super spy in the same fashion as James Bond. Jason is what is called an asset. Assets live under the radar and use whatever tools they can find to assassinate their targets. Jason doesn’t have an Aston Martin he has an old Mini Cooper. This car is a piece of junk.
And yet here he is jumping it down a flight of stairs as the Parisian cops chase after him on motorbikes.
In this film Jason starts his journey from being an assassin, an asset, to being a protector for those he cares about. He does this with a bit of selfishness since his main goal is always to learn about himself and his past, but nevertheless he protects those he loves. Especially his girlfriend Marie.
The Bourne Supremacy
The second film ditches Doug Liman as Director, taking instead one Mr. Paul Greengrass who will direct all the films to come. Doug Liman stays on as a producer though and his influence is felt heavily throughout the film. The general tone and feel of the film remains true to the first.
This film also introduces one of Bourne’s big tactics going forward, watching people he’s on the phone with.
Bourne uses this to know when people are lying to him or being coached by a larger figure or just to make them know that he is in control.
He also begins having meetings with people in public places, by causing chaos to obstruct the watchers view and take the control out of their hands. In this scene it’s a sudden parade that crowds a square.
At the end of the film Bourne gains something of an ally. Someone who wants to help him find out who he is. She gives him his name, his real name, David Webb.
The Bourne Ultimatum
The third film feels different. It’s a bit darker, more serious, but an obvious continuation of the second film. Bourne continues to be international, Moscow, Paris, London, Virginia. Bourne rolls with the punches and leads important people through dangerous situations that they couldn't handle themselves. His ally inside Langley continues to help him find himself. Bourne continues to procure his weapons and materials on sight. The formula has been perfected
Jason Bourne (2016)
Initially this film doesn’t focus on Jason Bourne even though the film bears his name. The marketing for this film was mostly centered around the phrase “you know his name.”
So potentially the filmmakers thought that Jason needs no introduction, but it’s also been 9 years since the last Bourne film with Jason was the Centerpiece. Based on this decision the studio decided to instead focus most of the characterization on the CIA members. Contrast this with the past films which were all about Jason regaining his memory and changing from naive to informed and from assassin to protector.
The first action sequence in Jason Bourne (2016) is Bourne and his old friend Nicky Parsons in Greece during a riot. The CIA has sent a team and an Asset to kill them and retrieve stolen information. Jason deals with the teams by procuring a molotov cocktail from a rioter and then stealing a police motorcycle. A car/bike chase ensues and Bourne causes the Asset to crash. This scene now closely resembles the opening action sequence of Supremacy. Jason has lost his tail in a car chase and that tail will now attempt to snipe him from behind. However, Jason seems to not know this is happening. The duo continue to race through the streets on the motorcycle without a thought.
How would Jason know that the Asset would attempt a shot like this? For one, he’s seen it before in the second film and most likely throughout his career as an assassin. In the previous films he never takes a blow because of his own inability to read a scene and act on it.
The film jumps to London where everyone decides Bourne would want to talk to a previous recruitment agent. Bourne calls him and is standing at the base of his building but decides not to watch him for whatever reason. Jason doesn’t seem in control of the situation and since the on screen time isn’t dedicated to him, but to the CIA agents we don’t really know what he’s thinking. Instead we get what the CIA thinks he’s going to do and then he just happens to do so.
After the phone call a short action sequence occurs in which Bourne does almost nothing memorable. The sequence instead focuses on in agency fighting with the Asset killing the CIA teams. Bourne does manage to create a riot in the plaza with a fire alarm which follows the formula in theory but Jason then quickly leaves the plaza with his new captive rendering that whole diversion useless once they reach the rooftops.
Vegas. Our entire cast goes to Vegas where a security conference is happening in one of the Casinos. Jason begins to procure some gadgets from this security conference such as a tracking device and a secret camera with long range microphone. Again this technically follows the formula of getting his weapons and equipment from his surroundings. But in the past films the actual items Jason acquires are things that me as an audience member understand immediately. In the original series Jason uses a pen, a Mini Cooper, a burner cell phone, a moped. Now Jason has a super powered James Bond-esque microphone.
I’m now finishing this piece a year and a half after initially starting it so I have to be honest and say that I do not remember the end of this film. But I think that says a lot about it actually. Jason does nothing memorable throughout the entire 123 minute runtime.
Lastly, and this is going to sound nitpicky and unfair but I promise you that it is not, the end credits song is ruined. The Bourne Identity and Supremecy end with a song called Extreme Ways by Moby. It’s an incredible song that hits the proper tone of the films that they follow. For Ultimatum they did a remix of the song and while it still gets the general feeling across I end up not being as much of a fan. HOWEVER, this film does yet another remix and it steals all that feeling from the track. And I again I know that this sounds like me just picking on this film now but I think this is actually incapsulates the problem. The team knew the films that came before. They knew that the song was important, but they didn’t know why.
They didn’t know why Jason was the centerpiece. They didn’t know why he had to procure on sight. They didn’t know why he had to use a Mini Cooper instead of an Aston Martin. They didn’t understand that this was a backlash against James Bond.