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To me, the Soviet aspect makes sense. There was a fear in the US in the 80s that Japan would surpass the US to become the dominant world economy, which was refl

To me, the Soviet aspect makes sense. There was a fear in the US in the 80s that Japan would surpass the US to become the dominant world economy, which was reflected in the original film. In 2049, the Japanese aspect hasn't been erased, but it also exists alongside imagery of Russia, which, if we consider the actions of the Russian government in the years leading up to this film, it fits from the same perspective of a fear of the US being dominated. I'm not sure why the original film seemed to only focus on Japan, PKD's vision also included the USSR. In that sense, 2049 almost feels more faithful to the book. As for the flying cars...they had flying cars in the original film, why would they get rid of that? Or do you mean that you expect they wouldn't look so much like our cars? (If the latter, I kinda agree.)

saltminer 5y ago
My comment is too old to edit now, but I just thought of something: I saw a video on youtube awhile back about the making of the original Blade Runner. In it, they said that PKD did not live to see the film in theaters, but they were able to show him a 10-15 minute "highlight reel", which included shots of the flying cars. PKD said it was like they were reading his mind, it was so accurate. So at least to PKD, the original Blade Runner's flying cars were canon. Not that I think the lack of design evolution between the two films seems too realistic, but given the events that occurred between the two films [0][1], I can see lots of technological progress being lost. Consider the scene in 2049 where K brings in the sample for Rachel and the desk employee says that they lost a lot of data during the blackout, and to not expect much for anything this old. Had all that not happened, I'd completely agree that the design of 2049's flying cars seemed too retro, that they would have pioneered new vehicle layouts by then. [0] https://collider.com/blade-runner-timeline-explained/ https://collider.com/blade-runner-timeline-explained/ [1] https://bladerunner.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline https://bladerunner.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline Edit: Found the video where PKD seeing the highlight reel is mentioned: https://youtu.be/EByNb7F-A34?t=1556 https://youtu.be/EByNb7F-A34?t=1556 (the whole video is worth a watch, the entirely-analog techniques they used are incredible)

saltminer 5y ago

My comment is too old to edit now, but I just thought of something: I saw a video on youtube awhile back about the making of the original Blade Runner. In it, they said that PKD did not live to see the film in theaters, but they were able to show him a 10-15 minute "highlight reel", which included shots of the flying cars. PKD said it was like they were reading his mind, it was so accurate. So at least to PKD, the original Blade Runner's flying cars were canon. Not that I think the lack of design evolution between the two films seems too realistic, but given the events that occurred between the two films [0][1], I can see lots of technological progress being lost. Consider the scene in 2049 where K brings in the sample for Rachel and the desk employee says that they lost a lot of data during the blackout, and to not expect much for anything this old. Had all that not happened, I'd completely agree that the design of 2049's flying cars seemed too retro, that they would have pioneered new vehicle layouts by then. [0] https://collider.com/blade-runner-timeline-explained/ https://collider.com/blade-runner-timeline-explained/ [1] https://bladerunner.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline https://bladerunner.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline Edit: Found the video where PKD seeing the highlight reel is mentioned: https://youtu.be/EByNb7F-A34?t=1556 https://youtu.be/EByNb7F-A34?t=1556 (the whole video is worth a watch, the entirely-analog techniques they used are incredible)