5 ms·
The sad thing about this film is that I remember nothing about it a few years after watching it. Nothing. I have a vague recollection of a desert scene and a ra
by narag 3y ago
The sad thing about this film is that I remember nothing about it a few years after watching it. Nothing. I have a vague recollection of a desert scene and a rainy one, but no idea what happens or who are the characters. The original one I could have described the plot with detail after twenty years, the time that passed until I rewatched it.
- actionfromafar 3y agoI wonder how much of that is due to increased exposure to content, plus a function of being young when seeing it. My recollection of 2049 is, an android police officer performs a dirty police job, is there confronted with information which not exactly raises doubts, but questions. The plant, a photo, something the perp/victim said. Then something about the police station and the relation between human boss and android subordinate officer. A cold corporate overlord without respect for life. (Slaughter of newborn woman android to demonstrate power.) Something about rumours of a woman, chase into deserted dust city, something about android living in a factory and "childhood" being fake memories. And the ending with a budding resistance movement among escaped androids and how they somehow can reproduce on their own now, and not die so young. Harrison Ford turning up, a piano. Yeah, I can't really make it into a story. I don't want to trash on 2049 because it is somehow very impressive, but I don't like it much. It's very disturbing and I guess that is a quality of its own. I will possibly never watch it again. There are other movies I will never watch again but which I will say are really, really good, no reservations. 2049 is not one of them.
- narag 3y agoI wonder how much of that is due to increased exposure to content, plus a function of being young when seeing it. Not much. That's not the only movie I've seen recently. Not all of them have been so forgettable. An alarming portion of them was. But not all, I can clearly remember many of them, even for series with many episodes, I can tell you what happened in each of them. But the Starwars sequels, the fourth of Matrix (I liked it though) or anything superheroic (I quit those years ago) are a blank in my memory. Edit: I believe that good story telling has something in common with spaced repetition. There are some rules that, if followed, make your story indelible. Likeable, relatable characters, a worthy quest a logical plot... Edit2: The love for flashbacks, that become parallel timelines in their degenerate form is tiresome and now it's very difficult to find a movie without them.
- cybrox 3y agoI think you're right regarding the link to spaced repetition. 2049 tries so hard to deliver long, drawn out, cinematic shots that often times are visually impressive but make it almost impossible to repeat a scene or reiterate on a plot point to make a more lasting impression. Personally, I watched 2049 when it came out and did not remember much of it a year later but upon watching the first movie and 2049 back to back a while ago, I noticed that a lot more stuck with me this time. The context of the first movie plus especially watching 2049 for a second time and already expecting certain things but noticing different details has made it a lot more memorable for me. Then again, this is hardly in defense of 2049, since a good movie should aim to deliver this experience in a single runtime but I found it very interesting. There is "a lot there" in 2049, it's just buried under almost an forced form of dark and dramatic cinematography.
- fifticon 3y agoThere are a lot of factors at play here (for humans in general). I myself, in my 50s, painfully clearly experience the contrast between the 'automatic recall' of any random stuff from the time of e.g. my early twenties, with not remembering anything particular happening a few days ago, unless I focus and luck has it something imprinted (wrong word). In spite of this, I believe I retain significant parts of my 2049 viewing, which I did appreciate, for what a "II Movie" might be. My main point if any being, my retaining or not retaining stuff from a particular movie has as much and more to do with my state at that given time, than with the movie in question. Another thing, to my dimmed sensibilities, is that I view Blade Runner as a more 'clear and basic' film (in a positive way) - "Hunter track down renegade robots". I cannot as clearly describe 2049, I assume because it was interwoven of many thinner threads, K or not be damned. I am not saying that one movie has threads and the other not, but they are 'cut' differently, differently textured.
- Nursie 3y agoI’m not a fan of Villeneuve after this and Dune. 2049 really laboured it’s ‘noir’ credentials at points and seemed deliberately slow and ponderous. And the modern Dune seemed like almost a conscious reaction against the visual excesses of the old Dune. It was austere, there seemed little human affection between characters, little emotion. It was just so dry.
- nicklaf 3y agoOne thing I missed from Frank Herbert's work in watching Villeneuve's adaptation was the intimate connection to the characters you get from reading all the dialogue. I suppose a film version is going to cut some things, but Villeneuve takes the other extreme, being so minimal with dialogue, that I felt it unnecessarily suffered here.
- 0_____0 3y agoI watched Dune back to back with Pig (wherein Nic Cage is looking for his pet pig), and was startled by how I felt basically nothing watching Dune (it would make a good coffee table book) but was reduced to a blubbering mess by Pig.
- piyh 3y agoI loved Dune and haven't seen Pig, so I think that says more about Pig probably being an amazing movie than Dune is milquetoast.
- 0_____0 3y agoHave you read Dune? I hadn't, and I wonder if that made the difference. Either way you should definitely see Pig.
- mock-possum 3y agoI mean that cooking and dinner scene at the end... you almost don't need the rest of the movie, it's such a quiet little masterpiece all on its own.
- 3y ago
- gs17 3y agoI remember K in a relationship with a hologram and when Harrison Ford showed up. The rest is lost in time, like tears in rain.
- ilamont 3y agoAgree. I tried watching 2049 a second time and couldn't get through half. I remembered why I didn't like it the first time around - wooden acting, fight scenes that felt far too staged, the excruciating virtual girlfriend scenes, the strange absence of Asian people. Things that did work: Hans Zimmer's soundtrack, some of the big vistas toward the end.
- gs17 3y agoIMO part of it is the increased runtime. The original (depending on which cut?) was under two hours.
- jpeg_hero 3y agolikewise. probably didn't help that I opened up a bottle of wine at the start.