Watching the first Blade Runner 2049 teaser in the immediate wake of the release of the latest Star Wars movie, I’m inclined to consider the two science fiction properties side by side. While Blade Runner may not have the same kind of sweeping and infamously didactic fan base that Star Wars has enjoyed for decades (then again, what does?), the 1982 Ridley Scott picture seems somehow an even riskier and higher-stakes endeavor to revisit. Though hardly bereft of the kind of mythos that has enlivened the galaxy far, far away, Blade Runner was more a triumph of style than it was of storytelling. What we remember most fondly about Scott’s adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is its unprecedented use of the neo-noir aesthetic and the post-apocalyptic ennui to create one of the bleakest, and yet most riveting, sci-fi parables ever to hit the big screen.
It’d be a tall order to expect the 2017 sequel, of which you can get your first glimpse above, to innovate to quite the same degree. But should we expect it to replicate (pun so intended it’s ridiculous) the veneer managed by Scott 34 years back?
If the teaser is any indication, Blade Runner 2049 takes place in a different flavor of haze than its iconic predecessor. This time, Ryan Gosling leads the charge through an orange-tinted post-post-apocalypse, though Harrison Ford’s Deckard doesn’t take long to rear his potentially inorganic head.
No, Blade Runner 2049 doesn’t feel precisely like Blade Runner yet, but it is slathering itself in a proper coating of brooding mystery. But what do you think of the trailer? Let us know!
Featured Image: Warner Bros.
Everything we know about the Blade Runner sequelÂ
