Blade Runner 2049

In the first shot a closed eye opens, awakening. The second is of the humongous new mechanical civilization in space. The film’s central theme is of the awakening of humanity in a dehumanized world. 

There it has become impossible to distinguish between the genuine human and its replica. That confusion extends down to Deckard’s dog: “Is he real?” “I don’t know. Ask him.” 
     On a more emotional level, the hero’s spectral android girlfriend tells him she loves him: “You don’t have to say that.” “I know.” To protect him she has herself erased and eliminated. In her drama humanity ennobles even an android, making her human. This spectre has a higher sensitivity: “I always told you. You're special. Your history isn't over yet. There's still a page left.”

I won’t relate the new Blade Runner to the original for two principled reasons: (i) As an independent work, by a new writer and director, it deserves to be treated and read as an independent work, on its own terms. (ii) I haven’t seen the original since it first appeared and don’t remember a thing about it.

In any case, the new film draws on a wealth of pertinent archetypes. The villains’ quest to find and to kill the miraculous baby — and the slaves’ determination to protect the baby in hopes of a liberating revolution — revives a common saviour myth that includes Moses, Jesus, Spartacus, El Cid, etc. Later K learns what his opening target Sapper meant when he said “You’ve never seen a miracle.” Of course the masters always consider their slaves inhuman, subhuman, as the androids represent here.

Hence the history behind the evil Wallace’s ambition to expand his slave race: “Every leap of civilization was built on the back of a disposable workforce, but I can only make so many.” K’s success disproves Wallace’s “All the courage in the world cannot alter fact.“

The blade runner hero is named “Joe” K, evoking the Kafka hero Joseph K who stumbles through an absurdly antagonistic and frustrating universe, the emblem of modern deracinated man.  

There is also the passing of the torch from the old action hero (i.e., king) to the new. K fights the final battle underwater while Deckard struggles to breathe, helpless in his shackles. 

The predominance of water scenes, including the climactic fight to the finish, draws on the association of water with the origin of life. The water scenes confirm the film’s themes of rebirth and resurrection. And of course, “You can't hold back the tide with a broom.”

In the last scene, while Deckard visits his daughter, the memory maker, in her protective bubble, K lies across snow-covered steps, as if frozen in suspended animation. His mission is accomplished, the baby discovered, and he accepts his reality as an android not the hidden human. Like his lover, even an android is capable of acting and feeling like a human, even as humans content themselves with practicing inhumanity.  

The opening eye shot extends further as well. The evil mogul has false eyes, emblematic of his moral blindness and the failed fecundity of his millions of slave androids. K identifies his targets by plucking and reading their eyes. That befits a parable about human vision and understanding under threat,  

The film also plays out the emerging New Woman. As the futuristic fiction amplifies our present tendencies, the film abounds with simpering sex objects, some androids, some real women, some grotesquely amplified caricatures of ersatz sexual appeal. 
     But the greater emphasis is placed on women of strength, will and power: the characters played by Robin Wright, Ana de Armas, Sylvia Hoeks, Carla Juri, Hiam Abbass and Mackenzie Davis. Here there are several Wonder Women, sans magic.  As the android rebel leader Freysa declares, “Dying for the right cause. It's the most human thing we can do.” One woman makes the race’s memories. Another leads their campaign to become human, indeed more human than the reigning humans.