The new “Blade Runner 2014”
would have no trouble passing the Voight-Kampff machine test because it really isn’t a replicate of the original film.
When he signed on to direct “Blade Runner 2049,” which hits theaters Oct. 6, Denis Villeneuve was determined to carry on the groundbreaking aesthetic of director Ridley Scott’s original 1982 neo-noir sci-fi thriller. At the same time, he didn’t want to create a mere replica, or replicant, as the case may be.
“The movie we did is deeply inspired by the first movie, but we tried not to become a pastiche or parody,” says the French Canadian director behind such films as “Arrival” and “Sicario.” “We used elements from the first movie with humility and tried to find a strength in them. But this movie has its own personality.”
Adapted from Philip K. Dick’s 1968 novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” Scott’s original film — the tale of hard-bitten cop Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), who hunts down renegade androids — has cast a large shadow over the pop culture landscape with its gritty, haunting cyberpunk rendering of a dystopian Los Angeles. Set three decades later, after the events of the first movie, the sequel centers on a young LAPD blade runner (Ryan Gosling), who uncovers a secret that leads him on a quest to find Deckard.
Working alongside cinematographer Roger Deakins and production designer Dennis Gassner, Villeneuve, 49, sought to bring the world of Scott’s seminal classic back to life while pushing it visually in new directions. Here, Villeneuve walks us through the film.
Ubiquitous advertising was a recurring visual feature of the original “Blade Runner,” and Villeneuve picks up that motif in a scene in which Gosling’s Officer K gazes at (and is gazed at by) an immense holographic ad.
“We constructed the bridge on the set, filled the stage with rain and fog, and we projected the actress on that gigantic screen,” Villeneuve says. “So the impact of the light is all real; it’s not something created by a computer.”
Gassner was responsible for the production design on “Blade Runner 2049,” but a scene in which Officer K looks out at a ruined cityscape, Villeneuve worked with original “Blade Runner” concept artist Syd Mead.
“For me, it was important to have one moment where Syd Mead would express himself,” he says. “I had the chance to meet the master and ask him to give me the gift to create a specific place. And when I saw his drawings, I was so moved.”
As he was when Officer K sits behind the wheel of his futuristic police cruiser, known as a spinner.
“We had a few different vehicles; some were used for flight and others to drive,” Villeneuve says. “I love science fiction, but I never thought as a filmmaker that I’d have the joy to construct cars from the future like that.”
In another scene, Officer K walks past cramped boxes in which some of the city’s poorest residents live, an idea inspired by real-life Hong Kong low-income housing units called “coffin cubicles.”
“Part of LA is in ruins and doesn’t have power anymore, and there are a lot of refugees coming from eastern Asia and Russia,” Villeneuve says. “To have your own apartment is a big luxury, and there are a lot of people living in boxes.”
At one point in the film, actress Sylvia Hoeks, who plays a character called Luv, looks into a retinal scanner alongside Gosling’s Officer K.
“The image of the eye was very important in Ridley Scott’s universe and those elements are in ‘2049’ as well,” Villeneuve says. “There’s the cliche that the eyes are windows of the soul, and we’re dealing with replicants who don’t have a soul.”
In the original “Blade Runner,” Ford’s Deckard was constantly soaked by rain, but in the new film the weather is much less predictable. In the intervening years, the climate has gone berserk due to rampant pollution, turning LA into a chilly, desolate place.
With the new “Blade Runner,” Villeneuve wanted to carry forward the neonoir aesthetic of the original film, with stark, dramatic lighting.
“It’s a world that is quite bleak and dark and claustrophobic, but I tried to find an equilibrium with explosions of color that would express some emotions and some themes,” he says. “The color yellow is very important in the movie and is linked with different aspects, storywise. ”
With “Blade Runner 2049,” Villeneuve was determined to keep the production as old school as he could, putting his cast onto real sets.
“The first question Ryan asked me was, ‘Will we do the whole movie in front of green screen?’ ” he says. “You need to allow the space for the actors to find new ideas on the set, and those ideas are not coming in front of a green screen. For me, I understand the power of it, but I hate it.”
Villeneuve says trying to revive and expand the sci-fi universe that Scott created 35 years ago is by far the biggest artistic challenge he’s ever undertaken.
“My respect and admiration for Ridley Scott cannot be higher than now after having done this movie,” he says. “From a design point of view, he is a genius. Once you try to do it yourself, you realize how difficult what he did is.”
“My respect and admiration for Ridley Scott cannot be higher than now after having done this movie. From a design point of view, he is a genius.” — Denis Villeneuve, director