So, I watched Blade Runner 2049 this weekend and loved it. I barely felt the almost 3 hour runtime pass and left the session genuinely satisfied by the end.

That said, I do think it's a flawed movie full of inconsistencies. The bigger of which are the replicants themselves.

Niander Wallace describes them as a cheap, disposable workforce, essentially analogous to slave labor, but there literally isn't a single replicant in the movie specifically shown to be living life as a slave of some sort. In fact, they all seem to be living normal human lives. And the poorest and most fucked up people shown in the movie, are all either human or strongly implied to be humans (like the people in the garbage dump city)*.

K lives in his own apartment with his own things and is free enough to have chosen to acquire a virtual girlfriend and maintain some sort of genuine relationship with her. He has a very subservient relationship with his boss, but that isn't really unlike certain abusive human relationships (and his isn't even THAT much abusive, if you think about what is shown in the movie).

Luv, as depicted, seems to hold a high executive position in Wallace's Corporation (she is shown negotiating sales directly when she first shows up), even if she accumulates a lot of roles as enforcer, spy and assassin as well. In fact, she seems to be the highest authority in the company in the absence of Wallace himself. Yes, she cries when she kills, but I think it's a poor attempt to show remorse on the part of the character, since she literally never does anything else to show hesitation or said remorse. And let's not forget that all her kills were done by her own initiative and most, if not all of them, were pretty unnecessary.

Morton owns a farm and even declared he only produces for his own sustenance, which is something that would be extremely unlikely in the movie's reality even if he was human (the world is practically starving and here's this guy with a significant patch of productive land that only makes food for himself? Really?). And Mariette is a prostitute, but is never shown to have an owner or any sort of person who would rule her life. She seems to be pretty autonomous (even though she secretly works for that replicant freedom group, she isn't shown as a slave to the group, she's clearly a willing participant).

I understand that these last two are supposed to be older more independent models (at least Morton is explicitly shown to be so), but this also reminds me of another problem: as Rachael's necropsy shows, replicants are so much exactly like humans that without the serial numbers hidden in their bodies, the police is literally unable to identify them as such.

As a matter of fact, why are replicants built to be so unique as to be easy to hide in the middle of normal people (which makes the fact that everyone knows that K is a replicant rather bizarre, since it would only make sense for him to be known as such in the smallest circle of people in his job, where such information actually matters)? Why is Joi sold with a single visual design? One would think that a virtual girlfriend would be extremely customizable, or, rather, why not have a literal replicant girlfriend since they are not considered humans and are built for subservience? There is no way Joi is a better deal than a real fake girl.

I know many of these, if not all, are built like that to serve the story better than the world (and the fact that this is a great movie just supports the fact even more), but since a lot of time is dedicated to world building, one would think that they'd try to make things more consistent (especially since the world building is something that doesn't pay off all that much by the end, because BR2049 is a rather personal story, that is, K's story and, to a lesser extent, Deckard's).

* I suppose this helps to understand the racism shown in the movie. It isn't just that replicants are soulless constructs, they are literally taking good jobs and resources from humans in a world where both are pretty scarce.

For clarity I'll first repost my short review from the other thread, so we know where I stand on the movie as a whole:

I liked it. A lot. A lot more than I thought I would. It's a very, very good movie. In fact, it's something of a miracle. It's a 150 million dollar R-rated sequel to a box office bomb from decades ago. And it's damn good. The visuals, mood, music, actors, it's all top notch. It's not quite as good as the original, but I never even dreamed it would be. It never quite achieves that same phenomenal atmosphere, that ambiance, that visceral quality (thanks to Groot for that expression). And I liked it more that the stakes in the original were lower. It was just case, not a worth changing event. But to it's credit, this movie still manages to play it's grand events in very intimate, personal, character driven fashion. Vangelis' soundtrack is also unmatched, but 2049 has a decent approximation. The fact it feels like a worthy sequel to something I always thought should never have one is fantastic enough.

Now to adress some of the OP's issues For one thing, I think he mostly meant them as slave labor for the off-world colonies. He usually talks about his plans for the replicants in that context, about colonising more worlds etc.

But it's also important to remember that slaves don't have to be treated badly. I don't meant to sound horrible, like I'm somehow defending slavery, but living "as a slave" doesn't have to mean you can't have a nice place to live or a relationship etc. It just meanst you're not free to do as you please with your life, quit your job etc. It rather makes sense that obediant slaves who do a good job and most likely don't come cheap would be treated well. Well, the relationships humans can have with replicants not being unlike those between humans is kinda one of the more important points of the whole franchise. Again, makes sense the 100% obediant assistant of the boss who knows his plans, follows them and can be trusted would have that sort of power, but really it's not her power but Wallace's, she just represents him. Doesn't mean she's free and holds any authority of her own. Well, that was the point of the Voigt-Kampff tests. We don't know there's only one design. For all we know K just left it at "default" because he liked it or doesn't have much imagination. As forw why not a replicant- cheaper for one thing. Disposable too. And I don't think Joi is supposed to be a full time girlfriend. Just and AI companion to talk to when you feel like having a sympathetic listener. I took it as K leaving her on a lot more and having that kind of relationship with her that allowed his Joi to evolve beyond her basic programming.

Still- yeah, there are things to nitpick at. There were in the original too. Like you said, it serves the story, and the mood, and gives the whole thing a certain gravitas. Even when imperfect, it's still more detailed and "real" feeling future world than most.

I think every SciFi movie has some inconsistencies and this is no exception.

I disagree somewhat in your evaluation of the replicants position, though.

A. Replicants are meant to be more extensivelly present ("used"?) in the colonies, and doing the hard jobs necessary to raise the colonies from the ground. In fact, the original emphasized that replicants were banned on Earth although that's not explicitely stated in this movie.

B. I don't believe either K or Luv are in their positions by choice.They're "legal" replicants because they work for influential bosses.

K is there because probably not many humans want to take the risky job of being Blade Runners. So, LAPD might have asked for a replicant for the job. He owns things but it's implied that if he does things differently than expected they will retire him. K runs away with Joi because "they will come for me" after his last evaluation.

Luv is definitively a Wallace extension, put there to alleviate him of the boring parts of business. In my mind she's clearly a slave, a house slave but still. She has free reign about the way to get results but all she does is for Wallace objectives.


Mariette might be free but within certain parameters. Unclear. Do the authorites even know she's a replicant? Would she be allowed to travel or change jobs?

Morton is in hiding and not a known replicant. He says he growed garlic for himself but I don't think he produced food only for himself. I might have missed something though.


Then again, who knows?

I think Breja has the right idea about the slavery matter. Though they still are shown to live way better than what one would expect it to be, I think (though that would hardly be the first time a slave is shown to enjoy a lot of perks or a position of relative power in film: I just remembered Samuel L Jackson's character in Django).

I do think Luv is way more brutal than needed for her job, as in, she deliberately murders people left and right and has shown that she does that in her own account, while it's hinted that Wallace simply doesn't care if she kills anyone. Her crying could be interpreted as she feeling genuine remorse, while being incompetent/limited enough to not be able to think/create alternative and less deadly solutions to her problems. (But I am overthinking things here).

About the Voigt-Kampff, one would argue that the point was identify them without the need to take them apart to check and risk hurting a normal human (But then, again, why wouldn't an x-ray exam not solve that if they were different internally, right?).

About Joi, story-wise, her unique single design is made so that K's illusion of her love and evolution beyond basic programming is properly shattered when he encounters the holographic ad later in the film (and is shown that she'll always say and do what you want to hear and see and that Joe is a pretty standard nickname she's programmed to give her owners), but I do agree that K being lazy and unimaginative about her configuration coupled with him taking their relationship to unexpected extremes is a good explanation for the plot point.

About madth3's comment about Morton, I seem to remember him claiming his farm only produced proteins/grubs for himself before his mentioning of garlic for himself, but I could be wrong.

I'd also like to add that the only scene in the whole movie that I thought was completely unnecessary was the scavenger attack/rocketing into oblivion scene. I know it was supposed to show a bit more about that part of the movie's world while also showing that Luv was keeping an eye on K all the time and could intervene at will, but it felt like too big of a scene for too little a narrative pay off. Though the explosions could be there to break a mounting narrative monotony as well.

I would also have loved to take a peek into the replicant creation process. Wallace claims that he "can only make so many" and that replicant pregnancy would solve the problem for him. It's not stated, but I suppose it is a matter of materials, not time. Because human pregnancy is a pretty slow process and that's not even taking into account the time and resources it takes for a baby to grow into an adult. He also seems to be able to produce a fully functioning "Rachael clone" in a very short time.

Another thing that bothered me, but wasn't really a huge problem was the unexplained manner upon which Wallace gathered information. At various points in the movie he seems to have information that he wasn't supposed to have at said point so easily and so completely. It's a very minor nitpick, I know, but it's there.

One final thing: I loved the major conflict in the plot: the replicants want to protect the child because they see her as a miracle and one that gives them hope of being so much more than mere tools/slaves, while Wallace wants to put his hand into said miracle so that he can replicate it on a massive scale and make more tools/slaves. Both parties seem to want the same thing (the replicant ability to procreate), but for wildly different reasons and have wildly different interpretations on the significance of the fact.

I thoguht she was deliberately clearly unhinged. I can't be sure if that's what was inteded, but I saw her crying when Wallace killed the newborn replicant, her brutality and finally her saying "I am the best" (or something like that) when she thought she defeated K at the end as all pointing to her being afraid of Wallace, who clearly treats her as a disposable object despite all privilages she seems to enjoy, and feeling like she has to go to extremes to keep proving herself. Yeah, it felt to me like they just put it there to add some action and explosions. They could easily have established Luv tracking K without the spectacle. I think it again comes down to colonisation, as implied by Wallace being frustrated by humanity not "conquering the stars" yet. He can easily and quickly produce replicants where he has the means. But for offworld colonies, especially for establishing entirely new colonies, where there are no facilities and resources - that's a whole different matter.

About Luv, I think you're probably right, I had forgotten about the context where she was crying most of the time, I knew there was more than one occasion, but clearly remembered only when she killed Robin Wright's character.

About the production thing, I think you may be half right. I don't think he can produce THAT many THAT quickly, though he can certainly produce a reasonable number in a fair time. What I mean is, he has the means to produce a lot, but probably not in a industrial production line quantity. Which would also explain the lack of a standard face/model for the replicants: they are most likely individually manufactured.