The highly-anticipated sequel to sci-fi classic Blade Runner has released its first trailer (see below), and fans are already in awe. Helmed by Denis Villeneuve, hot from this year’s Arrival, with cinematography by the cinematographer’s cinematographer Roger Deakins, and music by composer du jour Jóhan Jóhansson, the follow-up to Ridley Scott‘s cult film promises to live up to the original; at least, if the trailer is anything to judge by. Set thirty years after the original, and opening with the familiar bleak, rain-soaked megalopolis of Scott’s film, and Harrison Ford’s voice from the original, the trailer for Blade Runner 2049 quickly cuts to a scorched desert landscape, moving carefully through which is a trenchcoat-wearing Officer K (Ryan Gosling). He cautiously enters an apartment building, Jóhansson’s eerily tinkly score echoing Vangelis’s classic soundtrack. Is Officer K here to retire a replicant? Maybe. The occupant of the apartment is former LAPD blade runner Rick Deckard, after all, and the Internet has been debating his humanity since before the Internet was even a thing.
Deckard appears from the shadows brandishing a blaster. “I had your job once. I was good at it,” he grumbles in a very Harrison Ford way. “Things were simpler then,” responds Gosling. Simpler? What has happened in the thirty years since Deckard fled with Rachel? Is Rachel still alive? Why does Deckard’s building have Korean letters on it? Who runs the Tyrell Corporation now? Does it even still exist? So many questions, which hopefully will be answered next October.
