So I'm just finding some subtext I may have missed in 2049. Not sure if it was intended (possible with Ridley Scott & Denis Villeneuve's involvement) but 2049 underlines, lampshades and deconstructs the original Blade Runner's inspiration from Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus. This influence is obvious in Alien Covenant, itself a sequel to Scott's Prometheus. And Frankenstein itself being an inspired scifi retelling of Milton's Paradise Lost.
There's a higher degree to 2049's narrative references for sure, but I'm still a bit troubled by the execution and lack of originality. Its reversals and injections weren't radical enough to be mentioned with those greater works, so it feels like the tail end, compromised clone of these medium-defining works of art.
Example: God creates Adam & Eve and they are destroyed by Lucifer who is then punished by being turned into Satan. Mary Shelley used this narrative but her God (Dr Victor Frankenstein) suffers revenge for his cruel creation of Lucifer/Satan (The Monster) by refusing to give him his dream of being like Adam & denying him an Eve (The Bride). By using this legend of a Devil's bride aka Lilith, Shelly creates a subversive pro-Lucifer/anti-God metaphor totally in debt to Milton's view of The Old Testament, but updating it ethically, morally and spiritually. But her Lucifer also finds himself in Hell and not replacing God after he is destroyed. Frankenstein is essentially atheistic or opposed to the Biblical God.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?/Blade Runner creates a more evolved and high tech version of Frankenstein where The Monster is so well made and satisfied that he is unaware that he is one. Only through a benevolent God/Dr Frankenstein surrogate (Gaff or Tyrell) and rejection of the temptation of an admittedly malevolent Lucifer/Monster (Roy) & Lilith/Bride (Pris) does Deckard find his true identity as Adam and receives his Eve (Rachael). Its a story of an atheist finding his soul in spirituality.
Now 2049 is much more convoluted and less poetic, but its still quite heady.
K's characterization is all over the place. He is Deckard/Adam and Roy/Lucifer, both sides of Frankenstein's Monster and God's creation of light and dark. This is complex and quite well achieved. But it reduces the original role of Deckard into what? K turns on his creator (Joshi) to stop a human version of Roy (Wallace) and a suped up version of Pris (Luv) while retaining sight their intended purposes as monsters unleashing a destructive race of anti-life.
But its the inclusion of Stelline, Deckard's daughter, that changes things from previous versions of this fable. K thinks he is Adam to Deckard's God, the first creation of a creation (the realization of The Monster's dream), but finds out that it is actually Stelline (Eve) and there is no Adam. A cute feminist touch to show a female Messiah & of course a move towards the cultural dismantling of white patriarchy.
K finds that HE is The Monster but he saves his own soul by saving Deckard from drowning whereas The Monster drives Victor to freezing in water. K dies like Frankenstein's Monster, but peacefully, as he has helped the survival of his race of replicants. This is basically a repeat or underline of Blade Runner Part 1's moral, but made more confusing, not clearer. K has saved Deckard's Adam and reconnected her with Stelline's Eve, but this was already established in BR. 2049 exists simply to introduce & worship K's obedient, self-sacrificing Jesus figure as he takes on the ironically Jesus-resembling Wallace, the AntiChrist. This lampshades the relationship between Deckard and Roy previously, but loses the metaphor of Jewish vs Nazi. The only interesting contrast between K & Wallace is that our hero is always identified as replicant and Wallace is human. So its The Monster vs Dr Frank all over again. So K is a combination of Deckard and Roy, both Adam & Lucifer. Jesus does his job, dies for us all and we are thankful.
Now is this a responsible or even original sentiment? Its telling is extremely layered but its payoff is quite anticlimactic. The simple Jesus metaphor is so pedestrian in scifi and stories like BR, Frankenstein & Paradise Lost are special because they reject it to show the complexities of Lucifer as a character. 2049 does not. Its a remodernist appropriation and a quite conservative version of radical text. I believe its 100% intended to be. Does that make it better? Worse? Or just different? Its certainly more mainstream and widely held, but you have to ask is Christianity the proper antidote for BR's Old Testament values? Thats really your own choice so I understand why this new reboot is much more ethically resonant for many viewers.
I personally think it less optimistic and more asinine than BR's perfect metaphor of an android Adam & Eve defeating an android Devil & Lilith (or I guess AntiChrist & Whore of Babylon). 2049 casts a simulated Jesus and turns Adam & Eve into Father & Daughter and the Satanic Dr Frankenstein figure isn't destroyed, only losing his Whore (Luv) and having his apocalypse postponed. This is essentially the narrative problem with The Book of Revelation. As a spiritual book of peace it ends with Satan still promised to return and Jesus to stop him. We don't get any peace, just a promising hope for its return. This unintentionally mirrors the sour mood Evangelicals have returned thanks to the political climate of 2017.
2049 is still a mess as I originally rated it, but it is certainly a very ambitious and intellectually probing failure. The previous fables don't tell you what to believe, they just examine and deconstruct these Western legends as legends. 2049 tries to deconstruct The New Testament within the Blade Runner framework (as the Godfather did with its sequels) but simply adds the story of Jesus without critically theorizing. This is why Blade Runner is a postmodern masterpiece and Blade Runner 2049 is shallow remodernist commercialism masked as post-structural art.
On its own, 2049 is nothing too special but paired with Scott's deeply Satanism-inspired "Alien Covenant" the Blade Runner/Alien semi-franchise is one of the highlights creatively in 2017's popular cinema sphere.
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