Haunting visuals, thought provoking narrative and amazing production make it one of the best sci-fi movies ever

Rating: Null/10 (13 November 2017)

The original Blade Runner is a must see for any movie buff, it reached cult status due to it's groundbreaking visual style that inspired a generation of filmmakers. The movie wrestled on how to portray the themes and ideas from the Philip K Dick book, and ultimately I don't think it did it justice, not like Blade Runner 2049 did.
Not only is 2049 closer to the core themes and ideas of the book it also manages to use the sci-fi setting to portray a warped version of our society, increasingly isolated people, over-reliance on technology, losing the connection and intimacy, over sexualization and cheap sex everywhere, and ultimately its decay and collapse as we see in "Ozymandian" Las Vegas . It feels very relevant today in a way that goes beyond most sci-fi and fantasy.
The K/Joi romance parallels the Deckard/Rachel romance, but it's better done in multiple ways. The most important being that the idea actually works in the new one. Both main characters fall in love with an artificial woman but it doesn't work quite so well in the original because Rachel never actually feels like an artificial woman. She is a real person, very much human the first time we see her, you would never question her humanity that even if the movie tries to tell you that. With Joi it's a lot closer to what the books had in mind, and it's a lot harder to figure out where her programming ends, where her personality begins, did she ever evolve into something more, was she her own person.
I'm focusing on the previous Blade Runner because I'm seeing a lot of reviews that compare the two and I just do not understand the negativity. We got the best possible sequel, by a brilliant uncompromising director and the same writer.I do not think Riddley Scott would be able to the movie nearly as good, judging by Prometheus and Covenant. It even goes beyond the first one on many levels, but few. For example the visuals were not groundbreaking as the first one, but almost no movie is. The soundtrack while it did complement the movie well, doesn't stand out like the original one made by Vangelis.
I had some minor nitpicks about the script, and I feel a lot of little details that flesh out the entire detective mystery were cut, but again they're very minor and did not ruin my enjoyment of it at all.
See this movie if you enjoy sci-fi, if you enjoyed the original Blade Runner or if you enjoy good uncompromising contemplative filmmaking on a high budget, because a movie like this with that budget doesn't get made very often