Blade Runner remains one of the most influential science fiction movies of all time. Speaking simply in terms of visuals, Ridley Scott's 1982 adaptation of Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? still holds up today. For 35 years, filmmakers have aspired to capture this aesthetic in the sci-fi genre. And in the new official trailer for its sequel, Blade Runner 2049, director Denis Villeneuve does a stunning job at recreating Scott's vision.
Anyone who's seen Villeneuve's 2016 Academy Award-nominated Arrival—or his previous films, Sicario and Prisoners—knows the man has an eye that transforms each frame into a work of art. With Scott's classic as a template, Villeneuve has applied that talent to settings that the original film never reached. Far away from the rainy near-future of L.A. is a stark, dusty desert where Ryan Gosling's character first meets Harrison Ford's Rick Deckard. Of course, staying true to the first movie, Villeneuve revisits the neon clubs and streets lined with ghostly advertisements, and his characters don the plastic '80s-inspired chic.
And thematically, this trailer shows promise. With an introduction to Jared Leto's character, the writers revisit the ideas Dick explored in the original source material. "Every civilization was built on the back of a disposable workforce," Leto says referencing Blade Runner's replicants. This trailer certainly is promising.
