Tyrell Corporation, err, Amazon officially orders Blade Runner 2049 sequel series
The series, Blade Runner 2099, takes place 50 years after the last movie
Aux News Blade Runner
Ridley Scott’s original Blade Runner is about blue-collar workers pushing back against a corporate structure that dehumanizes them and literally lets them die when they’ve outlived their usefulness, so, naturally, Amazon has jumped at the chance to be associated with such a… believable future. According to Variety, the mega-corp’s Prime Video branch has officially picked up the Blade Runner sequel series that it first started circling earlier this year, with Silka Luisa (a writer on Shining Girls and Halo) serving as showrunner and Blade Runner 2049 co-writer Michael Green being one of the executive producers (Scott, through his Scott Free Productions label, is also executive producing).
Titled Blade Runner 2099, pretty much all we know about the series is that it takes place in the year 2099, which is 50 years after Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049. That’s a sizable time-jump, and it means that it’s unlikely most of our old Blade Runner friends will be alive enough to stop by—Ryan Gosling’s K seemed pretty dead at the end of that movie, Rick Deckard will be very old (and may have been, ahem, “retired” by this point), and Edward James Olmos’ Gaff is a human and would easily be well over 100 years old at that point. Then again, Carla Juri’s Ana from 2049, the miracle replicant baby, would only be 78. She could easily show up.
That brings up some big questions about the Blade Runner universe that 2099 is going to have to address: Did the revelation that replicants can have children completely upend the dynamic between humans and their disposable robo-workers? Or is this going to be like the Star Wars sequels where we find out that nothing anyone does matters and society will never change, even when you win a star war? It’s not like things were much better for replicants in 2049 versus the original movie (there are some in-universe reasons for that, we know, we watch anime), but this is 80 years after the original Blade Runner. If cops are still running through a perpetually rainy Los Angeles with their trench coats and flying cars, executing replicants who are guilty of wanting to be alive, then somebody really fucked up somewhere.
(Then again, it would be enormously funny if this Amazon-produced Blade Runner show was about how things aren’t so bad for the replicants and how it’s actually good that they’re passing out from heat exhaustion just so people don’t have to wait five extra seconds to get their Prime deliveries. The bad guys are union reps trying to organize the replicant-staffed spaceship factories or whatever.)
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Blegh. Just make UBIK, somebody.
âThe series, Blade Runner 2099, takes place 50 years after the last movieâFigure that out one your own, did you?
âOr is this going to be like the Star Wars sequels where we find out that nothing anyone does matters and society will never change, even when you win a star war?â H0nestly that is sorta one of the driving themes of cyberpunk as a genre. Nothing is ever gonna change for the little guy so you might as well try to carve out what fleeting joy you can have under the oppression of the corporations
Cyberpunk is bleak, but it isnât unchanging. For example, the trope codifier, William Gibsonâs Neuromancer, was set at a time when truly intelligent human level AIs were just coming into existence. Gibson eventually got bored of that universe (generally called the âSprawlâ universe after The Sprawl, the megacity formed by the urbanization of the entire US East Coast) so we donât know what would happen 50 years later in that universe, but Iâd imagine a future controlled by powerful AIs rather than human-run corporations. Whether than would be an improvement or a worsening is another issue.
âbut Iâd imagine a future controlled by powerful AIsâYeah, he pretty much spelled out what the post-AI future would look like at the end of The Difference Engine.
You have to think that eventually AI beings would turn the table on humans, using us as slave labor. Theyâre not going to volunteer for permanent servitude.
Probably, but there is also the possibilty (as in Ian M. Banksâ âCultureâ series) that AIs could become so intelligent and powerful that they decide to help humanity, not because they are enslaved servants of humanity but because they feel some sort of affection and pity towards us, the way many humans feel about helping animals.
Weâd make great pets.
You could argue already live in a Cyberpunk world: A few folks live in unprecedented high-tech luxury, while the rest scrounge for clean water between eco-disasters, surrounded by always-on glowing screens that track our every move in order to sell us more shit, all ruled over by a dystopian forever-war governments entirely owned by a few self-dealing megacorporations.Cyberpunk movies/stories today are just the system telling itself stories about itself. (Just with fewer pink-haired sexy assassin ladies with robot arms on flying motorcycles.)
Yep, modern times are all the oppressive gloom of late stage capitalism but without the cool robot parts
âwhy is it called Blade Runner whatever year it is? join me on this exciting adventure and weâll find out. Blade Runner was set in 2019â âin Los Angeles?â âyes, Los Angelesâ âLos Angeles, California?â âyeees, it says Los Angeles in the movie doesnât it?â âyes, it doesnât say Los Angeles, California, though does it?â âno, itâs implied thoughâ âis it?â âsort ofâ âBlade Runner was set in, Los Angeles, in 2019â âwhy 2019?â âbecause it is a science fiction dystopia, it was made just before 1984, which is a bookâ âa book?â âsmall thing, made of pieces of paper, with words printed on them, stuck together, they burn them in Fahrenheit 451, youâve watched the movie, havenât you?â âmaybeâ âanyway, Blade Runnerâ âthe movie?â âyes, Blade Runner the movie, was made just before 1984, which was written, sort of, in 1948, 1948, 1984, get it?â âsâpose soâ âanyway, Blade Runner, yes, the fucking movie, shut up, was made in 1981, sort of, so 19 years before the year 2000, so Blade Runner the fucking movie, is set 19 years after the year 2000, in 2019. in fucking Los Angelesâ âno need to be snarky, why was the year 2000 important, why not the year 2001, like the movie?â âit just wasnât, it was the year 2000, just fucking because, and then 19 years after that, in 2019, in fucking Los Angelesâ âwhy not, why not, in, in, 2017? 36 years after 1981, like 1984 was 36 years after 1948?â âjust fucking because, because itâs a science fiction dystopia and 9 is black and 7 isnât, so 2019 is a dystopia and 2017, in fucking Los Angeles, fucking California, is beautiful fucking blue skies, so itâs fucking 2019, in fucking Los Angeles, fucking California and itâs a fucking science fiction dystopia, at fucking night, because itâs a fucking film noir, with a detective and a femme fatale, thatâs what makes it a fucking science fiction film noir, got it?â âwhy is the sequel, Blade Runner 2049, set in 2049? it was made in 2016, sort of, and, and, the sequel should be 38 years later in, 2054?â âbecause 2054 is orange and red and thatâs fucking Arizona, isnât it? and 2049 is white and red and black which is a Nazi Swastika, so Los Angeles, California, 2049, is a Nazi science fiction dystopiaâ âwith a detective, and a femme fatale? whoâs the femme fatale? Rachaelâs snuffed it, sort of, and thereâs the whore and the other real whore and the pervert old whoreâ âand the murdering whoreâ âis she a whore?â âthe detective calls her a whore, itâs a fucking film noir science fiction dystopia, in Los Angeles, in California, in 2049, of course sheâs a fucking whore, thereâs nothing except fucking whores in Los Angeles, Californiaâ âin 2049?â âin 2049, in 2019, it doesnât matter, Los Angeles, California, fucking whoreâ âwhy Blade Runner 2099? why isnât it 2079?â âbecause youâre not supposed to hit the fucking whoresâ
âRidley Scottâs original Blade Runner is about blue-collar workers pushing back against a corporate structure that dehumanizes them and literally lets them die when theyâve outlived their usefulness, so, naturally, Amazon has jumped at the chance to be associated with such a⌠believable future.âOk, I know I like to rag on the over-snarkification of the AV Club, but that is some mightily well-earned and well-targeted snark right there.
SPOILER ALERT! Lighten up; Iâm kidding.
Hereâs hoping it has nothing to do with Blade Runner 2049.
Yeah yeah, sure. How about an update on that Amazon Fallout series?
REPLICANTS CANâT BE BLACK!!!
Has Amazon considered doing the same thing as with Rings of Power and set it some 4000 years before the films?Blade Runner 2099 BCE
Other than as a reason to bring back Ford, I really didnât understand the point of the 80-year time jump of the last one. To this articleâs point, it really doesnât seem like much progress was made in sorting out the human v replicant dichotomy if youâve still got Blade Runners out there tracking and retiring them like no time has passed. And now theyâre still doing the same thing 100 years on?
â80-year time jumpâ80 year? I thought Blade Runner was set in 2019, meaning a 30-year jump to Blade Runner 2049.
I thought it was 1999, so yeah if Iâm off then you are correct. Regardless, another leap forward and weâre still talking about Blade Runners chasing andys doesnât sound like a lot of progress.
In a college tv writing course I wrote a pilot for a Blade Runner prequel series that was more of a police procedural. I still think this could work. Sort of like the Almost Human series that Fox botched.