“The film’s weakness, however, lies within its use of the superfluous. Like other cyberpunk dystopias, 2049 heavily relies on Asian aesthetics to indicate the future. The neon kanji signs, the bustling Chinatown, Neander Wallace’s yukata, Joi’scheongsam. LAPD’s crime scene materials are labeled in English and Japanese. At some point, Los Angeles became a multicultural city, even more so than today, but where are its non-white citizens? I spotted maybe one or two Asians in passing when K was eating (a bento box!) in Chinatown. And have we ever seen a Replicant of color? If not, why is that? Whose future is this? Would non-white robot slaves be too on-the-nose, too uncomfortable for Hollywood to handle?”
…
“If the point of Blade Runner: 2049 is to examine what happens when clones/artificial intelligence gain sentience and the ability to reproduce, it’s already been explored much better by Ex Machina and Westworld. If the point of Blade Runner: 2049 is to suggest that it might be unpleasant to live in an environmental wasteland, let’s just say I have high hopes for Geostorm. If the point of Blade Runner: 2049 is to warn us that unregulated technology might be bad, it’s being done better right now by REAL LIFE and by Black Mirror in science fiction.”
[Via]
