Blade Runner 2049 Explained | Denis Villeneuve

Deliberately paced and densely layered,  Blade Runner 2049 can be a bit hard to  

wrap your head around. What’s so important about Replicants giving birth? Are

artificial people any less human than naturally born people? And even after 30

years, we still want to know – is Deckard a replicant? Let’s take a deep dive into this thrilling, cerebral epic. 

Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner is the  long-awaited sequel to Ridley Scott’s  

1982 sci-fi cult classic, which was loosely based on Philip K Dick’s 1968 novel Do

Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Though Scott’s Blade Runner didn’t do well at the

box-office, it was considered as the foundational film in the cyberpunk subgenre.

many critics hail it as one of the greatest American movies of all time. The

idea for a sequel first emerged in the 1990s. But financing and licensing issues took more

than two decades to resolve. In February 2015, it was confirmed Denis Villeneuve

would direct the sequel and that Blade Runner’s protagonist character Deckard (Harrison Ford) would reprise his role.

Blade Runner was set in 2019 California; the world is heavily polluted and a large

chunk of the human population has already moved to off-world colonies. The

all-powerful Tyrell Corporation has created bio-engineered humans, whose slave

labour is the foundation upon which off-world communities are built. Called

‘Replicants’, these humanoid beings gradually develop self-awareness

and become more ‘human’. Some break away from the colonies and escape to Earth. 

To hunt them down, govt-sanctioned bounty hunters “Blade Runners” are  

recruited to ‘retire’ the Replicants. Because Replicants are so indistinguishable

from humans, Blade Runners must use a unique ‘empathy test’ called the Voight-Kampff Test to identify them. 

The 1982 movie mostly revolves around  Los Angeles Blade Runner Rick Deckard,  

who goes after four replicant fugitives. They  are all part of Tyrell Corp’s Nexus-6 model,  

whose lifespan is only around four years. In his journey, Deckard comes across an

alluring Nexus-7 replicant named Rachael (Sean Young). She’s made with implanted

human memories. Eventually, Deckard’s experiences make him question  the nature of human identity and the  

commoditized outlook of replicants. Eventually, he flees from LA with Rachael.

Blade Runner 2049 is set 30 years after the events of the first film. A lot has changed  

in this universe, and some of the events are  hinted at within the narrative. Around 2020,  

Tyrell Corp introduces a new replicant model, the Nexus-8, with extended life spans.

Soon though, the replicants increasingly rebel and their manufacture is prohibited.

In 2022, an EMP detonation by replicant terrorists causes a massive digital blackout

and destroys the database of replicants. Tyrell Corp goes bankrupt.’ In the mid 2020s, ecosystem collapse has put the  

entire earth on the edge of famine. Industrialist Niander Wallace (Jared Leto)

solves the food shortage with a synthetic farming technique. He acquired Tyrell Corp