Blade Runner 2049 trailer and a first look at Roger Deakins' cinematography

[racer5]

I agree with almost all of your points about the trailer, Andrew. I'd go one step further past the reservations on Gosling and say the whole cast feels sterile and hip. Robin Wright, Jared Leto as the bad guy, the hot wife from War Dogs. Will these people be in something of lasting value? I'm not sure, maybe. The script is at least supposed to be great.

My one disagreement is the wish for Deakin's to have shot on anamorphic. Since the original film came out, this format has become highly fetishized to the point that it now calls attention to itself. No one was counting cool flares in '84, but they are now. I appreciate that Deakins decided to put the emphasis on what's in frame, as opposed to getting precious with how it's rendered.  That said, Chnristina Ava makes a great point about naturalism and the grade here being way too much. 

 

[AaronChicago]

8 hours ago, Christina Ava said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWPyRSURYFQ

Ok, check some scenes on the cinematography of the 1982 film

What do you see? Well people have actual skin tones. When I saw the first scenes of the new one I was shocked, mainly because I love Deakins.

How can he make something look so bad? It reminds me the starwars second trilogy fail. And how can you praise this 'film" not even shot on film.

Too much CGI! Too much orange/ blue grading. This is not Deakins work, this is the graders film. Not a natural skin tone in sight, not a natural light or color in sight. Every scene looks like a commercial, fake, very proppy, very artificial and lacking in that futuristic reality, everything too clean and new and staged. Poorly designed surroundings no grit no dirt no reality.

The first film was so fantastic because it looked so real!

Coming to the acting, dear me, I can forgive the Gosling who is like a replicant in real life anyway. But JARED LETO? that babyfaced ass*&le? Too young too Jokery Too typecasted..

my humble opinion..

I'm not so sure that this is all color grade. Little is known about the production thus far but Deakins is always adamant about shooting as much "in camera." Colored lighting is gaining a lot of popularity, especially with the advanced LED's and color control. Obviously the desert shots are over saturated to orange, but I think everything else might be motivated by existing lights in a scene. At the very least motivated by projector walls. Rogue One lit most of their space battles with giant projector walls displaying the space battle atmosphere. It looks natural, and less computer generated. I'm sure that Denis had a big influence on color as well. He might not have wanted natural skin tones running throughout. That's more of a style choice.

[webrunner5]

Well what I think sucks about all the films talked about on here that it is basically the same old shit, volume 2, 3, 4, etc,,etc. Hell can't these people come up with something NEW?? They Never had all these damn sequels years ago. Hell someone got off their ass and wrote a new movie, not some Jackass sequel just to make more Freaking money, to suck in young, screaming girls, to make even more money.

Hell they made Art back than, or at least tried too. I guess I am just a old turd that remembers movies that tried to entertain you with things you Never saw before, not some repeat crap of the same theme over, and over, and over. Christ!. This stuff is not Art, it's a easy as hell money grab! Rant over.

[silvertonesx24]

1 hour ago, webrunner5 said:

Well what I think sucks about all the films talked about on here that it is basically the same old shit, volume 2, 3, 4, etc,,etc. Hell can't these people come up with something NEW?? They Never had all these damn sequels years ago. Hell someone got off their ass and wrote a new movie, not some Jackass sequel just to make more Freaking money, to suck in young, screaming girls, to make even more money.

Hell they made Art back than, or at least tried too. I guess I am just a old turd that remembers movies that tried to entertain you with things you Never saw before, not some repeat crap of the same theme over, and over, and over. Christ!. This stuff is not Art, it's a easy as hell money grab! Rant over.

Same first thought as I watched this trailer as well. I'd be so much more excited for this, if it were just original IP. Hollywood is too risk adverse to massively fund anything less than material with built-in audiences, and there are no shortage of original content creators groveling for six-figure budgets. Best of both worlds for them

Big-budget sci-fi that's not derived, rebooted, sourced, or otherwise copied from something else- Interstellar, Inception, and ???

[AaronChicago]

1 minute ago, silvertonesx24 said:

Same first thought as I watched this trailer as well. I'd be so much more excited for this, if it were just original IP

Big-budget sci-fi that's at least trying to be original and not derived, rebooted, sourced, or otherwise copied from something else- Interstellar, Inception, and ???

I love original too. There are some properties where I get nervous at announcement such as Star Wars Ep VII. I had the same cringe moment at Blade Runner sequel announcement. After seeing the team assembled (Denis Villeneuve is in my top 3 current filmmakers) and now seeing the trailer I'm super stoked.

[silvertonesx24]

7 minutes ago, AaronChicago said:

I love original too. There are some properties where I get nervous at announcement such as Star Wars Ep VII. I had the same cringe moment at Blade Runner sequel announcement. After seeing the team assembled (Denis Villeneuve is in my top 3 current filmmakers) and now seeing the trailer I'm super stoked.

I'm definitely stoked for the cinematography for sure

I read somewhere that the younger generation of today will have far fewer cultural properties to define their name by (or for filmmakers 30 years from now to exploit). Certainly seems to be the case. What will Hollywood be doing in 2035, rebooting Spiderman for the 17th time?

Likely they will face a crisis like musicians do- when you're competing for ears today, you're not only competing with your contemporaries but with the entire historical back catalog of other artists. The 18-29 exploitable population gets younger and smaller and more distracted.

[dahlfors]

10 hours ago, Christina Ava said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWPyRSURYFQ

Ok, check some scenes on the cinematography of the 1982 film

What do you see? Well people have actual skin tones. When I saw the first scenes of the new one I was shocked, mainly because I love Deakins.

How can he make something look so bad? It reminds me the starwars second trilogy fail. And how can you praise this 'film" not even shot on film.

Too much CGI! Too much orange/ blue grading. This is not Deakins work, this is the graders film. Not a natural skin tone in sight, not a natural light or color in sight. Every scene looks like a commercial, fake, very proppy, very artificial and lacking in that futuristic reality, everything too clean and new and staged. Poorly designed surroundings no grit no dirt no reality.

Yes. I'm so tired seeing same extreme color schemes in so many films these days. I don't get why whole scenes should be colored in one single color, I don't get why every film needs to rely so heavily on the orange/teal coloring. I think there must be some rule that you are not allowed to release your film to cinemas unless enough orange/teal can be detected...

[AaronChicago]

3 minutes ago, silvertonesx24 said:

I'm definitely stoked for the cinematography for sure

I read somewhere that the younger generation of today will have far fewer cultural properties to define their name by (or for filmmakers 30 years from now to exploit). Certainly seems to be the case. What will Hollywood be doing in 2035, rebooting Spiderman for the 17th time?

Likely they will face a crisis like musicians do- when you're competing for ears today, you're not only competing with your contemporaries but with the entire historical back catalog of other artists. The 18-29 exploitable population gets younger and smaller and more distracted.

Yeah music has just gone completely off the rails IMO. I'm thinking the future of visual story telling is in television. Cinema will still be around but it'll be more of a spectacle.

On that note - I think BR2049 will be memorable even though it's a sequel. The last 2 films Villeneuve made are still standouts in my mind from the past 2 years: Sicario, and Arrival.

[webrunner5]

Well I guess I can Sort of see it for some stuff. The Matrix comes to mind. Would have been pretty hard to express all of that Information in one Movie I guess. I guess it is a new era.

But like has been said you Only will have about four each of Producers, Directors, DoP's that are creating all of it. Not good for the long run.

Its like this new Alien Movie, Jesus, give it up, plz!

[Fritz Pierre]

I thought Arrival suffered from lack of light...I liked the film (love Amy Adams) though it was hard to see anything...Deakins will help with that. I'm actually disappointed that Ridley Scott did not make this....and the anamorphics used in the first definitely made the constant rain and atmosphere and floating billboards and decay seem suffocating... there's so much time since the original (which was not well received when released but attained cult status after the fact) that I'm not turned off by the idea of the sequel...in fact the exact opposite...I'm glad they made it...but the Cinematography....Design....Script....every aspect of the original will be a tough act for any filmmaker to follow...mixed feelings about the trailer...but as the studio making it already knows, this will definitely be one to see in a movie theatre...

[HockeyFan12]

45 minutes ago, webrunner5 said:

Its like this new Alien Movie, Jesus, give it up, plz!

I'm actually looking forward to the new Alien movie, but what I'd be looking forward to 10X more is Ridley Scott directing something similar to Alien but without the weight of lore and franchise continuity, a really scary original body horror film. Something, ironically, more like... the original Alien.

There have always been remakes and it's always been "the same but different" but when it's more same than different I get bored and most blockbusters feel roughly interchangeable within the same IP, or even outside it, now that the IP is becoming a bigger selling point than story, actor, or writer/director.

That said, it's great to see so much talent and craft being enabled by hitherto unavailable tools. It's a shame the craft is all there is to be appreciated unless you're a fan of the original IP seeking some sort of weird nostalgia. Feels very impersonal and forgettable. That said, I get it. I'm sort of looking forward to the new Twin Peaks. :/

[AaronChicago]

17 minutes ago, Fritz Pierre said:

I thought Arrival suffered from lack of light...I liked the film (love Amy Adams) though it was hard to see anything...Deakins will help with that. I'm actually disappointed that Ridley Scott did not make this....and the anamorphics used in the first definitely made the constant rain and atmosphere and floating billboards and decay seem suffocating... there's so much time since the original (which was not well received when released but attained cult status after the fact) that I'm not turned off by the idea of the sequel...in fact the exact opposite...I'm glad they made it...but the Cinematography....Design....Script....every aspect of the original will be a tough act for any filmmaker to follow...mixed feelings about the trailer...but as the studio making it already knows, this will definitely be one to see in a movie theatre...

That was Bradford Young who has a really dark style. I kinda liked it for Arrival. Usually those types of movies are bright and flashy.

[Fritz Pierre]

Yes...but I found a couple of choices misleading...like when she comes into her house and hangs out in the semidark...I thought at first as the result of the loss of her daughter, but later you learn it's still in the future....felt like a cheap shot for me as a directorial choice....and yet his interpretation of the environment the aliens inhabited I loved!...anyway...easy for me to Monday quarterback!...all in all the film worked well for me, except the overall physical darkness...

[Kisaha]

Arrival was too mediocre for me, some other year in history it wouldn't be not even in the top 30 (maybe 31!).

Every year I am seeing less and less films I really like, and I have to search more Asian/South American/European cinema for finding the rare gem. I used to watch all the Oscaric films as well, this year didn't even bother.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4936450/ Bacalaureat (The Graduation) was my favorite last year, and that wasn't even close to a masterpiece, but it was an excellent film. Maybe it wasn't Deakins, or Villeneuve, or had 74 billion budget, but it was true, and followed me for many days after.

[webrunner5]

3 hours ago, Kisaha said:

Arrival was too mediocre for me, some other year in history it wouldn't be not even in the top 30 (maybe 31!).

Every year I am seeing less and less films I really like, and I have to search more Asian/South American/European cinema for finding the rare gem. I used to watch all the Oscaric films as well, this year didn't even bother.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4936450/ Bacalaureat (The Graduation) was my favorite last year, and that wasn't even close to a masterpiece, but it was an excellent film. Maybe it wasn't Deakins, or Villeneuve, or had 74 billion budget, but it was true, and followed me for many days after.

Wow, I too have seen snippets of this movie! From what I have seen it reminds me of a late 50's, early 60's adopted Broadway Play. There were some excellent ones in that Era. It reminds me more of a Real Life experience than all this crazy stuff we have today that is just pure conjecture. I liked to been entertained, not just Bombarded with FX!

Who doesn't want to see some great effects, but though the whole damn Movie, and with the Music cranked up to 11 the whole time, with the Actors screaming to get above it?

SCI FI is really neat, makes you think outside the box, but lately it just seems like to me, they just want to exploit the latest computer capable stuff, with a mindless plot, to sell a ton of tickets to rabid fans of the past. Again I just don't see a lot of imagination lately in Hollywood. Seems like they want a Blockbuster hit more than a Oscar winning movie, that has a great plot, that will be talked about 50 years from now..

[andrgl]

Garbage.

I dream of Electric Sheep was a one off story. This is Hollywood trash.

Their inability to try something new without shitting on an existing film is astounding.

 

Like fuck, really? Should we expect a Minority Report II in 2037? (Edit: shows you how out of touch I am, they already made a shitty TV series out of the original film.)

 

I can't wait for them to rape Back to the Future. Please, please, I want it so bad. I want Hollywood to pillage every movie I consider great.

 

Airbud was mildly successful. Can we have more Airbud?

 

Someone shoot me please... they made a movie about fucking Chips.

LOL

[Juxx989]

????

 

[AaronChicago]

Haha. I love Red Letter Media.

[Chrad]

16 hours ago, Kisaha said:

Arrival was too mediocre for me, some other year in history it wouldn't be not even in the top 30 (maybe 31!).

Every year I am seeing less and less films I really like, and I have to search more Asian/South American/European cinema for finding the rare gem. I used to watch all the Oscaric films as well, this year didn't even bother.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4936450/ Bacalaureat (The Graduation) was my favorite last year, and that wasn't even close to a masterpiece, but it was an excellent film. Maybe it wasn't Deakins, or Villeneuve, or had 74 billion budget, but it was true, and followed me for many days after.

I think last year saw one true American masterpiece: Silence.

[Phil A]

13 hours ago, andrgl said:

Garbage.

I dream of Electric Sheep was a one off story. This is Hollywood trash.

Their inability to try something new without shitting on an existing film is astounding.

But then BladeRunner (which I love as a movie) was a bad representation of the book "Do androids dream of electric sheep" in my opinion, the book was so much better. The movie diverted so far from the story, they might as well make a sequel.