Synopsis:

The film starts with Niander Wallace, CEO of Wallace Corp, consumed by the knowledge that a replicant was born, he plots to capture and reverse engineer the child at all costs. Key characters and the core objective are now introduced much earlier in the film, some scenes and exposition have been removed, which either didn’t move the plot along or were duplicated elsewhere. The balance of how officer K and Luv are portrayed has also been changed to give them both a menacing edge and some parity in their motives. Who is the protagonist or antagonist is left more open now. These changes, along with changes to the film score help to add a little soul, intrigue, brutality and tenderness, which rebalances the film and is a more rewarding watch.

Intentions:

In my opinion there’s a lot of good in the original cut of Blade Runner 2049, notably the visuals and great performances from the cast, however I felt the original cut’s story was very safe and lacked ‘edginess’ / a soul and didn’t quite meet the stated goal of ‘brutality’. K’s existential crisis is only interesting up to a point and the ability for replicants to reproduce is interesting but not something that left me either shocked or wanting to see more of and I didn’t buy into this revelation ‘breaking the world’ Luv has been introduced much earlier and officer K’s interaction with Luv has been reworked, in an attempt to give both Luv and K parity in their motivations, i.e. they are both following orders. Luv’s reaction to the death of a new model, helps to make an emotional connection with Luv. Both of K’s visits to Sapper’s protein farm have been reworked and merged into one scene to help move the story along and make K seem a little more menacing/cold and calculated. I’ve almost entirely removed K’s and Deckard’s interaction in Vegas. The nightclub fight scene in the original cut felt out of place and a punch-up between them just didn’t work for me, it felt silly. As a result of this, some of the exposition between K and Deckard no longer occurs. However, removing the exposition helps the viewer draw their own conclusions and I don’t think the conversation between K and Deckard helped move the story along enough and really slowed down the pace of the final act. K has been removed from the final scene where K and Deckard travel to the upgrade centre to meet Deckard’s daughter (Stelline). I felt that K‘s presence in this scene and the chit-chat between K and Deckard really distracted from the impact of a father meeting his daughter for the first time. Deckard didn’t need K to hold his hand or K’s emotional support in this situation, this framing didn’t fit with the competent and strong Deckard character development from the original film or indeed from 2049. Additionally this removes the hint that K dies at the end of the film, again allowing the viewer to wonder if K survives his injuries. I toyed with the idea of using the Sapper 2048 scene from the Blu Ray extras material, however it felt out of place and wasn’t a particularly strong scene. If the film had entered into the hunt of the other replicants (as seen on officer K’s screen during a conversation with Joshi) I think the Sapper 2048 scene would have made more sense. Final thoughts, one issue that I couldn’t fully address was the pacing of the final act. The love scene between, K, Joi and Mariette was a noticeable jolt to the pace, directly following on from K’s dressing down by Joshi, which is a high energy scene. I reworked the music in these scenes, which results in a less jolting experience. Sadly, there are 2 key plot elements in the love scene (Mariette hides a black tracking pill in K’s coat & K breaks the tracking device in Joi’s mobile emitter). I feel the tracking pill could have been introduced in a less contrived way, elsewhere in the story. Such as simply dropping the tracking pill into K’s pocket during an outdoor encounter with any of the resistance would have been a better option, albeit cliched. Additionally, the notion that K (a detective) would knowingly carry a mobile emitter with a tracking device fitted to it in the first place is pretty absurd. Joi and K’s discussion around transferring Joi to the mobile device away from the console has been removed. I felt this ‘setup’ for a later scene where K is upset that Joi has been destroyed wasn’t ‘realistic’. If technology has progressed to the point where in 2049, we can create near-sentient AI holograms, a secure back-up and restore facility would surely be ‘a thing’. This setup created an issue with the next major change I made to K’s encounter with Deckard in Vegas, therefore I had a 2nd reason to remove it. I’m toying with some ideas around how to address the pacing of the final act and if I do manage to find a convincing way to resolve this, the changes will be release as GA 1.1 The cut its self is quite savage however the inspiration for the name came from the title of a Gary Numan album ‘Savage’, which I feel would have been a better fit ‘musically’ speaking for Blade Runner 2049.

Change List:

Change list: 1. Moved Niandar and Luv’s unveiling of a new model scene to the start of the film. 2. Moved food market, K and hooker scene forward to help with the new chronology of events. Muted some of Freysa’s conversation with Mariette and the other hookers, to help with the new chronology of events. 3. Merged officer K and Sapper encounter scene and K’s revisit to Sapper’s home into one sequence. Introduced Lt Joshi into the flight scene to help explain why the box under the tree has been dug up prior to K’s arrival. Added flashback to help join the discovery of the tin box in the piano. Introduced slow motion whilst K walks away from Sappers burning home. 4. Shortened initial base-line scene and introduced some cuts from that scene earlier. This turned out to be a nod to the original film but the intention was to build more tension prior to the base-line. 5. Shortened Joshi’s voicemail message to K during Joi and K’s first outdoor scene, to help with the new chronology of events. 6. Removed Joshi and K’s exchange about the sock. I felt this was pretty weak dialogue wise and having officer K conceal some evidence helped K seem less passive. 7. Muted “we’ve just stopped a bomb going off” comment by Joshi during K’s debrief. Felt the dialog worked better without this comment and as noted earlier, I didn’t by in to the premise that replicants reproducing was a massive issue in the first place. 8. Added Mesa audio track from Blade Runner 2049 CD during the tense moment whilst K explains (misleads) Joshi about ‘taking care of’ the child. 9. Replaced dramatic music during the transition scene from Lt Joshi’s debrief to K’s home where Mariette, Joi and K meet, with Blade Runner Blues from the original film CD. 10. Added small clip of audio from track ‘The end of Things’ from Gary Numan Savage Album where Mariette finds the wooden horse. 11. Removed Joi’s activation jingle, to add more tension to the scene where Joi finds Mariette inspecting the wooden horse. 12. Removed K jokily asks Joi if she wanted a coffee. 13. Remove dialog relating to Joi and K’s discussion around transferring Joi to the mobile emitter. 14. Added subtle bee sound effects to fix sudden cut in the original film where the bee audio stops abruptly. 15. Removed K’s fight scene with Deckard and subsequent exposition that didn’t move the plot along. 16. Several cuts made to Deckard’s capture. 17. Luv is introduced during Deckard’s capture and attacks Deckard prior to him being taken away in a spinner. 18. Muted dialog where K mentions Rachels name and where K hears Deckard’s voice during a reflective moment during the resistance scene. 19. Trimmed interaction with Joi advert. Advert dialogue is now much shorter. 20. Deckard does not refer to K as Joe in the ocean rescue scene. This is the last we see of K, he walks off sounding and looking resentful. 21. Removed K from the final scene where Deckard meets his daughter (Stelline). Felt this scene was stronger without K. Added a moment of reflection before Deckard ascends the stairs to the upgrade centre. 22. Changed final scene music from ‘Tears in the Rain’ to ‘Rachel’s Song’. 23. Reduced overall film length by 20 minutes.

Additional Notes:

My approach to a fanedit starts with the initial seed of an idea and visualising what the edit might look like. This is almost entirely in my mind’s eye, by watching the source material over and over to understand if the seed of the idea has merit. Once I feel the edit is viable, I start to document the original story, isolating key plot points, setup’s and dialogue that are potential issues for the edit. Next there’s a more detailed analysis of the film using Premiere Pro to assist me with rapid prototyping of the edit and the ability to isolate audio and scrub quicky through the film to produce a rough draft. If the rough draft has merit, finally I commit to producing the edit, focusing in on graphical changes, audio work, masking, tightening up the cuts and the fine detail that goes into producing a finished edit.

Other Sources:

Blade Runner 2049 (Blu Ray) Blade Runner 2049 - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (CD) Blade Runner - Soundtrack (CD) Savage: Songs From A Broken World (CD).

Special Thanks:

Thank you to everyone who showed an interest in this edit, it definitely helped keep me motivated. A special thanks to Wraith, Inightmares, TheOmega for reviewing the edit and your suggestions. An extra special thanks to ArtIsDead for producing the excellent cover art, helping me navigate the submission process and for also reviewing the edit and making suggestions.