The original Blade Runner was influential in so many ways but fell short in being a movie that sustains itself. It is a movie that is in love with its ideas rather than concerned about pacing. A movie that lingers too long for art’s sake.

2049 takes the best parts of its predecessor and elevates it to its true and highest potential. Ridley Scott is a director who I have to give vast amounts of credit to, but whose work in his later years seems to meander and vascillate between hits and misses though lately it feels like a bunch of misses. And so, whomever thought it was a good idea to let Denis Villeneuve take the reins, well, bless their hearts.

This is a world that goes deeper than Scott could, a world that gives Deckard a real purpose and duty, and minces no words about what replicants are and what purpose they serve.

I’d rather not spoil anything more than that only to say that 2049 feels and hits close to home. It almost feels like a closely parallel timeline and reality to ours.

If the first film pondered why replicants were, this one shows them ingrained into society, and how they cope with their own worldview.

All in all, this is one of the best films I’ve seen this year, and is sci-fi done right. Kudos to all involved.