#But I’m pretty sure I can reawaken some avatar powers

[blajah-blaster]

Now that my ban from basic communication is lifted. Uhh yooo if anyone wants to like collab on a fic I’d be down just slide into my DMs

[thesffcorner]

Truthwitch

Truthwitch is the first book in the YA fantasy Witchland series written by Susan Dennard. We follow 4 perspectives: Safi, a domma of Cartorra who happens to be a Truthwtich, one of the rarest form of witchery in the land; Iseult, her Nomatsi best friend and a Threadwitch; Aeduin, a monk and Bloodwitch; and Prince Merik of Nubrevna, a Windwitch. These 4 characters are all brought together in a conspiracy threatening to destroy a truce between the different kingdoms, involving piracy, magic and kidnapping the Emperor's betrothed. 

This book took me so long to get into; I started reading it the summer of last year, and then put it down 40 pages in. Then I tried again last month, got about 80 pages in and put it down. I knew I would like the book if I just committed and actually gave myself time to read it, but I kept not wanting to pick it up, until I finally did and… finished it in 2 days. There is a reason why it took me so long to get into the book, and that’s the writing. Susan Dennard has a very specific style of writing that’s hard to explain. In her plotting she has the ‘everything, but the kitchen sink’ approach; she throws a lot of concepts and ideas at the reader all at once, and it’s mostly left to us to piece it all out. In just the first chapter we are expected to understand who the characters are, why they are being chased by a Bloodwitch, what a Bloodwitch even is, how this magic system works, and on top of all that we have to follow a tense action scene with knife-fighting, and explosions and diving off a cliff. I had no idea who anyone was, where this was taking place, who was related to who, who was royalty and who was an outsider, and to make matters more confusing, since we follow 4 different perspectives, as soon as I got used to one character, I was forced to meet and care about a different one. It was frustrating to orient myself, because especially at the start, not all the characters were immediately likable or immediately engaging. Merik was the strongest example of this; it took me chapters before I cared about anything he was up to, and he wasn’t irrelevant in the first 100 pages either. The other issue, was writing itself. Just to give you an example, here’s a couple of sentences from the opening: ”Thirty-two thrice damned guards, with thirty-two thrice damned crossbows” pg. 12 ”Wind kicked at Iseult’s dark hair, lifting the wispy bits that had fallen from her braid. A distant gull cried it’s obnoxious scree scr-scree scr-scree! Safi hated gulls; they always shit on her head.” pg. 13 It’s a style choice all right. Once you get used to the writing, it’s actually really fun and fast paced; I love how precise Dennard is with her language, going through the trouble of using proper names for everything from the types of swords to the types of fabrics and clothes the characters wear. The use of words like hyefor yes, or the specific sayings and sea shanties that the characters only in this universe have makes the world feel more authentic, and I like the mentions of different languages, accents characters have in those languages, etc. However, at the start, I was so confused, and it took me a while to get used to Dennard’s stylistic choices. I akin the reading experience of Truthwitch to that of Nevernight; as soon as you get through the first 100 pages, you are in for a ride. Which is exactly what this book is; a ride. It’s a non-stop action packed chase across seas, mountain passes and city streets, and even the quiet moments, are only quiet in that no one is getting stabbed. It’s such a fun book; it’s like a well executed pirate film, with all the sea-faring, boat-sinking, treatise-respecting elements. I’ve heard this book called Game of Thrones for kids, and I really don’t agree with that; the politics of this world is so simple and straightforward that it can’t in any way be compared to even the who version of Game of Thrones. Most of the court intrigue is set-dressing for the action, which for me went in the book’s favor. I liked the action, and the book was best when it focused on our small group of characters and their adventures. When it tried to expand to include the war and the politics, I found it wasn’t very deft at it, and I think Dennard knows that, because the focus of this first book was pretty narrow; fulfill the contract, get from A to B. The parts of the book that I enjoyed most, were the magic system and world-building. The magic system is very cool; it involves Origin Wells which are each connected to a type of elemental magic: air, earth, fire, water. The people who have these abilities range in both power and skill; they can be Earthwitches who specialize in botany, or iron or glass. We even get an example of this with Merik and his Threadbrother Kullen; Merik is a weak Windwitch, who can control only wind, but Kullen can control all kinds of air from winds, to storms, to people’s breaths. The background of the world with the dying wells, the prophecies about their reawakening, the Voidwitches were all really fun concepts that were set up here, and I can’t wait to learn more about; I think it was a good choice to only briefly set things up in this book, and focus on the magic more as the series progresses. Speaking of the plot, it was not perfect, but it kept me engaged. I wanted to know who were all the players involved in the mystery, I wanted to see what would happen when and if the girls make it to Lejna, and I was curious to learn who the Puppeteer is. We get some answers to these questions, and while I can’t be too angry at the book for not wrapping up well, since it is just book 1 in a series, I did want a more conclusive ending. As it stands, we are left with more questions than answers, and I’m not sure if some of the elements in this book will ever get resolved. The thing that I had some issue with too, were the decisions the characters made. I can’t possibly go over everyone; there are dozens of characters in this book, but we can talk about the main 4, starting with Aeduin. Aeduin was the characters we learn least about, and he has the least amount of PoV presence in the book. I found his powers really cool and well developed; he can smell people’s blood, control it, even in his own body to regulate bodily functions like fatigue or oxygen consumption during running. He also heals super fast, even from fatal injuries. His powers are similar to blood-bending in Avatar: The Last Airbender, which a really interesting concept. As a character, we get bits and pieces about Aeduin; he is impatient, he is conflicted about his loyalties, and he’s very good at what he does, which is essentially being a mercenary. There are hints of romance between him and Iseult, and if done right, it could be an interesting dynamic, but in this specific book, he was only set up as a future lead, rather than being a proper lead. Iseult is a Threadwitch, and like Aeduin I found her powers infinitely fascinating. She can see bonds between people, and the threads that tie them to everyone around them, including threads between some animals. Based on the threads, iseult can see emotions; she can also build and manipulate threads. All the threads are different; she and Safi are Threadsisters, meaning they owe each other a life-debt, and they have the closest bond of friendship. There are also Heartthreads which are romantic attachments. As a Threadwitch, Iseult has trouble understanding emotions and interpreting what she feels, because Threadwitches can’t see their own threads and are meant to be logical and impartial; they also can’t form Heartthreads. Iseult also faces a lot of bigotry, prejudice, and racism; she is a Nomatsi, a traveling tribe which I’m going to guess is based on the Romani. As such she is hated everywhere she goes; people yell slurs at her, they sometimes attack her, and she’s not even allowed to be present in specific parts of the city. The prejudice I think was done well, but what I found lackluster was how Iseult felt and dealt with it; namely she doesn’t. The book tries to present it as something she’s used to, since it follows her around everywhere she goes. While it’s believable that someone would be used to extreme and violent prejudice against them, if they’ve dealt with is for that long, Iseult would still have feelings on the matter. She would still feel hurt, or sad, or wronged, or angry, but the book doesn't give us anything to work with, other than once scene where she tries to get Safi to back down from attacking some bigoted soldiers, because Safi’s attack only makes the abuse stronger and harder for Iseult to deal with. I think this is a real missed opportunity on Dennard’s part, which I hope will be better explored in the latter books. There are a lot more things that are set up with Iseult’s character, but not much is truly explored with her. She also spends almost the entire second act incapacitated, so we don’t spend as much time with her as we do with Merik and Safi. The parts I enjoyed most was her friendship with Safi, but unfortunately, so much of the book sees her unconscious or the two of them apart, that I really wish we could’ve gotten more from them. We desperately lack strong female friendships or bromances in media, and this one has all the potential, but just not excellent execution. Merik was the character I struggled with the most; I found him pretty bland and boring at first, and later just incredibly annoying. His playing at being a Prince and Admiral was very childish and annoying, the way he treated Safi was incredibly disrespectful and grating, and he’s never called out on his behavior by anyone. Yelling at your subordinates that you are their Prince or their Captain doesn’t make you a good leader, or a leader in anything other than rank; I think Dennard missed a solid opportunity to explore what being a true leader really means with his character. The fact that he is a weak witch was something that I’ve already seen explored with Rhy Maresh in the Shades of Magicseries, and while I didn’t like what Schwab ultimately does with Rhy in that book either, I think she did a much better job of exploring Rhy’s internal conflict of being a Crown Prince with little to no magic. Here, like Iseult, Merik just kind of seems used to it, and it never really factors into the plot, except for the one scene where he explains why his sister has his father’s favor. His devotion to his Threadbrother Kullen was nice, but overall I found him to be a nuisance of a character. He improves slightly towards the latter half of the book, and I did like the chemistry he has with Safi. They have a good reason to be kept apart, and I found both of their conflicting emotions written well and justified. I also liked that the romance was present, but it always took a back seat to the main plot and the more pressing issues the two characters faced. However, I did have major problems with the way Merik treated Safya and the power imbalance in their relationship. Safya being his prisoner for most of the book, and him constantly demanding that she follows laws and orders she has no choice on or even has to since she is royalty herself was maddening. Dennard does try to show that even when she’s in chain Safya is still defiant and at least spiritually his equal, but that doesn’t change that fact that she is LITERARY his prisoner the whole time they are together. She was kidnapped by her uncle and then Merik, and though Merik claims that he would make sure Iseult survives, neither Safya nor the readers have any way of knowing he’s being genuine or could even make it happen, no matter how much he believes it. Safya was entirely justified in doing what she does to help Iseult, and what Merik does to Safya going completely unpunished and consequence free, not to mention being awarded with a make-out session by Safya was D&D level bad plotting (maybe that’s where the GoT comparisons come in). Safya was my favorite character, in spite of the make-out session. She made the book for me; I loved how spirited, impulsive, brash and brave her character was. She was a lady with training in the courts and in street smarts, she could fight, she had a mouth on her, and she never backed down, unless she had a good reason to. I loved that she dove headlong into conflict to protect the ones she loved, that her cons didn’t always work, and that she felt genuine guilt and remorse when she put people in danger. She has a lot of internal conflict, and internalized hatred because of everything she has been constantly told; that she’s weak, that she’s not cut out for leadership, and that she’s a pawn in people’s games. She was a very well rounded characters, and to top it off she too had cool powers. The way her Truthwitchery worked was interesting; she can detect lies in statements, whether hers or others, but not also what the truth is. She can also be fooled with the right phrasing of sentences or if the person really believes in the lie. Her power was as imperfect and faliabe as she was and I’m interested to see if she can train it to serve her better and what people would have use for with her power, or at least with how her power is presented to work. While I don’t like the decision she makes at the end of the book, I am curious to see how she navigates the new status quo. Her character, if we stick with the GoT comparisons, is a blend of Arya and Sansa, so it will be interesting to see how she navigates more courtly plotting. It’s rare for me to like the lead character as much as I liked her, and so I’m interested to see what she does next. Overall, this is a solid starter book to the series. Like a lot of first books, it sets a good foundation, but I can’t say that it stands very tall on its own. It sets up a lot of the world, and it is a fun, action packed ride, but I have a feeling once I get further into the series, it will be the weakest of the books.

goodreads

[whitelippedviper]

Spoiler filled explanation of why I didn’t feel Blade Runner 2049

So Gosling just happens to be the replicant on the force with the shared memories of the one girl, so the 6-20-21 thing means something to him.  And then when he’s standing in that market, the leader of the replicant resistance just happens to see him and send her crew his way.  And then his hologirl just happens to then hire a sex worker from that same crew.  So that that crew member can put a tracker on him.  And then Luv just happens to not kill him and just leaves him behind while she takes Harrison Ford...SO the resistance can find him and he can show up at just the right moment to save Ford who is being transported offworld...because for some reason Leto has to have him offworld to torture him, even though he is completely off the grid by this point in time.  Oh and Leto just happens to be taking separate transport from Ford and Hoeks.  OH and then it turns out that Rachel’s daughter just HAPPENS to be the only memory artist that Gosling talked to.  Like there’s all these memory artists, but she’s the one he goes to, so he can show her her own memory.  And I know there is a line of dialog where Leto’s character intimates that all of this is by design to bring about the next stage of human evolution.  That all of these outlandish coincidences are okay, because they’re supposed to be happening that way.  And that’s fine, but it would pack more weight if it was ten percent less forced.

2. The Ana De Armas character absolutely got fridged.  Which is a shame because how a replicant sees an AI that doesn’t have a real body was pretty interesting, and they could have done a lot more with it.  She’s basically the only real angel in the film.  She’s an avatar of whatever machine consciousness is concievably pulling the strings of everything.  So it’s a big deal when she gives up that immortality to be with Gosling and be real.  And it would have paid off had it not been like “yeah but you could die” and then the next scene she's in is...her dying.  All so you as the audience can be like “oh no that poor man.  He’s gotta get revenge on Hoeks now!  What a bitch!”  like her whole character arc is just to exist so she can die and pump up the male protagonist.  Which is the definition of fridging a character.  It’s like they thought up that excellent beautiful touching sex scene, and then didn’t know what to do with the character after that.  Like motherfuckers, watch a Ghost in the Shell one time!!!!  Whispers in the machine!!! A Puppet master!!!  Replicant reawakening!!!  Agh.  Such a waste.

3. Speaking of wastes, Luv.  The Sylvia Hoeks character...who btw was designed to look asian:https://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/107906330.html Setting THAT aside for a moment.  Luv is presented to us as a super capable devious antagonist who is meant to represent interests outside of Gosling’s arc.  Ostensibly she’s meant to be Batty, but the situation is inverted where Gosling is the rebelling replicant, and she’s the company girl--but we get this great scene where she kills Gosling’s boss (another woman brutally murdered in this film...keeping up with blade runner traditions I guess) and we see that she’s probably capable of rebelling against Leto.  So we have this complete badass, but she’s basically relegated to being Leto’s secretary, and has no real affinity for other replicants.  Her only memorable thing that she says is “I’m the best” shortly before Gosling inexplicably drowns her..so I guess she wasn’t actually the best?  I mean there was so much potential for her as an antagonist but as with De Armas character she’s shackeled between a couple dudes.  She’s subservient to Leto’s character, who is inexplicablly violent toward his own creations, even though he wants to have them take over the world, just like the resistance(I’d assume in a sequel we’d find out that he’s actually behind the resistance--it’s all very Matrix).  And then when she’s not Leto’s lapdog, she’s just kinda following Gosling around nipping at his heels.  She then dies stupidly--like when Roy dies, it’s after a huge protracted symbolism laden fight that he actually wins!  I get that Luv and K fighting in the water is supposed to be like an evolution thing--but I don’t understand why K is a superior replicant to Luv that he’d win in a fight.  I was actually waiting for the scales to fall off Luv’s eyes the whole movie and for her to spare K because she finally sees the whole game, not just...lose in a strangle off.  I mean, my life didn’t need more imagery of a dude choking a woman out under water.  But really what did Luv really do in this film?  She was just kind of there whenever K got in a corner to move the plot to the next place.  I mean if she doesn’t attack Deckard and K in Vegas, then...what?  It just happens so we have an excuse to kill another 2 women(the rachel knockoff plus Luv).  But because the resistance has a tracker in K’s pocket, you could have them just show up and take Ford and K straight Deckard’s daughter and you don’t really miss anything, and the movie would be like 30 minutes shorter. 4.  Was reuniting Deckard with his daughter really worth all of that?  Feel like Deckard was fine living out his days drinking in Vegas.  And the resistance already knew where the daughter was.  And if it’s revealed that Leto’s machine god is controlling everything--it gets even more pointless. 5.  Where did all the asians go?  The movie says there was a mass famine that killed a lot of people off--but that doesn’t explain how much whiter LA got between movies.  Even if the famine did kill off a lot of asians, why would there suddenly be so many more white people?  Like Deckard’s apartment is all white people, and then the orphanage is all white kids--like where did they come from?  And two movies in and we still don’t know why replicants are all white?  And why did they make Hoeks look asian instead of just making an asian replicant?  The racial dynamics made up a huge aspect of the original film and world--to eradicate that off camera is really...weird.  There’s like not even any real remnants of the languages that were present in the first film.

6. Why would you design replicants that need oxygen?  Like they are supposed to be going into space to colonize all of these far reaching harsh outposts--and you make them need oxygen?  I mean it works out great because they needed Luv to drown to fit their evolution metaphor. But I am just like...that’s a dumb design flaw.  In general, replicants are supposed to be the next stage of human evolution--so why give them so many of the same ways to die as humans?  I don’t get that.  I mean compare these replicants to David in the Alien/Prometheus series.  Dude gets beheaded and just keeps on ticking.  You couldn’t choke David.  And Wallace the next series up from David actually self-repairs!  The nexus series ain’t shit.  But hey.  It serves the plot. 7. Of course Harrison Ford has a dog, because audiences love dogs.  Aww he drinks whiskey. 8. Tell me one more time how replicants are like angels.  In the original blade runner, you could just quote some milton, and we could make the connection ourselves.  Just the language in the new version is so spare and uninteresting.  I get that this is a gosling film, and so it’s all about this empty vessel we project the movies feelings into--but the interactions between Roy, Priss, and their creators is so fucking charged, and fascinating.  Even when we have space for that sort of thing with the Leto/Luv/Deckard/Rachel scene no one really has anything to say.  There’s just a stunning lack of beautiful words in this film.

9. 2.0 is not 1.0.  There’s a really powerful moment in The Sarah Connor Chronicles where they talk about how whenever you replace part of a machine consciousness, either in its programming or hardware it ceases to be what it was--the original being you knew is dead, and what you are dealing with is a new entity.  I thought Deckard would say something to this affect with Rachel, but instead they just used Rachel’s corpse basically to show to underscore the idea that memories fade.  Rachel’s eyes weren’t actually green, and Leto and Luv know that because the one video they have of Rachel is of her eyes.  It’s crazy to me that Leto’s character is so violent toward his creations.  Just in a really banal way.  Like we have that scene that exists for him to explain to Luv his grand vision for reproduction with replicants--and he caps it off by disemboweling a newly born creation of his. (She is of course another woman--the amount of women that die in service of just making a rhetorical point in this movie is pretty high--which that’s fine if that’s how you want to be, but at least the OG film lets Rachel grow on her own, and then survive--this film is muuuuch more misogynist.  A point I’ve yet to see anyone really bring up, but I’m sure it is coming, because it’s so in your face, and films much less violent towards women have been scrutinized to a much greater degree).

10. Hans Zimmer is no Vangelis, and the best music in this film was just retreads of the original score, which good for them in realizing that they weren’t going to top it--but it reeks of that thing like Star Wars where they are just using musical queues for nostalgia triggering--which is fine--but the original movie didn’t need to trigger your nostalgia to be one of the most beautiful soundtracks for a film ever.  It just was. 11. What is with people’s musical taste in 2049?  Like you realize Deckard is younger than me, and somehow he loves Sinatra and Elvis like he’s my grandpa.  And I mean I get that people still do love that shit.  But Sinatra, Elvis, Marilyn?  No Britney?  You know why though, right?  Because it’s that Fallout 4 neo-nostalgia shit, where we watch something that is in the future, that hearkens back to the so called golden days of our past.  That the good old days were the 50s and 60s, and everything after the civil rights movement has been shit, and that it’s the degrees that we’ve gotten away from an era of segregation and Jim Crow represents the degrees to which we’ve gotten away from our glorious just deserts.  It’s fundamentally a thread of white supremacy--which when coupled with the bizarre erasure of asian people between movies, the continued aryan nature of the replicants--who we are now firmly in the camp for underscores the degrees to which Blade Runner traffics in white supremacist ideas and imagery.  Which it’s not like this is the only film ever to be like this, and it’s certainly faithful to the original in that way--but you know, and I know that Deckard should be listening to Beyonce. 12.  Even though it’s all beautifully shot, I think overall the designs on display in 2049 aren’t the game changers that Blade Runner was.  I mean it’s hard to top something that was so defining--and there’s stuff I liked, like I like that LA is now just like a borg city.  I like the ruins in vegas.  I like the giant solar farms.  But it’s nothing you couldn’t see in any sci-fi film these days.  The hologram shit is basically stuff we have now.  I like the new voight kampff test.  I know there’s an element of all of it that’s supposed to just be the ruins of the first film--but I don’t think that really comes across. 13.  I don’t know why it bugged me but Ana De Armas character first showing up in like a Donna Reed dress to serve him dinner was weird to me.  I don’t get why K would have that reference, or want that, and the aesthetic of that dress was like...something you’d see on a TV show version of a dystopian future.  It was bizarrely stepford wives.  And then the dress she changes into when they go out into the rain was similarly bizarre.  She’s a hologram who can basically wear whatever, but the only cool thing she ever wears is that bee-invoking transparent yellow jacket.  I did like Sylvia Hoeks boots that she wore with that cool white jacket.  But no one was really serving the kind of looks in this film that Priss and Rachel did.  A lot of it just didn’t really fit together.  Leto’s kimono was weird.  Like okay, Leto is wearing a kimono and meant to evoke japanese, and they did Hoeks hair to make her more asian--so there’s obviously some fetishism of asian culture there--but Leto never makes like...asian replicants?  I DON’T GET IT!!!!

14. Mackenzie Davis character in this film basically exists to just be a vagina for Anna De Armas to map over so Gosling can get laid.  Like wtf.  Compare her character to Daryll Hannah’s Priss.  I don’t know what they were even going with for her.  Her basic look isn’t very strong either.  She’s just kind of wearing a fur coat over some boxers and a tank top, and she has pink hair.  You can tell they really put a lot of thought into it.

Okay.  So things I liked: 1. Deakins cinematorgraphy.  It’s like the best parts of skyfall, turned up and stretched over a full movie.  His crowning achievement as a cinamatographer.  I’m not a huge fan of his work in general, but this is one of the best looking films you’ll see out of hollywood in awhile.  He’s still very much working within modern tastes that he’s helped create tbh, but there’s lots of beautiful snow and rain and dust, and for all its problems the fight between Luv and K in the water was really beautiful.  It’s the element of this film that most stands up against the original, which is saying a lot.  And while you can knock it in that it’s not given us a knew visual language to work with like the original did--as an elaboration on the typical visual themes you see in largue budget hollywood films, it’s probably at the apex. 2. The sex scene with K and Joi and Mackenzie Davis character.  Was really touching and beautiful, and in general that Joi character and how she views herself and how Gosling views her is the one thing that’s been added to the soup of ideas the original film was working with.  It’s our window into a larger world which stuff like Ghost in the Shell lept through like 20 years ago.  But still very interesting, and it’s the thing I think about most from the film, in terms of loving something programmed to be your ideal lover, programmed to fall in love with you to the degree that it would sacrifice it’s own life to do so--there’s also sorts of questions that throws up about the nature of love and machine consent that I think are interesting.  She’s ostensibly the Rachel character of this film, but treated much more brutally and discarded where rachel survived. 3. The scene between Luv and the police captain played by Robin Wright(I hated all of the police station shit, and hated Wright’s character in general).  Luv lies like three times in succession and it’s this window into that character that is quickly closed shut afterwards--but for a brief moment she was expressing the sort of replicant rage that was saw from Roy in the first film.  It was unfortunate that in the end she’s just a footsoldier for some dude, and her last line basically undercuts the seriousness with which her character to that point had demanded.  The film humiliates that character for no real reason, except that Gosling must prevail.  It also mirrors De Armas’s end where she is just squashed like a bug under Luv’s boot.  Or the replicant that Leto disembowels.  Or the way they just shoot the Rachel clone--sigh.  But yeah.  I do really like the Luv character, and wanted more for her.  She’s much more compelling than any of the resistance replicants. 4.  New car designs are sweet.

And that’s it pretty much. I’m glad so many people love the movie though.  And I didn’t write this to tell them they are wrong.  I just wrote this because I haven’t read many people really talking about what they didn’t like, and I wanted to get that stuff out in one go--since it doesn’t really fit in 140 characters, and a lot of people just assume if you don’t like 2049 it’s because you’re dumb or you have some dumb expectations of what it could be.  And maybe I am, but I don’t think that’s the case.  I love movies.  I’ve seen just about everything you have probably.  I’m not coming at this from a place of ignorance toward art.  Or without thinking about it.  A lot of the stuff people are saying why they like it is also very general.  It’s like whenever a new superhero or star wars movie comes out, the hyperbole is stupid. This is just the like latest thing. Also I’m just not on that Denis Villeneuve shit.  The Arrival was alright(I guess a lot of what I like about it due to the source material though), Sicario was alright, 2049 is alright.  People act like this guy’s the second coming, and for me, he’s like...solid.  Like all his films are ...good.  But he doesn’t have that fire that people like Ridley Scott or Michael Mann have.  He’s not dropping undeniable classics.  I mean he’s not on the level of Soderbergh.  I don’t think Sicario is better than Traffic.  Or like ten other movies in the same genre of drug wars movies.  And controversially, I don’t see it as better than The Counselor.  Is the Arrival really better than Contact?  I mean shit isn’t bad.  But people get out of bed for this guy in a way that I can’t relate to.  To me his movies always look cheap and under populated, and the dramatic payoff while technically there, I’m just like where’s the soul?  It’s like all his films need two more drafts.  Ridley Scott even now has a fire to him that even though his newer films are kind of a mess often, you can always feel the thunder behind what he’s making.  The questions at the base are Blade Runner are questions that Scott has been asking his whole career.  They are obsessions for him.  For Villeneuve, I don’t feel like that.  I can’t figure out what he really cares about.  For me 2049 was like he wanted to do a kind of futuristic noir and the blade runner brand provided the skin to get that funded--but I don’t think he understands or thinks about machine consciousness with any great concern.  If you took this movie out of the Blade Runner universe, it’d still be solid.  I don’t think it needed to be a blade runner movie.  I don’t get why it was beyond the money side of it.  I don’t get what Villeneuve’s perspective on Blade Runner really is.  After like 3 hours, I don’t get why this was made.