It's been more than 8 years since we had a live-action Blade Runner hit our screens. Although we've had anime like Blade Runner: Black Lotus, multiple comics, and a slew of short films, this cult-classic cyberpunk franchise always deserved to come back big since its last masterpiece, Blade Runner 2049, directed by Denis Villeneuve. Now we finally get an official teaser for the next pivotal chapter in the dystopian universe, and it looks like the bleak future we know and love, but unique.
Watch the official teaser for Prime Video's Blade Runner 2099 series below:
For the uninitiated, this world is about replicants, biosynthetic androids who are indistinguishable from humans, except that they have built-in obsolescence that causes them to die automatically. Blade Runners are "officers" hired to hunt and "retire" (kill) rogue replicants.
Blade Runner 2099, like its predecessors, evolves the world-building profoundly. The number one question I had after watching Blade Runner 2049 for the first time was what would happen to the replicant revolution that was brewing. Thankfully, that plotline hasn't been forgotten. It's the central foundation for this entire series. The revolution, the war –– it already happened, and the humans lost.
Now humans are treated like "skin jobs," as the humans used to treat replicants, who now rule Los Angeles. Replicants are also aware of the time they'll expire, which will create anxiety for Michelle Yeoh's (Everything, Everywhere, All at Once) replicant character, Olwen. The human race in this future, as a collective, seems desperate for the power they once had. However, for the individual, like Hunter Schafer's human character Cora, who pretends to be a replicant, it may feel that it's hard to belong anywhere in a world that deems you less than human, or a first-class citizen. Tyrell's quote may still hold in many replicants' hearts: "More human than human."
One thing about Blade Runner projects, especially for the live-action movies, is that they're known for spectacular cinematography with a distinct voice. Blade Runner 2099 shows locales and environments unlike anything we've seen in the franchise before, even a glimpse at space travel. The tone of the screenplay is much different than the past two movies or anything in the franchise. Instead of a cold, rainy city at night, it seems much warmer, and we see many scenes in daylight. I quite like it, though I may be biased because sunset red and desert orange are my favorite colors, and it also reminds me of the irradiated zones Officer K (Ryan Gosling) explored in Blade Runner 2049 to find Deckard (Harrison Ford). The city landscapes are impressive, too, but the live-action movies are famous for their miniature cities built on set, shot with real cameras. I wonder how much of Blade Runner 2099 is practical versus CGI.
It's interesting that replicants now know when they're going to die. I would've assumed that all replicants, if they're still mass-producing themselves, would give themselves open-ended lifespans like what was introduced in Blade Runner 2049. Maybe that technology was destroyed in the war and could be a subplot for some replicant characters searching for a way to extend their life. Olwen is supposedly near the end of her lifecycle, but replicants have lived longer than her. That's if you want to accept that Deckard is a replicant. But she'll eventually go the way of Roy Batty. As Olwen and Cora meet, the war between humans and replicants may not be over, so I'm interested in what their goal together, a replicant Blade Runner and a human, will be.
Silka Luisa (Shining Girls) will serve as showrunner and executive producer while Ridley Scott, who directed the first Blade Runner, will guide the project as executive producer. They even have Jonathan van Tulleken (Shögun) to write the first two episodes. With this talent combined, I'm feeling optimistic.
It's a pleasant surprise that Blade Runner 2099 is releasing much sooner than expected. All eight episodes drop November 25 on Prime Video.
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