Blade Runner 2049: So Many Plot Holes

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I have so many questions about Blade Runner 2049, the film is beautiful but it makes very little sense. These questions aren't a complete list and I haven't even finished the film.


If the secret of lifebearing replicants was lost, why wouldn't that include all replicants?
Why does Wallace kill a replicant and then complain he's not making enough of them?
Why did Tyrell give a lifebearing replicant an administrative job if its purpose was to breed?
Why are the pages of records torn out in the orphanage?
Why does K's appearance as a simple police inspection provoke Luv so much?
If Joshi gives K time to get away, why would she keep the tracer on him?
How come Luv is able to find K and send him hookers if she has no knowledge of the tracer or ability to trace K?
And send him an artillery attack on his attackers outside the remote orphanage?
Why is Luv able to enter the lieutenant's office alone and unaccompanied if the lieutenant* suspects her of stealing the bones?
Why has she not been investigated or arrested for that matter?
If the great blackout destroyed all data, why are audio archives of Deckard and Rachel still around?
Likewise, how does Wallace produce an identical copy of Rachel?
How come it doesn't include the childbearing aspect?
And why does Wallace suggest Deckard is a replicant - the whole point of the first film was that replicants cannot exceed their 4 year time span and its been over 20 years?



I liked the look, which would have been great except for the fact that it was so derivative. Like most sequels, I just don't get the Why? part of it, aside from some financial gamble on the part of studio execs. You could ask a whole lot of logic and continuity questions about the original, but you didn't because you just went with the visuals and the story. Once you start asking questions about replicant fertility, it's obvious that you are only partially engaged.



If the secret of lifebearing replicants was lost, why wouldn't that include all replicants?
Rachel was a one-off, but the replicants themselves, there's no secret to how to make them, which is why Wallace is making them

Why does Wallace kill a replicant and then complain he's not making enough of them?
Because he feels what he's currently doing is a fruitless effort anyway, and is angry that he can't make replicants that can breed

Why did Tyrell give a lifebearing replicant an administrative job if its purpose was to breed?

Rachel's purpose wasn't just to breed. Her purpose was to fall in love with Deckard, as explained by Wallace when he meets Deckard


Why are the pages of records torn out in the orphanage?
To hide the truth of the child

Why does K's appearance as a simple police inspection provoke Luv so much?
No idea what you mean.
Luv is twitchy anyway, and has seemingly been built/designed differently to other replicants. She's Wallace's personal replicant, so no wonder she's different

If Joshi gives K time to get away, why would she keep the tracer on him?
Because he's a replicant and probably has a tracer on him all the time regardless of whether or not he was malfunctioning

How come Luv is able to find K and send him hookers if she has no knowledge of the tracer or ability to trace K?
Luv didn't send the hookers. It was the resistance leader. Also, the hookers are part of the resistance.
Later in the movie though, Luv killed Joshi and accessed Joshi's computer to find K

And send him an artillery attack on his attackers outside the remote orphanage?
She attacked the scrappers so K could get into the orphanage and find where the child went. She's using, and protecting K, to get what she wants... the child. She's under order from Wallace to get the child as he feels this is the only way he can discover Tyrell's secret

Why is Luv able to enter the lieutenant's office alone and unaccompanied if the lieutenant* suspects her of stealing the bones?
Because Joshi is the only one, apart from K, who knows about the bones. The bones, and a replicant that can breed, must be kept absolutely secret.

Why has she not been investigated or arrested for that matter?
Again, because Joshi is the only one, apart from K, who knows about the bones. The bones, and a replicant that can breed, must be kept absolutely secret. If Joshi was to put out an arrest warrant on a replicant, and also that replicant being Wallace's own personal assistant, people would start asking questions

If the great blackout destroyed all data, why are audio archives of Deckard and Rachel still around?
As the guy explains, it'll be tough to get the audio files, but not impossible. As it happens, the audio file does kinda work still

Likewise, how does Wallace produce an identical copy of Rachel?
Luv brought the bones to him so he was able to use them to clone Rachel

How come it doesn't include the childbearing aspect?
Because that was a secret that died with Tyrell

And why does Wallace suggest Deckard is a replicant - the whole point of the first film was that replicants cannot exceed their 4 year time span and its been over 20 years?
The title card explains this. Nexus 8s, with open ended lifespans.
This also explains Sapper Morton. He was an old man, but still a strong powerful replicant, now working as a farmer. Joshi even says he was a tail-end Nexus 8.



That's pretty much exactly what I'd get at...that, if a person watches a movie and comes out with a whole laundry list of questions like this, then their emotions are not engaged and, if a movie doesn't engage a viewer, then why bother. Every movie has lots of details, visual clues, plot holes, logic mistakes and continuity issues. If it's a good story, you just ignore them because, after all, real life is messy too. Pondering about the possibility of replicant pregnancy seems to miss the point since there's no logical reason why a replicant, which after all, is a copy, would not get pregnant in the usual way. There's no fact to fall back on since there ARE no replicants, so just go with the story, otherwise, you get stuck on whether the Wizard of Oz Tin Man can have a heart, or what a hollow metal robot would to with it if he did have one.



That's pretty much exactly what I'd get at...that, if a person watches a movie and comes out with a whole laundry list of questions like this, then their emotions are not engaged...



I was going to put at the end of my post "If you'd actually watched the movie you wouldn't need to ask these questions" but I thought it might come across as a bit rude or harsh


True though.


If you've watch a movie, and have a huge list of questions at the end, you were probably in the kitchen cooking or out in the garden for most of the running time.



A system of cells interlinked
That's pretty much exactly what I'd get at...that, if a person watches a movie and comes out with a whole laundry list of questions like this, then their emotions are not engaged and, if a movie doesn't engage a viewer, then why bother. Every movie has lots of details, visual clues, plot holes, logic mistakes and continuity issues. If it's a good story, you just ignore them because, after all, real life is messy too. Pondering about the possibility of replicant pregnancy seems to miss the point since there's no logical reason why a replicant, which after all, is a copy, would not get pregnant in the usual way. There's no fact to fall back on since there ARE no replicants, so just go with the story, otherwise, you get stuck on whether the Wizard of Oz Tin Man can have a heart, or what a hollow metal robot would to with it if he did have one.
So wait... a film that is thought provoking, which generates many different issues to ponder and unpack, is somehow not engaging?

There is a clear and definite distinction between something being emotionally engaging and intellectually engaging, and I would argue that Blade Runner 2049 is both. Both the existential and character-driven mysteries are intellectually engaging, while the existential dread generated by Officer K's quest for his identity, as well as his discovery of his own humanity when he realizes he is willing to sacrifice himself to reunite a broken down father with his long lost daughter engage on an emotional level, quite successfully I might add.

The issues being addressed in this thread are actually what Blade Runner 2049 does better than many films of its ilk - engaging on both an intellectual and emotional level while presenting a stunning and believable future that works as an extension of the Blade Runner universe. Blade Runner 2049 knocks that stuff out of the park.

I am a big fan of the film, as well as the Blade Runner universe at large. That said, if I had to level any complaints at the excellent sequel to Blade Runner, it would be in the director's choice of shedding the tech-noir grittiness and exceptional attention to detail that sets the original apart from everything else in the genre. He got the setting right, but Ridley Scott was obsessive about tiny details, while Denis Villeneuve is not, at least not to the almost insane extent of Scott. Villeneuve drifted into Kubrickian sterility in the newer film, which in and of itself isn't a bad thing, but sort of flies in the face of the world building of the original.

Luv, while played well and is menacing enough in her own way, is no Roy Batty. Batty was a tragic monster, both vicious and cold as well as child-like, all at the same time. Luv is also these things, but the character comes off as a lesser simulacrum of Batty. Silvia Hoeks studied the Batty character intensely before shooting, and put herself a bit too much in Hauer's shoes when it came time to roll cameras. She failed to make Luv her own in a way that made the character iconic or memorable.

But hey, nothing new under the sun, as they say. Times are different now, and while we were never going to get something as mind-blowing or groundbreaking as the best film ever made, Blade Runner, I think it's a damned fine sequel, and I watch it fairly often these days.
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“It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.” ― Thomas Sowell



Luv, while played well and is menacing enough in her own way, is no Roy Batty. Batty was a tragic monster, both vicious and cold as well as child-like, all at the same time. Luv is also these things, but the character comes off as a lesser simulacrum of Batty. Silvia Hoeks studied the Batty character intensely before shooting, and put herself a bit too much in Hauer's shoes when it came time to roll cameras. She failed to make Luv her own in a way that made the character iconic or memorable.



I think what stood out to me the most about Luv, is she's been built in a world of apparently perfect Replicants, yet she's able to attack and even kill humans.
Replicants apparently now obey without question.

But she doesn't obey... unless it's Wallace that gives the order.
And her compliance to Wallace almost seems to be based on fear... which also shows something is wrong within the world of Replicants.
She has/feels fear... and gets kinda defensive when questioned by K about how she must be special if Wallace named her.
Her reaction is a quickly fired out response "I am here for Mr Wallace" and then the conversation is over.


To me, Luv is the embodiment of a faulted system, created purposely to be faulted, but posing as a perfect system, by Wallace himself.



A system of cells interlinked
I do like the character quite a bit, and her performance does contain a fair amount of nuance. It's not really her performance, which is excellent, but more the thematic construction and approach to the character on a macro level; the emotionally stunted psycho-bot with daddy issues.



So wait... a film that is thought provoking, which generates many different issues to ponder and unpack, is somehow not engaging?
It might be, but I've also seen where a lot of sci-fi fans especially, seem to bleed out the life of the story by focusing on technical BS like how light speed can be or not be surpassed or whether replicants can reproduce or whatever. Because all sci-fi is mainly fiction after all, I really prefer to just take all the technical stuff and put it into the givens of the plot. It's similar to horror movies where I just assume that werewolves ARE possible and, if they are possible then it's scary to be out at night. Suspension of disbelief is an essential part of enjoying any movie, otherwise it gets too easy to rationalize your way out of the plot conflicts and dangers, like rationalizing that I'd never have taken the maiden voyage of the Titanic because the food service might not have been running efficiently until they'd had a few trips.

In the case of the Blade Runner sequel, It wasn't that I didn't like the movie, so much as that it was a sequel, and like most (but not all) sequels, it didn't break much new ground.



A system of cells interlinked
It might be, but I've also seen where a lot of sci-fi fans especially, seem to bleed out the life of the story by focusing on technical BS like how light speed can be or not be surpassed or whether replicants can reproduce or whatever. Because all sci-fi is mainly fiction after all, I really prefer to just take all the technical stuff and put it into the givens of the plot. It's similar to horror movies where I just assume that werewolves ARE possible and, if they are possible then it's scary to be out at night. Suspension of disbelief is an essential part of enjoying any movie, otherwise it gets too easy to rationalize your way out of the plot conflicts and dangers, like rationalizing that I'd never have taken the maiden voyage of the Titanic because the food service might not have been running efficiently until they'd had a few trips.

In the case of the Blade Runner sequel, It wasn't that I didn't like the movie, so much as that it was a sequel, and like most (but not all) sequels, it didn't break much new ground.
I think I agree to the crux of your point if I am parsing it correctly, but I still don't think the point I have highlighted in bold above makes a whole lot of sense when considering the main themes of the original, and by extension, the sequel. I think my first question to you would be: why are you grouping a purely technical issue like how light speed works, which I agree would be a mistake to focus on too much in any film, and the ability to procreate, which is directly related to the main existential themes of the series as a whole?

More to come - I have to run out from the office right now. I have more to say, but I have to hit the road so I can make it home to exercise before my wife and daughter get home...