I won’t lie to you, folks, things are looking grim in our world these days. War, polarization, prejudice, and inequality seem to be the order of the day at Cafe de Earth, and just cracking open a newspaper can be a death sentence for that good day you thought you were having. Still, like a well-meaning friend attempting to console his companion after a botched performance of some kind, we can always fall back on that most durable of platitudes: it could be worse. The war could be nuclear, the prejudice could be genocidal, or we could be living in a late-stage capitalist hellscape of mega corporations with the power of governments, ecological disaster the world over, massive overpopulation, and a race of dangerous synthetic humans needing to be brought to heel by an elite force of police assassins. If you have anything more than a passing fondness for the science fiction genre, you’ll probably recognize that as being the plight of the dystopian future as seen in Blade Runner 2049, a 2017 cyber-noir directed by Denis Villeneuve, sequel to the 1982 Blade Runner and based on the world of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by legendary sci-fi author Phillip K. Dick. Blade Runner 2049’s vision of the future is undoubtedly dark (like, seriously, I think the sun might have gone out in this timeline), but holy mother of Asimov is it a future worth exploring. Blade Runner 2049 improves on its predecessor in every way (yes, I said it), exploring the world more deeply, benefited by stronger technology, and at the side of characters more rich, compelling, and empathetic. The performances are nothing less than exemplary, the special effects are eye-popping, and the tragic humanity at the core of this tale of men and not-quite-men brings to the fore some of the most pressing, elusive questions of the human condition. It is, in short, a masterpiece, and today Magellans at the Movies will bequeath to it that title and many more in our new episode. Do you dream of good podcasts? Then maybe you’ll find one once you’re done listening to ours!
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