Guest Post by Jim Kunstler
I took myself to the new movie Blade Runner 2049 to see what kind of future the Hollywood dream-shop is serving up in these days. It was an excellent illustration of the over-investments in technology with diminishing returns that are dragging us into collapse and of the attendant techno-narcissism that afflicts the supposedly thinking class in this society, who absolutely don’t get what this collapse is about. The more computer magic Hollywood drags into the picture, the less coherent their story-telling gets. Hollywood is collapsing, and it’s not just because of Harvey Weinstein’s antics.
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Movies of this genre are really always more about the current moment than about the future, and Blade Runner 2049 is full of hilarious retro-anachronisms — things around us now which will probably not be in the future. The signature trope in many sci-fi dystopias of recent times is the assumed ever-presence of automobiles.
The original Mad Max was little more than an extended car chase — though apparently all that people remember about it is the desolate desert landscape and Mel Gibson’s leather jumpsuit. As the series wore on, both the vehicles and the staged chases became more spectacularly grandiose, until, in the latest edition, the movie was solely about Charlize Theron driving a truck. I always wondered where Mel got new air filters and radiator hoses, not to mention where he gassed up. In a world that broken, of course, there would be no supply and manufacturing chains.
So, of course, Blade Runner 2049 opens with a shot of the detective played by Ryan Gosling in his flying car, zooming over a landscape that looks more like a computer motherboard than actual earthly terrain. As the movie goes on, he gets in and out of his flying car more often than a San Fernando soccer mom on her daily rounds. That actually tells us something more significant than all the grim monotone trappings of the production design, namely, that we can’t imagine any kind of future — or any human society for that matter — that is not centered on cars.
But isn’t that exactly why we’ve invested so much hope and expectation (and public subsidies) in the activities of Elon Musk? After all, the Master Wish in this culture of wishful thinking is the wish to be able to keep driving to Wal Mart forever. It’s the ultimate fantasy of a shallow “consumer” society. The people who deliver that way of life, and profit from it, are every bit as sincerely wishful about it as the underpaid and overfed schnooks moiling in the discount aisles. In the dark corners of so-called postmodern mythology, there really is no human life, or human future, without cars.
This points to the central fallacy of this Sci-fi genre: that technology can defeat nature and still exist. This is where our techno-narcissism comes in fast and furious. The Blade Runner movies take place in and around a Los Angeles filled with mega-structures pulsating with holographic advertisements. Where does the energy come from to construct all this stuff? Supposedly from something Mr. Musk dreams up that we haven’t heard about yet. Frankly, I don’t believe that such a miracle is in the offing.
The denizens of this 2049 Los Angeles are a rabble of ragged scavengers bolting down bowls of ramen in the never-ending drizzle. Apparently they have nothing to do, nothing useful or gainful, that is. So you can’t help wondering how this hypothetical economy supports such population of no-accounts. I mean, we do know how our current economy supports the millions who are out of the work force, bolting their ramen between visits to the tattoo parlor: by giveaways based on pervasive accounting fraud backed by the now dwindling supply of oil that can be profitably extracted from the ground. But that won’t continue much longer. Know why? Because things that can’t go on, don’t.
One thing Blade Runner 2049 gets right in its retro-anachronistic borrowings from the present is the awesome joylessness of the culture. The artistry in this vision of the future is especially vivid in illuminating the absence of real artistry in contemporary “postmodern” American life. Sleek mechanical surfaces are everything, with no substance beneath the surface.
I walked out after two hours, and there was plenty more to go. It was too dreary, and too intellectually insulting to endure. I don’t blame Ryan Gosling, though. His look of doleful skepticism throughout the proceedings was perfect.
Ryan Gosling’s eyes are too close together. With all their CGI, couldn’t they fix that? He looks like a halibut.
Thanks Iska for putting that vision in my head. Now whenever I see Gosling in a movie I’m going to get hungry for some fish and chips.
Thanks for the review. I was half thinking about seeing it this afternoon, if for no other reason to hide from the smoky air enveloping my neck of the woods. The present is dreary enough; I don’t need a dose of The Things To Come.
Hollywood has really declined in so many ways.
The horror genre has nothing new or creative. SciFi is mostly remakes…many of my faves of old are now redone poorly, with more effects or are in “Spider-Man 2, Spider-Man 3, Iron Man 17, Avengers 5- “A new Enemy from space or alternate dimension”…..yawn.
For some mindless distraction and to enjoy a few good costumes and explosions I may sit through one on my Hulu but otherwise, the Hollywood writers have really degenerated in their creativity.
Even comedies aren’t funny with potty humor, poor efforts at double entendre and lots of PC cracks and thinly veiled political potshots.
dammit, javelin, your cynicism is jaw-dropping. I wish I had beat you to that description of current cinema, to use the term loosely. Ever watch a movie with the sound off? I have heard a viewer on the treadmill next to me and I don’t understand their snicker or ooh, the movie looks like a hodge podge of unrelated scenes.
Now, if you ever wandered in after getting your eyes dilated, persistence of vision fails you, the movie looks like somebody turned on a strobe light in the theater. (Walk around sometime while blinking your eyes rapidly, that is what a movie really looks like.) So, watching a movie with the sound off is like watching one with your eyes dilated; disconnected scenes follow each other but you never notice because the sound effects provide the continuity.
That is the key difference that makes American movies seem so much better than foreign movies, sort of like the added flavorings and carcinogens that make American cigarettes seem so much better than foreign smokes. They have to keep tweaking the special effects to remain competitive with Chinese and Indian cinema. In the end, American movie making may go the way of Mexican movies. Mexico had very talented movie makers way back when, now they produce cheap shoot’em-ups and other crap.
I saw this teaser headline that there was no truth to the rumor Justin Bieber wanted to get acting lessons from Adam Sandler. Ha! We’re back the the fifties as far as acting capacity, and the mere story that Justin Beiber wants to be an actor is reason enough to avoid movies for a decade or two until the idiots learn to rely more on real acting and less on fake CGI action.
Maybe getting rid of Harvey is a blessing in disguise, shit, throw them all out if they have made movies with CGI, facelift actors, pretty boys like Ryan Gosling or Ben Affleck and hams like – you name it – any black actor mugging onscreen.
EC
Interesting how the author’s focus is so very different than the movie.
1) Megastructures. Sure. But even in the promos, you can see the trash in the streets, the run down abandoned buildings and so forth which is the original Blade Runner’s thesis (unlike the original Philip Dick story): that the future is a world of haves and have nots.
2) Cars. Somehow a literal handful of flying cars vs. the billions of personal automobiles is the same thing. Another point of the original movie was that most people couldn’t even afford their own cars – which is why all the scenes are of masses of people on foot with a handful of tiny, crappy ground cars and another handful of flying vehicles. 1% vs. 99%
3) Population support. Feeding people isn’t generally expensive. The cost of living in the United States today is primarily rent extraction: housing, education, health care. Food is a distinct 2nd category along with transportation. Energy? A distinct 3rd tier spend.
And interestingly, the median price new car in the US is now no longer affordable on the median income. There are those who say that this is why Trump won.
I haven’t yet seen the newest version, but it is quite clear that the author was projecting more than viewing.
” Hermes, patron saint of the alchemists and freemasons, was above all, (or below all), a salesman. We’re sold on the pitch that a One World, raceless, computer-utopia run by machines piloted by real hip, New Age jerks is where it is going to be happening. I doubt it. I think what they’re paving the way for, either deliberately or as useful idiots, is a digitalized police state.” – Michael Hoffman II, “Secret Societies and Psychological Warefare”
I was still in college when the original Blade Runner came out. I think it was 1979 or 1980. At the time it really slipped under the radar and was not shown in many theatres. I thought it was terrific.
It was excellent…What Kunstler has forgotten is that Philip K. Dick is describing a dystopian future that is entirely run for a handful of elites, and have created replicants for the extremely dangerous job of working on other planets to exploit their resources.
The 1982 original version is excellent but there are so many different “director cuts” it’s been kind of an exercise in squeezing every last dime out of a +30 year old flick. Didn’t buy the DVD because there was always a newer or different version around the corner. (I also don’t own any Star Wars for similar reasons.)
I want to see the new one but know I’ll be disappointed and therefore will wait to watch it at home. Did see a movie on a date night recently and for a Saturday night flick it was $30 to two adults before we even got overpriced popcorn. WTF?!? At most a movie is worth $5-8 in my mind.
I eat Ramen usually once a day. Low-cal, filling, breakfast of Samurais (light, nourishing, easy to fix was their goal).
Oh, and it’s .36 cents for a ‘bolt’.
Wooly Bob, the best advertisement for the product is that the inventor of instant noodles ate said noodles every day of his life and lived well into his 80’s. Works for me.
EC
bob and EC- I eat noodles a lot. Not just plain but we steam vegetables to add to the bowl and sometimes a very small amount of sliced pork, beef,chicken or salmon.
Damn, I’m going to make some spicy noodles right now!
Saimin is what a friend of mine calls it ( she grew up in Hawaii). She calls it a comfort food as well as good for the budget.
Take a package or 2 of Chicken Ramen noodles—pick off the last of the meat scraps from a whole chicken that’s been picked and hacked at or any leftover chicken pieces ( instead of just pitching the last of the bird)…a little leftover broccoli or corn..or veggie of choice from the tupperware clogging up the fridge and it makes a hearty lunch for several people. ( I like to sprinkle a little Vermont extra sharp cheddar on top too)
You could always just watch oldies like Fast Times. Crazy teens, shitty so cal skools, stoners, chicken choking and Phobe Cates boobies?
I saw the original Blade Runner (with Dekkard’s voiceover/narration) when it came out in 1982 and it blew me away. The film noir vision of dystopian Los Angeles, dreamlike music by Vangelis (or Tangerine Dream? I can’t recall), the overall narrative, and near-prophetic conceptions of technology, placed Blade Runner into my top 5 favorite movies of all time. Even today, I consider it art and actually referenced it towards the end of this article from last year:
I saw the most recent Blade Runner last Saturday evening at a late showing, and had a different take than JK’s above. What struck me the most about “BR Part Deux” were implications concerning the relations between man and machine; questions concerning artificial intelligence, ethics, morality, genetics, and the concept of the “soul”. In the story, Ryan Gosling is an AI robot (Nexus 8 as compared to the defective Nexus 6 models in the earlier film) who appears to suffer disappointment and melancholy at not being “real”, yet simultaneously seems to appreciate life; even apparently awestruck by the simple wonder of falling snowflakes. But is the cyborg’s wonderment “real” or mere “personification” by way of human consciousness (i.e. – in the eye of the beholder)?
In one of the Matrix films, the evil digital dude tells Keanu Reeves that humans are viruses. Blade Runner’s vision of the world in 2049 looks like a planet that has been ravaged by the human virus. Yet, a virus with a soul? Or not?
One element of the storyline in “BR 2049” is cyborg Ryan Gosling’s “love” (and sexual attraction) for a female AI hologram. In one scene, as the two are viewing genetic code on a computer, the hologram tell’s Gosling that she has two fewer DNA sequences than him. He responds by saying something like: “Yeah, but yours are far more eloquent.” Can a hologram one day be fused with DNA to operate in three-dimensions? And does this give credence to the “universe as a simulation” argument? If so, could there one day be God in the machine? Does the “singularity” cometh? And what does that mean exactly?
These are the things I was contemplating when viewing the film.
Overall, I would give the sequel a B- compared to the A+ of the original version. Furthermore, unlike JK above, I thought the flying cars were awesome. In fact, I want one so bad it hurts. The automobile represents freedom and autonomy. A future without them would suck in my opinion. Unless JK is envisioning flying space suits or similar? I would be on board with that; as long as it had a good sound system and some cool tunes.
“elegant” DNA (not “eloquent”)
We two were the only ones in the seats while the 3D movie played on a Friday afternoon in a small city in Washington state. $25 for tickets, but we bought nothing from the concessionaire. My back was killing me by the end of this looong movie. I liked the musical effects a lot and the movie is worth going to just for that.
As whole the characters in the original were more interesting, though the acting in the sequel was good all the way through, except for the mastermind guy. Too stupid for words. Ford was great and as was the sister and the replicant lady assassin. Gosling did well enough as did his gorgeous holographic girlfriend.
Some clever dialogue kept things moving without the tedium of all the explosions and crashes so common these days. Some mysteries remain, not surprisingly, leaving room for another round of Blade Runner. I was able to put to rest the idea that Deckard is a replicant. He’s not. He grew old, which replicants were not programmed to do. But even without that we can recall that Roy in his “Tears in the rain” speech, said to Deckard, “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe.” I would think that Roy would know a replicant if he saw one and would never say “you people” to one of them. Still it’s odd that Ridley Scott said Deckard was a replicant. Ford and Hauser said he was not, though.
Anyway, the movie is worth seeing. I like it better now than when I came out of the theater. It’s a story well told and the production was really very good.
Maybe I am wrong, but somebody could make a fortune turning out good wholesome movies about real family situations/love between men and women/ no CGI/no gratuitous sex etc.
You might also do well with movies that show what real people have been through as a fact of life.
I myself have been through miscarriage, cancer, job loss, job regain, multiple college degrees and raising two kids; while I’m not sure I merit a movie, just seeing normal adversity and challenge would stun some folks. Also, what movies could really show is DISCIPLINE: people who get through adversity by being strong enough to say NO to cheap money, cheap sex and cheap thrills (drugs, casual murder and theft, etc.).
Being shown easy money and easy gains in movies instills unreal expectations: Zuckertwit and Gates are one-in-tens-of-millions outliers, and not really worthy of emulation either.