Blade Runner 2049 [4K UHD + Blu-ray] [2017]

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Blade Runner 2049can feel a bit padded at times. It's not too long or anything, I wouldn't cut any scenes, but there are certain stretches where one can feel the length. Ridley Scott himself has recently come out and said that part of the reason why this film didn't connect at the box office was probably due to its length. Again, I'd say that it is a tad long, but that has more to do with pace rather than length. Some scenes could have been trimmed, but not eliminated. To be honest, I'm glad that Scott didn't direct this sequel. After the middling Prometheus and the messy Alien Covenant, I don't think he would have had the patience to let this film and its ideas breathe in a satisfying way. Scott's films of late feel like they suffer from Intellectual ADD, one interesting idea pops up without being fully explored before jumping to another interesting idea before being dropped altogether and outright forgotten. format that, like IMAX, is touted for its detail, depth and color intensity. The added height of the legendary Roger Deakins, a pioneer of digital cinema who personally oversaw the film's post-production on a 4K digital intermediate. Deakins also Blade Runner 2049 gets closer than most films to being a true 4K experience. It was shot at 3.4K, created in a digital 4K master for its cinematic release and even, so it seems, delivered with native 4K or 3.4K effects. This latter achievement is practically unheard of elsewhere in the film world to date.

You could argue, too, that the relatively dark feel of the film is entirely appropriate to its themes and ‘feel’. was shot digitally with Arri Alexa XT cameras at 3.4K, receiving a 4K digital intermediate for its theatrical release. We'd lump it into the 'might as well be native 4K' category with Deadpool. To Be Human: Casting Blade Runner 2049 (HD 17:15) This is an interesting look at not just the casting of the major players but the numerous small roles that had recognizable actors but featured in small important ways. From a character perspective, it's less successful. Robin Wright's Lieutenant Joshi spends most of her time speechifying, while Jared Leto's narcissistic Niander Wallace prattles on about Mankind's destiny. They're not bad performances, they're just clunkily written. Extra Features: Making of featurette, casting featurette, Blade Runner 101 glossary featurettes, three prologue mini movies

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If you're new to the film on Blu-ray and are hankering for a terrific overview of the 5-Disc Blu-ray set that's readily available, please give that a read Here. There’s much to celebrate here. Denis Villeneuve has against all odds delivered a film that both remains faithful to its genre-defining predecessor while finding new things to say and authentically opening up the world’s aesthetic. A 21-minute feature on designing the world of Blade Runner 2049 gets things off to a strong start, exploring both the film’s general style as well as the creation of specific scenes and futuristic objects via a great mix of artwork, interview clips (including some with Ridley Scott) and behind the scenes footage. It turns into a bit of a love-in at times, but it’s still essential viewing. Director Albert Cho, Alejandro Mora, Attila Veres, Brandon Lambdin, Brian Niemczyk, Charlie Watson, Denis Villeneuve, Donald Sparks, Dora Simko, Gábor Hegedüs Hege, Gergely Apjok, Hajós Péter, Jessica Clothier, Joel Kramer, Karen Davis, Levente Kölcsey-Gyurkó, Susan M. Elmore, Tamás Péter Chipie, Vera Janisch As there are multiple cuts of Blade Runner - only The Final Cut has been given the full 4K treatment. When Blade Runner made its Blu-ray debut in 2007, the film was given a perfect 5-Disc treatment featuring The Final Cut as well as the original 1982 Theatrical Cut, the slightly different International Cut, the radically different 1992 DIrector's Cut, as well as the unfinished Workprint Cut. While fans have their favorite versions of the film, director Ridley Scott has put his foot down that The Final Cut is the definitive release and as such is the only version of the film to get a full 4K Restoration effort.

Whether it's the Brutalist architecture of Los Angeles or the trash mesas of San Diego, the artificial sunlight that drapes the Wallace Corporation's interiors or the arid beauty of Las Vegas, it's hard to look beyond Roger Deakin's Oscar-winning cinematography for how it contrasts the beauty and desolation of this world (although we still haven't been off-world). The lighting throughout is fantastic, with light sources seemingly improved. It's not that they're brighter, but more distinct. The hues get a better showcase on the 4K, such as the fluorescent tinge to the lights in K's kitchen. Villeneuve has crafted a visual feast for the eyes. Using a mix of old-school practical effects and models with new digital effects, he created a beautiful yet horrifying landscape that echoes the world presented in the first film, but shows that humanity has stumbled further into a frightful dystopia where it rains all day, snows all night, and the sun rarely pierces the haze that lingers above Los Angeles.Roger Deakins captures every minute detail with wide expansive vistas and long takes that allow your eyes the freedom to wander. With 13 Oscar nominations and no wins, Deakins is long overdue for the Academy recognition he rightly deserves. I don't know if Blade Runner 2049 will be the film that nails it for him, but he plays with color, light, and shadow to create a world that is both beautiful and horrifying.

The 4k Blu-Ray version of Blade Runner 2049 recently came out so I spent a few hours going through the movie frame-by-frame to get some of the most beautiful screenshots from the movie. Well, I ended up getting 270 so I guess I absolutely love this movie, Roger Deakins you are a mastermind of cinematography! Below are all 270 Blade Runner 2049 4k screenshots, there are maybe 10 duplicated where I wasn’t happy with the lighting and adjusted. There may also be some a bit blurry for a 4k screen but should be fine on anything smaller. All Images are extracted from the 4k Blu-Ray movie at 3840 x 1600 pixels. As confirmed by Roger Deakins, Blade Runner 2049 was shot digitally in the ARRIRAW codec at 3.4K (Open Gate) resolution using ARRI Alexa XT and Mini cameras, with Zeiss Master Prime lenses. Also per Deakins, the post-production workflow was done at 3.4K. Visual effects were rendered in 3.4K (some at 4K). The film’s Digital Intermediate and color timing were finished at 4K. [Editor’s Note: Our friend Petr “Harmy” Harmáček, who some of you may know for his fine Star Wars Despecialized efforts, worked on the visual effects for Blade Runner 2049 at UPP in Europe and confirmed to us that they were done in full native 4K resolution. Chris McLaughlin, CG supervisor at the project’s VFX lead Double Negative, says they delivered their VFX at 3.4K.] The result is presented here in the 2.40:1 theatrical aspect ratio. Image clarity is excellent overall, with remarkable texturing and fine detail, both notable given the film’s dense atmospherics (which include almost the persistent use of smoke, fog, rain, snow, and/or smog). The presentation’s HDR10 high dynamic range adds a gorgeous luminosity to the brightest areas of the picture – think neon signage, holo-projections, and display screens – and lends a richly-nuanced quality to the color palette. That palette is often quite bleak, which makes Deakins’ artful use of coloring all the more striking when it appears, such as in the film’s Las Vegas sequences. Simply put, this is a stunning 4K image – perhaps not quite reference quality as compared to the very best 4K imagery (captured at even higher 6K or 8K resolution), but certainly it’s reference quality for this film. There are those who will bemoan the film’s sub-4K image capture, but given the aforementioned use of atmospherics, capture at higher resolutions would not have resulted in an appreciable difference in image resolution, thus Deakins and Villeneuve’s choice of 3.4K. In the end, the image you’re seeing here, particularly with HDR, is essentially a better-than-theatrical experience. It does not disappoint.

The journey of discovery, for both K and the audience, examines tropes science-fiction has been digging at since its inception. What does it mean to be human? What defines humanity? The original film touched upon these themes, but they are given more weight in 2049, which makes for a more engaging story. Nowhere to Run (HD 5:49) This expands on Dave Bautista's Sapper Morton and how the character became a rogue Nexus 8 replicant. Blade Runner 2049 can be hunted down on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray presented in 3840 x 2160p with a widescreen 2.40:1 aspect ratio, using 10-bit video depth, a Wider Colour Gamut (WCG) and High Dynamic Range(HDR), encoded using the HEVC (H.265) codec. The UHD Blu-ray was reviewed on a Samsung UE55KS8000 Ultra HD TV and a Samsung UBD-K8500 Ultra HD Blu-ray player. Key kit used for this test: Samsung UE65Ks9500, Oppo 203 4K Blu-ray player, Panasonic UB900 4K Blu-ray player.

While I won't go so far as to say that Blade Runner 2049 is as good as or better than the original Blade Runner, it gets pretty damn close. So close that the margin of difference is really only quantifiable to that moment of first discovery. As I detailed in my review for the 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray release of Blade Runner, I discovered the film under pretty unique and very memorable circumstances that made me an instant fan of that film. I didn't want to believe that Blade Runner 2049 could even come close to being as good as it is. I was expecting to walk out of the theater thinking "That was pretty good. They didn't screw it up!" In actuality, after sitting through the credits I walked out of the theater speechless, in a stupor. Blade Runner 2049 brought up so many thought-provoking ideas about heady issues and themes like love, having a soul, and what it means to be human that I needed to take a walk for a mile or two to process everything. But the bottom line feeling that was fueling my thoughts was just how incredible the film was. I just couldn't believe that it was actually that good.