My recollection of 2049 is, an android police officer performs a dirty police job, is there confronted with information which not exactly raises doubts, but questions. The plant, a photo, something the perp/victim said.
Then something about the police station and the relation between human boss and android subordinate officer.
A cold corporate overlord without respect for life. (Slaughter of newborn woman android to demonstrate power.)
Something about rumours of a woman, chase into deserted dust city, something about android living in a factory and "childhood" being fake memories.
And the ending with a budding resistance movement among escaped androids and how they somehow can reproduce on their own now, and not die so young. Harrison Ford turning up, a piano.
Yeah, I can't really make it into a story. I don't want to trash on 2049 because it is somehow very impressive, but I don't like it much. It's very disturbing and I guess that is a quality of its own. I will possibly never watch it again.
There are other movies I will never watch again but which I will say are really, really good, no reservations. 2049 is not one of them.
Not much. That's not the only movie I've seen recently. Not all of them have been so forgettable. An alarming portion of them was. But not all, I can clearly remember many of them, even for series with many episodes, I can tell you what happened in each of them.
But the Starwars sequels, the fourth of Matrix (I liked it though) or anything superheroic (I quit those years ago) are a blank in my memory.
Edit: I believe that good story telling has something in common with spaced repetition. There are some rules that, if followed, make your story indelible. Likeable, relatable characters, a worthy quest a logical plot...
Edit2: The love for flashbacks, that become parallel timelines in their degenerate form is tiresome and now it's very difficult to find a movie without them.
Personally, I watched 2049 when it came out and did not remember much of it a year later but upon watching the first movie and 2049 back to back a while ago, I noticed that a lot more stuck with me this time.
The context of the first movie plus especially watching 2049 for a second time and already expecting certain things but noticing different details has made it a lot more memorable for me.
Then again, this is hardly in defense of 2049, since a good movie should aim to deliver this experience in a single runtime but I found it very interesting. There is "a lot there" in 2049, it's just buried under almost an forced form of dark and dramatic cinematography.
Things that did work: Hans Zimmer's soundtrack, some of the big vistas toward the end.
2049 really laboured it’s ‘noir’ credentials at points and seemed deliberately slow and ponderous.
And the modern Dune seemed like almost a conscious reaction against the visual excesses of the old Dune. It was austere, there seemed little human affection between characters, little emotion. It was just so dry.
Or at least I shall approach them with a more open mind.
For 2049, maybe its just my own personal struggles with personal identity and losing people I love, but K's struggles resonated with me. Its a story that mostly says, at least the way I interpreted it, that who you are doesn't matter so much as the actions you perform in life. K, for most of the movie, is doing what other people tell him to do. In the end he takes action and makes choices that are meaningful to him. It results in his death, but it was a choice between either being a dead man walking with no meaning in his life, or finding meaning even if it means dying for it.
I can see why someone might not like it...its slow and it focuses more on the internal struggles of the main character than action on the screen. Still, when I ponder what happens in the movie, it resonates with me and lots of other people. Its pretty much a modern cult classic...did poorly at the box office, but certain types of people(including myself) are crazy about it.
For Dune, I agree it could be a bit dry. I love the book and I was a bit disappointed that the interactions were not as passionate, especially between Paul and his Mother. Still, the cinematography was amazing and they did the best they could IMO. Dune is a slow book that is hard to adapt to the screen so I am quick to forgive it.
Yes - I love the books of Dune (well, the Frank Herbert ones) and I find the old movie entertaining and used to obsessively collect different cuts. I enjoyed the sci-fi channel adaptations, though I didn’t much care for their portrayal of Paul and also I probably haven’t watched them in 15 years.
I felt that the lack of interpersonal rapport and affection, along with his choice of palette, just made the whole thing feel sterile and dull.
My fear is that this becomes the definitive Dune for the next few decades, blowing the budget (both literally and metaphorically) for Dune adaptations on a polished though ultimately bland pair of movies.