Blade Runner Costume Design (2020)
costumedesignarchive.blogspot.com
costumedesignarchive.blogspot.com
Compare that to the hyper-maximalist 80s movie outfits. The original Blade Runner has more creativity in one outfit than pretty much the entirety of the sequel.
I wonder why that is. My guess is that it's just a symptom of the same thing that causes everyone to stop buying colorful cars, and instead default to a grayscale one: fear that being too outlandish or creative will turn off potential customers/viewers.
While that's true to some extent, as I noted in my sibling comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46775053), it's partly because 2049 lives in a world where, for over 30 years, most other sci-fi visions of urban environments were strongly influenced by OG Blade Runner. It's hard to appreciate how much the 1982 original visually impacted everything that came after.
Denis Villeneuve faced an almost impossible challenge in balancing faithfulness to the original production design while evolving the original's vision of 2019 forward 30 years to its own related but visually distinct descendant. Almost every visual choice risked either being "nearly a copy of the original" or "hardly related to the original".
I'm a huge fan of the original - so much so, in 1992 I bought a plane ticket to fly across the country for one evening just to see the limited run of the original "lost workprint" in Westwood. In 2017, I was so concerned any attempt at a sequel to such a seminal classic was doomed to fail that I didn't even go see 2049 until I heard reviews from fans I trust. I mean, for decades "Blade Runner Sequel" was a project no competent director would ever consider touching. I assumed anyone who would take the job was either incredibly arrogant, greedy or stupid. But Denis didn't need Blade Runner, being a huge fan, he wanted it.
I was pleasantly surprised that, given the near-impossible task, 2049 was a reasonable success on its own terms. Despite the limited budget, Denis managed to not only avoid tarnishing a classic, he did it credit by not camping on its coattails. And Roger Deacon's cinematography definitely deserved the Oscar he won. My only regret on 2049 is that Denis didn't get the budget he wanted. Another $5M and three weeks shooting would have gone a long way. But, like the original 2049 is remarkable, in part, because it's as good as it is despite being starved of adequate resources.
The more recent movie looks more minimal because Villenueve makes minimal looking movies. Personally I find it devoid of visual interest compared to the 80s films, especially the original BR. Even the “inspired” scenes like the market/food stalls are so lifeless in comparison.
Here are two clips to compare. The more recent film is typical of movies today: too digital, too clean, not enough movement or energy.
Original Blade Runner: https://youtu.be/vbRRL7S2Tg0?si=gwMJvEr8fj11vUkU 2049:
Personally, I'd prefer more grain texture in cinematic images but it's the era we live in, so I don't hate on BR 2049 for being an artifact of its era. It's nowhere near as bad as the visual sterile wipe that Wicked is. I do agree the compositional energy is a stylistic choice by Denis for this film. While Dune strikes a similar note visually, Sicario does get pretty kinetic at moments - so it's not his only note.
My main point was 2049 couldn't be the innovative, style-setting, visual sledghammer to that BR was - simply because there can only be one first and 2049 still had to be related to BR. Also, it's worth noting that the back story has much of Earth's population moving off-world in the 30 years since the original - as the constant ads in BR were urging. So by 2049 L.A. is no longer crowded. Most humans have already abandoned Earth, which is one reason replicants are openly doing work-a-day jobs.
Ultimately, I have so much reverence for the original as a visual seismic event still influencing films decades later, I went into 2049 with low expectations - which Villenueve managed to exceed. 2049 is nowhere near as great as the original, but I don't think there was any way it could have been - and very few films ever are. So it was enough that it didn't insult the original or stain its legacy. Then starting with a clean slate, by simply being pretty good, 2049 manages to be a reasonable success on its own terms - at least artistically.
Personally, I'm happy 2049 performed as poorly at the box office as the original. I still feel like BR fandom dodged a bullet with 2049, so it's good it didn't give Alcon aspirations of a 'cinematic universe' cash grab. Sadly, Alcon did sell a BR limited series to Amazon Prime that's in post-production. Absent Villenueve it's likely to suck, but hopefully it'll go away quickly and we can pretend it never happened.
- and thanks for the call back to Escape From New York, a film I saw on opening night at the Pantages in Hollywood.
It went into to much detail, the film has its detractors, but the book itself was fascinating. Although I still buy books I don't think I spend enough time reading them.
'Dressing a Galaxy': https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Dressing_a_Galaxy:_The_Cost...
https://www.chapter1-take1.com/2017/10/blade-runner-2049-cos...
I think you could argue that some of this is just modern sensibilities and aesthetics, but I think a lot of it is probably just the modern movie industry. Like decisions with modern lighting and how flat things looks in modern movies (to make production more efficient and making adding CGI easier), they probably go with minimalist costumes since they're easier to capture on film, cheaper, and easier to make.
One aspect of it is that the sci-fi future is not really a future in general, it's a future how it was imagined at the time. In the 80s we had maximalist fashion - bright colors, shoulder pads, big hair. So the future from that time looked even more so like that.
If we look at the future as imagined in the 40s and 50s we might laugh at the silly looking robots. We'd never put robots like in a current sci-fi movie, unless as a joke. But, at the time they were not made for laughs, people thought that's what robots would really look like.
An even deeper part of this is that the future from 80s from movies that became popular also adds to how we might see the future now. Aethetics from popular movies are immortalized. Like say, you're lamenting why doesn't current sci-fi look like Blade Runner, but imagine if Blade Runner had terrible characters and bad acting. You wouldn't want that aesthetic in sci movies today. It would be associated with crap.
Today, it's hard to appreciate just how much of a visual sledgehammer Blade Runner was in 1982. The film doesn't look all that shocking from modern perspectives but that's only because BR so strongly influenced almost every other vision of the future that came after. It simply defined what compelling visions of the future should look like. It's hard to put your head back into a world where nothing had ever looked like that.
If you haven't seen the restored version that film archivist Charles de Lauzirika did, do yourself a favor and watch the 4K HDR10 version (released in 2017). He spent years painstakingly rescanning the original camera negatives (something rarely done for remasters) and the result is a revelation.
You're referring to Sally Menke? Tarantino has released 3 movies since then.
If you want to see how really crap a lot of production materials are, go take a tour of say the Universal prop warehouse and see real movie props up close. Especially before the days of 3D printing. Props from the 70s, 80s are all just drainpipes and duct tape and lots of spray paint.
I always remember Rachel with it first dress. I almost forgotted the fur coat.
I always thought it just went to show he likes dumpster diving for broken toys.
A beautiful sentiment you observed, thank you. Bringing life back to what no one else values.