So Blade Runner 2049, then.

What’s that all about?

Come back when youve seen both movies!

Nor is Deckards replicant status mentioned in Hampton Fancher and David Peoples adapted screenplay.

For the past quarter-century,Blade Runnerfans have argued back and forth over the anti-heros origins.

Is he human or not?

Scott, on the other hand, has never had any doubts about Deckard.

He had to be.

It falls to K to find and kill the last of the Tyrell series of replicants, the Nexus-8.

Spurred on by his unblinking boss, Lieutenant Joshi (Robin Wright), K begins to investigate further.

K, already ambivalent about his job as an executioner, feels a growing emotional pull around the mission.

Could K be the dead replicants missing son?

Like the first film, its a neo-noir detective story with a side-order of ennui and existential panic.

Brilliantly, miraculously,Blade Runner 2049does all this without feeling like a stale retread of a seminal movie.

Ks existential search is not the same as Battys existential search.

K doesnt want an extension on his life, or to meet his maker.

Its fair to say thatBlade Runner 2049s last few shots wouldnt have been the same without him.

When Wallace learns about the child born of a replicant mother, he immediately spots a business opportunity.

For most, the identities of the offsprings parents arent hard to guess.

The bones are those of Rachel; the father is, of course, Rick Deckard.

Gosling, with his short cropped hair and stony expression, looks passably like Ford in his prime.

K wants to know whether his childhood memory is genuine or engineered.

Stelline, like some futuristic oracle, uses another rig to peer deep into his thoughts.

Its real, the doctor says, her eyes filling with tears.

What K neglects to ask is whether the memory belongs to him or somebody else.

Ks realization that he isnt the first-born replicant is a beautifully-conceived moment.

He has no manifest destiny.

Were the protagonists in our own story.

Blade Runner 2049s brilliance lies in what it unearths beyond that initial jolt of melancholy.

The world is not saved.

The Wallace Corporation isnt miraculously toppled.

The great armies of replicants arent released from their servitude.