Blade Runner 2049 tells the story of a dystopian future. Humans were producing bio-engineered androids known as replicants. The protagonist K is a second-generation replicant cop, also known as a blade runner, whose job is to hunt and retire older replicant models. During one mission, K uncovers evidence of a replicant who once gave birth, and to K, her kid is the evidence of a soul existing in the shell of a replicant. The movie unfolds as K begin his search for that kid. Through the narration of K’s story, the movie explores the themes of existentialism, memories, and the blurry line between artificial lifeforms and humans.
The movie begins with K retiring the old replicant, Sapper Morton. In Sapper Morton’s house, K found a box. Inside the box were the bones of a woman. This woman had died in childbirth, but what shocked K was that this woman is not a human, but an older model replicant. This case quickly gathered the police department’s attention as this is the first and the only “burned” replicant known to them. The ability to reproduce has always been recognised as a major difference between humans and replicants, the fact that replicants also have the capability of reproducing similarly to humans is diminishing the differences between the two kinds and blurring the line that separates them.
K’s superior believes that “the world is built on a wall that separates kind(human and replicant), tell either side there’s no wall, you bought a war or a slaughter.” The “war” refers to the consequence of humans knowing that replicants may not be different from themselves. This lack of “superiority” weakens their dominance. The fear of the replicant’s rebellion and the collapse of human supremacy would result in humans slaughtering replicants. At the same time, if replicants recognise the fact that they are not different, then they are no longer brainwashed to believe that replicants are born to serve humans and obey their commands. This “master/slave” relationship can no longer be maintained when the “slaves” realise that they are in fact the same as their “masters” and thus should have the right to equal status as humans, which would lead to replicants going to war with human to subvert this unfair class system. From the perspective of Marxism, the reproductive ability of replicants would affect the class consciousness of the replicant class. Class consciousness is defined as a social class’s collective awareness of its place in a larger class system. Currently, the class consciousness of the replicant class acknowledges that they are products made by humans, and thus should be inferior to them. In Marxists’ words, this is called a false consciousness, which is when people accept inequality and exploitation because of prevailing views that legitimise the existence of social classes. However, when the exploited class awakens, in this case, if the replicants realise their capability of reproduction, they consequently realise that the difference which justifies their exploited status does not exist. Therefore, the social dynamics would move on to a revolutionary action initiated by the exploited class(the replicant class) to eliminate class stratification.
Concerning the occurrence of this possible rebellion, K’s superior commanded K to eliminate the child of the woman. However, K hesitated, he said, “To be born is to have a soul I guess”. This not only reassures the possibility of the class consciousness of the replicant class awakening by realising that they have a “soul”, but this response also leads to a new discussion: does being born give you a soul? Sartre argued that existence precedes essence—meaning people are born without a predetermined purpose or soul and must create meaning and identity through their choices and actions. In this sense, replicants and humans are created with the same ability of “existing” which should allow them to discover their identity or “soul” through the journey of experiencing life in a similar way. Therefore, what happens before their existence and what brought them to existence should not affect their “soul”. From a different perspective, if a man-made replicant was told since it was created that he is a human. Subjectively, he believes that he does have a soul. And objectively through the lens of others, they would see him living like a human with a soul. In this sense, all observers would consistently agree that he has a soul. To us, in the god’s perspective, we know that he is in fact a replicant, but to his world, he is a human with a soul. This demonstrates the power of memory, it blurs the line between truth and falsity, and the discussion about the role of memory was continued in the film. The film cleverly hides the fact that the child is actually female, something we didn’t foresee. The sudden collapse of identity not only shocks K but also shocks the audience. In the film, there were two snowfalls, these two snowfalls symbolise K’s agitation. The first snowfall occurs after K has questioned Ana, the memory designer who implants memory into replicants, and “confirmed” that he is the naturally born child, not a replicant. He catches the snow with his hand. At that moment, he truly feels his existence for the first time. The second snowfall happens after he takes Deckard, the father of the child, to meet his daughter, the child, who is actually Ana. Sitting on the steps outside, K catches the snow with his hand once again, but the atmosphere conveyed is different. What has changed is not the snow, but K’s mindset.
K’s self-consciousness is deeply connected to the authenticity of his memory. When K returns from missions, he is required to take the baseline test. This test is designed to measure a replicant’s mental state, an emotional response would result in the replicant failing the test. At the beginning of the film, when K returns from the mission of retiring Sapper Morton, he easily passes the test. However, after K realised that his memories are real, he began existing like a human and gains human emotions, this caused him to fail that test, even though he is in fact not truly human. This presents the power of memory, as the film demonstrates how it easily deceives K into believing that he has a soul, and takes this soul away from him.
Besides the major storyline, K’s relationship with his virtual girlfriend Joi also brought meaningful discussions into the film. Joi is a very caring girlfriend. At first, she could only be projected from the home device, but she paid close attention to all aspects of K’s life, whether it was his work or his diet. Although the food he ate was simple, Joi would create beautifully designed virtual meals to make K happy. More importantly, Joi never looked down on K for being a replicant. K upgraded Joi by buying a portable projection stick, which allowed her to appear not only at home but anywhere as long as K carried the device with him. Joi’s first time outside was on the rooftop. In the distance, there were dazzling neon lights, but up close, it was just a rainy, simple platform. However, Joi felt raindrops for the first time—either passing through her virtual hand or resting on it. She and K embraced, and although she knew she was just a virtual entity, she still wanted to kiss K. Joi stayed by K’s side, encouraging and helping him during his investigation. She reminded him of the connection between the numbers on the tree and his memory. She kept telling K, “You are special, you are the chosen one.” But in the end, Joi was still killed by Luv, and taken away from K forever. Yet, after this tragic romance, there’s one last scene involving Joi. In an advertisement, the slogan keeps flashing: “Whatever you want to see/hear.” It seems the director is intentionally posing a question to us: Did Joi truly love K? Or was her love simply a product of programming? Can what we call genuine emotions be simulated? In some sense, Joi is similar to K, as they are both man-made products. Watching this story of K, audiences feel the emotional struggles K experienced, his excitement when finding out that he might be a being bored with his soul, and his disappointment when realising he is still a replicant implanted with another’s memory. Those authentic emotions lead the audience to believe that K is a being with genuine emotions. However, Joi seems to lack a diverse variety of emotions, the purpose of her existence seems to be merely loving her customer, K. However, the formation of their characters does not seem so different. The development of K’s character originates from the memory that is implanted into his brain, however, his character was also shaped by himself as he experiences the world. Similarly, Joi was originally programmed to love K, however her experience with K also shaped her character, it’s just that the condition of always loving K seems so strong that the character development after her creation seems much less significant. Therefore we can also conclude that, what differs in the extent to which a man-made product is recognised as a being with authentic emotions, a being with a soul, is the degree to which their characters are shaped through their personal adventures instead of being implanted by their creators. This again echoes with the classical existentialist saying, “Existence precedes essence”.
