Watch the short films that precede Blade Runner 2049
On the 6th of October the new Blade Runner movie is finally coming out in the US and the UK. At this point it’s been 35 years (!!) since the first movie came out, and it seems the sequel has taken advantage of this by advancing its timeline by 30 years from the original. To catch up viewers up on what happened in between the two movies, Warner Brothers has released 3 short films, set in the years between Ridley Scott’s original and Dennis Villeneuve’s sequel.
The original film took place in 2019, in a future where androids, or replicants, were created to work in regions declared unsafe for humans. When some of the androids rebel, it’s up to blade runner Rick Deckard (Harrisson Ford) to hunt them down.
Since Ridley Scott is currently too busy moving the Alien franchise into a wholly uninteresting direction, Dennis Villeneuve took over as director for Blade Runner 2049. Harrison Ford is back, although Ryan Gosling is this one’s leading man. It seems the change in director has been a good idea, at least if we can go by the initial reviews. Prior to this Villeneuve directed Enemy, Sicario, and Arrival, all of which were good to great.
The 3 short films were not directed by either Villeneuve or Ridley Scott. Two of them were overseen by Luke Scott – son of Ridley – and the third is an anime by Shinichiro Watanabe, who once directed the fantastic Cowboy Bebop.
Watch the short films here:
No sight of Harrison Ford or Ryan Gosling in these short films, but Jared Leto & Dave Bautista, who will appear in Blade Runner 2049 do show up here.