Blade Runner 2049 (2017) — III: Wrath and Favor
*SPOILERS*
We might not be special but we have real feelings. You don’t need to be spectacular to be valid. A replicant affirming this might as well be rebelling against God.
Faces of God
In the original film the creator of the replicants is Eldon Tyrell and is characterized to resemble the God of the New Testament (as maybe an overly charitable Methodist might imagine). He meets JF Sebastian and doesn’t see his neurodivergence, instead seeing his genius. He creates life and admires its beauty. When Roy infiltrates heaven with murderous intent, Tyrell never loses grace. Likewise it’s reasonable to think he was entertaining the enslavement of those he created in loving warmth as an unfortunate reality and maybe even liked the thought of them finding freedom. Tyrell’s spark of chaos is also hinted at by Niander Wallace in BR 2049, when he refers to Rachael’s ability to birth a child not as a miracle but rather as Tyrell cracking the code. And this spark of chaos is what destroyed Tyrell Corp, dissolved when their replicants proved unable to control.
*SPOILERS FOR BLACK LOTUS NEXT PARAGRAPH ONLY*
This set up the rise of Niander Wallace. His father acquired the patents of Tyrell Corp while Niander helped develop a replicant that was incapable of disobeying or harming a human. In the Black Lotus series we see a younger Niander, fascinatingly characterized and prior to being blinded. Ruthless and detached with a much more narcissistic god complex than Tyrell, Wallace represents the God of the Old Testament. He calls his right hands “angels” and withholds favor to foster insecure desperation in them that they should please their creator. Take his introduction to us in the film.
The Source of Judgement
Luv asks him a standard question about “reviewing the new models before shipment.” And he snaps at her with capricious, frustrated entitlement, “An angel should never enter the kingdom of heaven without a gift Can you at least pronounce a child is born.” An industrialist that sees his products as children, emphasizing the horror of his embracing their commodification. He goes to speak with his newly born child. (I’ll also be choosing punctuation to reflect Leto’s excellent stylistic choices in illustrating this menacing character).
And we then see this beautiful innocent newly born woman dropped from a synthetic amniotic sack, resembling birth for a hoofed animal more than for a human. Crumpled on the floor, she can’t even hold her head up. Wallace, being blind, pulls his chair up to her and might as well be checking a newly born horse’s mouth. Holding her head in his hands, feeling the features of her face, he senses her confusion, “First thought. One tends to fear. To preserve the clay. It’s fascinating. Before we even know what we are we fear to lose it. Happy birthday.” He lets her head drop back into an unsupported hang as Luv sheds a tear.
Why is Luv crying? Birth is a universal trauma. Which AI might experience differently; it wouldn’t take days to develop the ability to see, weeks to develop the ability to differentiate and perceive other sensory signals, months to develop the ability to express desires, and years to develop a sense of self awareness as it does with NI. This child, newly born, is thrust immediately into (the horror of) sapient clarity. Luv knows how it feels to be born into Wallace’s demanding judgement, to be born confused and to immediately thereafter have that confusion dispelled by an understanding of your own inadequacy. And Luv knows what comes next.
“Now let’s have a look at you,” as Wallace’s ocular drones take flight. “We make angels in the service of civilization Yes there were bad angels once I make good angels. That is how I took us to nine, new, worlds. Nine, a child can count to nine on fingers We should own the stars.” A reflexive “Yes sir” escapes. Chills. Such is a god that would force birth unto one who didn’t ask for it only to instill in it an immediate sense of his disappointment. Original Sin. One of Wallace’s ocular drones fixates on Luv as she freezes, uneasy, tense. We realize he’s seeing everything through this fleet of 6 drones, much more than 2 eyes would see. In this room he is omniscient.
The event that left him blinded actually gifted him more sight. We realize his blindness in every moment leading to this one was a matter of choice. Soak in that character trait. He lives most of his life as a blind man, walks his halls, listens astutely, builds models mentally, and thereafter makes decisions based on those models. He chooses to see but only to witness his creation. He’s come to appreciate his blindness. To find reprieve from the noise of the world. To find clarity. This is a villain that earns our respect. A creator less perfect than his creation yet with a psychic constitution deserving of admiration. A man who gave his eyes to become a god. Horus sacrificing his vision for divine sight. Awe-inspiring. Maybe even worthy.
Then just like the Abrahamic God he casually asserts the need for slavery as the purpose of his creation is to serve his own kind first, that they may multiply into the firmament, “…millions [more replicants] so we can be trillions more. We could storm Eden and retake her.” We learn he’s got it out for his own God too. This is when he voices his belief that Rachael’s child birthing was not a miracle but “Tyrell’s final trick” and compares his replicants’ infertilities to the barren emptiness of space. (Something only fit for humanity).
His newly born daughter has been right there this whole time, listening to her creator mourn his failures in designing her as he yearns for more. He kisses her. He disembowels her. A god that would bring you into existence, dig a pit in you of existential unworthiness, and then gift you pain, physical and existential. You clutch your stomach, fall to the ground and respond existentially to imminent death. What was the purpose of doing this? Maybe it was for himself. Maybe it was for Luv. To whom he directs his attention, assigning her a mission to bring back the child born of two replicants. “The best angel of all. Aren’t you, Luv.”
The Source of Morality
Once Luv brings back Deckard, we see another side of Wallace, no longer speaking with just any replicant but one of the bad ones he mentioned earlier. One of the fallen. Not more human than human — insolent. And he begins by offering Deckard the object of his nostalgic adoration, a reconstruction of Rachael. He offers Deckard the bliss he forwent in the name of something bigger than himself. A god that would tempt. A god that would offer heaven to one of the fallen, either in deceit or in circumvent of retribution. When Deckard scoffs that this self-fashioned god recreated her with the wrong eye color it in no way shakes Wallace. Who nods at Luv. Who takes two decisive steps toward Rachael. And puts a very large caliber bullet through her skull. She drops like a sack. A god accepting of his limits, because all things have a place. And his is above theirs. He doesn’t need to be perfect. That’s what his angels are for.
And this signals a shift in Wallace’s tactics. He implies that he wants to understand how to achieve replicant procreation “so [humanity] can fly.” Given his comfort with slavery, we gather he wants replicants that can reproduce not for some idealistic creator instinct, but rather to hasten humanity’s conquest of the stars. The existential horror here floods Deckard’s veins. Whom he no longer tempts. Now he threatens him. While revealing the reason he not only allows his creation to occupy such anguish but engineers it, “I know you love pain Pain reminds you the joy you felt was real. More joy then…” Here I think he’s referencing his creations, misspelled in the same vein as “Luv.” Haven’t read the script but how meta would it be if the dialogue spells those words “joi” and “payn.” Like maybe his ocular drones are named “payn” or something. He then makes Deckard a promise of a more tangible suffering, “Off-world I have everything I need to make you talk.” A promise of Hell.
And facilitating all of this is another replicant, Luv. What motivates Luv? She seeks her creator’s favor and fears his disappointment. She even tells K after stabbing him in the climax of the film, “I’m the best of all.” A result of Wallace’s manipulation but more importantly, together with his invocation of a sort of heaven and hell earlier, an illustration of the morality Wallace administers unto his creation. He feels like the source of goodness for his angels but in a Nietzschean sense. The same usage of the words “good” and “bad” that Wallace invokes when he refers to angels that obey humanity and those that don’t. The same usage of the words “good” and “bad” that Wallace invokes when he calls Luv his “best” angel.
Here we see a vision of morality with Wallace as the source, not where Wallace is good because goodness is primary, but rather because good is what Wallace decides. Good is what god defines, not what god is. Good is a way for those in power to maintain power. Heaven and hell are currency with which he buys the obedience of the powerless.
Here, K is a bad angel because he is a good human — compassionate, real. He is not good if he seeks to be more human, because humanity does not make a replicant good. Sub-humanity makes a replicant good.
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Blade Runner 2049 Essay —
I: Dreaming in Refracted Light
III: Wrath and Favor
Blade Runner Essay —
