The panel following Ready Player One was Blade Runner 2049. Another brief description of what this is incoming! Blade Runner is a movie that came out in the 80s, which starred Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard, a “Blade Runner” which basically has the job of hunting down Replicants — robots that appear human-like, and may or may not exhibit human emotions and consciousness. It takes place in the year 2019, in a dystopian world. It is a pretty interesting movie, one that I should probably see again to get a better grasp on the plot.
The new film takes in the year 2049 (who would have guessed?) and stars both Harrison Ford and newcomer Ryan Gosling. Ryan Gosling seems to have taken up the mantle of Deckard, and is working on investigating a case. We also see that he is looking for Deckard, and eventually finds him. Meanwhile, we see that a Replicant, played by Jared Leto, is attempting to create more Replicants. The trailers so far have not given a lot away as for the story, but the visuals of the film look interesting, and there is a pretty good cast for the film.
As for the panel itself, the panel began with a timeline of events, voiced over by Edward James Olmos, that leads up to the year 2049. This timeline showed up on the side screens that Warner Bros. uses for its Hall H panels. It discusses a food shortage, the development of AI, and discusses how society is now two classes — Replicant and Human. After that, a weird hologram of Jared Leto’s character, is displayed on stage. He talks how much the movie meant to himself, when it came out in 1982. Jared Leto complimented Blade Runner 2049 as the “sequel he has been waiting for.” Hardwick then faked a hologram on the other side, but admitted he wasn’t one because well, he is actually in the room, and we already have seen him.
Chris Hardwick then had the recently released trailer played for the panel. you can see that trailer here:
After the trailer, Chris Hardwick introduced the panelists: Director Denis Villeneuve, cast members Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Lennie James, Ana de Armas, and Sylvia Hoeks, and writers Michael Green and Hampton Fancher.
Chris Hardwick asked Denis Villeneuve why he decided to work on this movie, and he says quite confidently that he “didn’t want anyone else to f–k it up.” He also talked about working with Ridley Scott.
Harrison Ford always is a hoot when coming to Comic-Con, especially when Chris Hardwick is involved. Hardwick asked Ford why he would return to this movie, and Ford says that the script was really good, the idea was really good, and there was some story still left to tell, and seemed to genuinely think this movie can add more depth to the Blade Runner story-line. But then Hardwick got a little too deep for Harrison Ford, who essentially glared at Hardwick, not wanting to answer his question, which was essentially asking Ford if this movie answers more questions about Blade Runner. The look on Ford’s face was priceless, and Hardwick was pretty excited to see what comes next. As for the rest of Hardwick’s and Ford’s interactions, they boil down to Ford scoffing at Hardwick a lot, Hardwick threatening to tickle Harrison Ford, and Ford telling Hardwick to bring it on. It was pretty funny to watch the interaction, and probably the best part of the panel.
Ryan Gosling also talked about working on this film, and how when he saw the original film, it was one of the first movies he didn’t know how to feel about when it ended, and appreciated the moral ambiguity of the film. He also talked about working with his fellow cast members, and described it as “working with the Avengers”. Chris Hardwick corrected Gosling, telling him he probably means Justice League (Justice League because this was the Warner Bros panel, which is who produces the DC films).
Lennie James also talked about working on this film, and Hardwick asked him about the scale of this film. James says that he didn’t believe he would be given the part he got. He had to squeeze his scenes in pretty quickly between shooting The Walking Dead, so he had to fly to Budapest really quickly for that, then fly back to The Walking Dead set.
At the end of the panel, Denis Villaneuve introduced another clip that hadn’t been seen before. It was a pretty good clip featuring Ryan Gosling’s character trying to get some information about Deckard. Unfortunately, this clip did not make it to the internet that I could find, so I unfortunately cannot link that here.
The panel finished up with some audience questions. One funny question (more so the answer) was asking what advice the cast would give to the characters they play. Ryan’s response was to never mistakenly go into Harrison Ford’s trailer. Harrison Ford agreed that is pretty good advice. The last question of the panel was pretty funny too, directed to Harrison Ford. The question was if Harrison Ford’s life goal is to reboot every major franchise he’s helped create. Harrison Ford’s response was, “You bet your ass it is!” With that fitting end to the panel, Blade Runner 2049‘s panel wrapped up, and that could only mean one thing… DC Movie time!
But before I go there, for those excited about Blade Runner 2049, the film is set to release this fall, October 6th, 2017.
Click here to continue to our recap and photos of the Aquaman and Justice League portion of the Warner Bros panel.
You can view more photos from the Blade Runner 2049 panel below.
I’m so glad they got Harrison back for this!