Academy Award Wins: Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects

“Los Angeles, November 2019”

When these words appeared at the start of Ridley Scott’s BLADE RUNNER in 1982, the cyberpunk dystopia that followed could not have seemed more alien to an audience that had just escaped the disco era by the skin of its teeth. Set forty years into the future, its neon-choked, acid-rain-soaked vision of a labyrinthine cityscape populated by flying cars, giant video billboards and bio-engineered humanoids was a breathtaking technological achievement that captured the imagination of a generation. It’s amusing, then, to stand on the other side of the November 2019 dateline and compare Scott’s futuristic extrapolations to the LA that actually exists. Most of the city still looks as it did then, with maybe a handful of the densest pockets of Koreatown actually resembling the megalopolis that Scott envisioned. Nevertheless, a myriad of think-pieces were inevitably published, detailing the various ways in which BLADE RUNNER’s 2019 has (and hasn’t) borne out against our own.

When it comes to BLADE RUNNER 2049, the long-awaited sequel directed by Denis Villeneuve and released in 2017, we didn’t have to wait several decades to pass before the world reflected its inhospitable future. We only had to wait until September 9, 2020, when a series of devastating wildfires converged into a singular, gigantic smoke plume that blotted out the sun over San Francisco. In a year that had already seen its fair share of apocalyptic threats from coronaviruses and murder hornets alike, this was a day that stood out as a particularly dreadful harbinger of our 21st century horizons. Residents of the Bay Area woke up to thick, intensely orange skies (down in Los Angeles, meanwhile, our skies were a lighter but no less dread-inducing shade of saffron); comparisons were quickly drawn to an identical sight from BLADE RUNNER 2049, wherein the ruins of Las Vegas are barely visible through an impenetrable orange veil of ash and dust. On this day — The Day That The Sun Didn’t Rise — the consequences of runaway climate change became frighteningly immediate. The nightmare future of BLADE RUNNER was here.

Though BLADE RUNNER was not necessarily regarded as a success story upon its original release, the subsequent decades have only seen the property further entrench itself within pop culture. Whereas most sequels in our contemporary IP-obsessed era are not just greenlit before a first film is released but baked in to its narrative fabric like a foregone conclusion, the road to BLADE RUNNER 2049 was long & arduous… with no guarantee of a safe destination. Talk of a sequel didn’t even begin until the early 1990’s, when the release of Scott’s Director’s Cut prompted BLADE RUNNER’s critical reappraisal from an ambitious dud to a major touchstone of the genre. Licensing issues quickly killed any momentum, grounding any serious talk of a sequel until the 2010’s (1). This is when Alcon Entertainment, via producers Andrew A. Kosove and Broderick Johnson, purchased the property from its owner, Bud Yorkin, producer of the original film. In their efforts to realize a new story, they turned to Scott and screenwriter Hampton Fancher— the original architects of BLADE RUNNER’s now-iconic dystopia. 

For his part, Scott had long harbored an ambition to make a second film, and he dived into the project with an eager enthusiasm. He was in a peculiar phase of his career, in which an artist who by all rights should have been enjoying the easygoing charms of retirement was consumed with revisiting and expanding the great triumphs of his early career. He had already been wading through a total reinvention of the ALIEN universe, having reconfigured a conventional prequel into 2012’s mythos-exploding PROMETHEUS. For several years, he worked on this new BLADE RUNNER with Fancher and co-screenwriter Michael Green, while simultaneously developing a follow-up to PROMETHEUS. As fate would have it, the latter would force his ultimate departure from the director’s chair on the former; he rightly couldn’t shoot ALIEN: COVENANT (2017) at the same time as BLADE RUNNER 2049 (3). The best course of action, it seemed, would be to resign as director and stay on as executive producer, where he could still exert a huge degree of creative control— including the hiring of his replacement. 

Enter: Villeneuve, still riding high off a string of high-profile successes following his transition from Canadian arthouse cinema to American studio pictures. Easily one of the most sought-after filmmakers in the industry, he already had several personal connections to the project. Beyond his deep affection and reverence for the BLADE RUNNER property, he also had fostered a fruitful working relationship with Kosove and Broderick on PRISONERS (2013, their previous collaboration at Alcon. With Villeneuve attached, it must have seemed like a can’t-lose proposition to all involved… except, maybe, to Villeneuve himself. The filmmaker was arguably too reverent, feeling a great intimidation at taking on such a gigantic property; soaked through with a fear that his inaugural foray into big-budget franchise filmmaking would do irreparable damage to the original film’s legacy. Rather than let himself be paralyzed with doubt, he embraced his trepidation as an opportunity to really examine the underlying thematic conceits that made BLADE RUNNER so resonant. The final result would be an intellectual powerhouse of a sequel, possessed of a nature both soulful and cerebral. Though it may not have received the kind of reception the filmmakers anticipated, BLADE RUNNER 2049 would nonetheless prove itself as a more than worthy successor to Scott’s original vision while mapping out several intriguing pathways for future installments.

Though BLADE RUNNER 2049 takes place thirty years from now, its story begins just a few days prior to this writing— June 10, 2021. This is the day that a child was born of a replicant, a biologically engineered humanoid created to serve at the pleasure of mankind. Though replicants are imbued with a variety of special abilities pertinent to their respective purposes, there is one thing they cannot do: procreate. This child, born to a replicant refugee named Rachael and Rick Deckard, a hard-boiled replicant hunter turned rogue, should not physically exist; that it does poses a monumental question that threatens to destroy the fragile peace between mankind and its creations. Naturally, the identity of the child was hidden away — as was the child itself — for fear that news of its existence would, as one character puts it, “break the world”. Twenty-eight years later, the child’s existence is finally discovered by K, a replicant tasked by the LAPD with hunting and dispatching his own kind. In his first performance headlining a major studio franchise, Ryan Gosling proves inspired casting as K, channeling his understated, fragile physicality into a convincingly emotionless persona. This persona, however, is only a facade, concealing a roiling mix of unexpected and overwhelming emotions that begin when he dispatches Sapper Morton (Dave Bautista), a replicant living in exile as a humble protein farmer. In the course of wrapping up the operation, he discovers the skeletal remains of Rachael, buried deep underneath a solitary dead tree on the property. When he brings the bones back to LAPD headquarters for further analysis, he and his tough-skinned superior Lt. Joshi (Robin Wright) are able to conclude that this female mystery replicant had done something impossible: she had given birth.

K subsequently embarks on a sprawling investigation that takes him from the brutalistic monoliths of Los Angeles, to the garbage-strewn wasteland of San Diego, and finally to the ash-choked ruins of Las Vegas. All the while, a steady accumulation of clues conspire to incept him with a forbidden idea: that the mystery child is none other than himself. The truth, however, is not so black and white, and what initially presents itself as the latest embodiment of the well-worn “chosen one” trope splinters into a complex web of surprising revelations and elusive truths that can only be unspun by one man: Rick Deckard, the original Blade Runner. Reprising the last of his three iconic 80’s characters (the other two being Han Solo and Indiana Jones, of course), Harrison Ford doesn’t have to stretch much in portraying a grizzled, grumpy recluse haunted by loss and regret. He’s essentially been playing a variation on the same character for years, and though his costume consists of some trousers and an old t-shirt he may well have had already laying around the house, his exhibition of Deckard’s evolution is surprisingly nuanced. While the original BLADE RUNNER consumed itself with the question of whether or not Deckard himself was a replicant, this iteration of the character simply doesn’t have the energy to care; he’s too preoccupied with concealing the identity of his child— a mission that comes at the expense of nuclear fatherhood or anything resembling a traditional family life. Though BLADE RUNNER 2049 centers on an “awakening” as experienced by K, it’s emotional core lies in the vindication of Deckard’s sacrifice and his subsequent reunion with the child he never knew; the offspring of the only love he’s ever known.

The twin figureheads of K and Deckard anchor a compelling collection of supporting characters, each of whom further expands and deepen the rich BLADE RUNNER mythos. In addition to the aforementioned Wright and Bautista, BLADE RUNNER 2049 boasts the talents of performers like Jared Leto, Ana de Armas, Mackenzie Davis, and Sylvia Hoeks (among many, many others). As Niander Wallace, Leto assumes the “deluded creator with a God complex” archetype previously filled by BLADE RUNNER’s Tyrell. Leto draws inspiration from several unnamed “friends in tech”  for his performance as the young genius industrialist who saved humanity from starvation by inventing a new food source (and made billions for his trouble). Shades of Elon Musk are present in Wallace’s unique megalomania, although his impact on the film is not so grand as his demeanor might suggest. The character, reportedly intended for David Bowie before his death (1), is blind; reliant upon a floating swarm of bee-like drones that can see for him by delivering an image signal to a Bluetooth-like device that fits over his ear and ostensibly connects to an implant in his brain. True to his reputation as an intensely-devoted disciple of Method acting, Leto wore opaque lenses that actually blinded him (1), forcing a small band of assistants to shepherd him about the set throughout the entirety.

Unfortunately, this is about as compelling as the character of Niander Wallace gets, who is easily overshadowed by his female co-stars. His assistant – a dedicated replicant named Luv — is a far more immediate threat. Despite her impeccable manner of dress and professional stoicism, Luv is a brutal fighting machine in her own right, made all the more compelling by a superior tactical intelligence that actress Sylvia Hoeks tempers with the stunted emotional IQ of a child. There’s almost a kind of beautiful purity to the way she dispatches her opponents, almost always done in the most dispassionate, efficient manner possible. Ana de Armas evidences a gentler kind of loyalty as the ethereal Joi, an artificially intelligent hologram that serves as K’s only friend. She’s a fantasy; a constantly-glitching, sometimes-translucent projection of pixels in three dimensions, but in many ways, she is the film’s most humanistic presence. Critics praised de Armas’ performance while decrying her character’s subservience to K, and to a degree, they make a fair point. Joi is, essentially, a highly-evolved Siri; a digital assistant and companion who provides beauty and warmth in a cold, brutal world. Though the nature of her role is subservient to K, she is rather active in provoking his own emotional growth, exhibiting a burning curiosity about the world around her. In her own way, she becomes an integral character in terms of opening up the scale of the BLADE RUNNER universe— by inviting a hardscrabble “pleasure model” replicant named Mariette (Mackenzie Davis) into K’s home in a bid to simulate a physical connection with him, she unwittingly introduces K to a wider network of rebel replicants who are secretly working in the shadows to bring freedom to their kind.

A few other familiar faces pop up throughout BLADE RUNNER 2049’s sprawling 164 minute runtime, both from the original film as well as Villeneuve’s repertory of collaborators. Of the latter, David Dastmalchian — the unsettling child abductor from PRISONERS — appears in a small role as an LAPD forensics analyst named Coco. Edward James Olmos reprises the role of Gaff, Deckard’s LAPD friend/rival from the first BLADE RUNNER, turning up in a single but consequential scene that sees the enigmatic maker of unicorn origami divulge a key piece of 2049’s puzzle. Finally, (and: major spoilers) Sean Young’s Rachael appears in a manifestation that’s become very common in contemporary sequel/reboots (coined as “legacyquels” by the writer and critic Matt Singer). Deployed for a scene in which Wallace means to break Deckard down and reveal the identity of the child, Young’s Rachael strides in looking just as she did in 1982 (or 2019, if you’re going by the BLADE RUNNER timeline). Whereas recent manifestations of this trend use CGI to de-age older actors (like Robert De Niro in Martin Scorsese’s THE IRISHMAN) or resurrect the dead entirely (a la Peter Cushing “reprising” his famous role of Grand Moff Tarkin in Gareth Edward’s ROGUE ONE), BLADE RUNNER 2049’s is a rather fitting variation from a thematic standpoint. That this iteration of Rachael — created by grafting a CGI performance onto an age-appropriate body double and a separate soundalike that were nonetheless counseled by Young herself — doesn’t pass muster as the real deal is the whole point. For all Wallace’s advances in replicant technology, his “resurrection” of Rachael resides firmly in the uncanny valley, causing Deckard (and us, by extension) to recoil at this cynical appeal to his nostalgia.

Though the film is set, naturally, in Los Angeles, production took place on sound stages and in carefully-chosen locales throughout Budapest. The production team benefited from the generous 25% tax rebate offered by the local government, as well as Scott’s familiarity with local crews and shooting infrastructure, altogether making for a relatively uneventful shoot that was a galaxy away from the notoriously troubled production of the original (4). With the added advantage of computer-generated visual effects, BLADE RUNNER 2049 dramatically expands the scale of Scott’s cyberpunk LA, exhibiting a truly monolithic megalopolis whose city limits have metastasized to absorb San Diego into a district zoned entirely for the processing of its trash. A lot has happened in the thirty years since Deckard tangled with Roy Batty, including an oft-reference blackout that happened shortly afterwards. Far more than a simple loss of power, this was The Blackout: a deliberate technological apocalypse engineered by renegade replicants, resulting in the detonation of an EMP detonated over LA and the total erasure of any information that wasn’t written down on paper. As conceived by production designer Dennis Gassner, this iteration of LA retains much of its 1980’s-styled future aesthetic, right down to neon billboards with signage for Pan Am and Atari— real-world companies that have since gone extinct. Despite the sleek towers of downtown, the city was already fairly decrepit in 2019, and 2049 shows just how far the cityscape has continued to decay. On the ground level, everything is broken down, dirty, corroded by decades of acid rain & snow, and sprinkled in layers of ash.

Gassner’s imaginative and meticulously-detailed work provides no shortage of dystopian eye candy for returning cinematographer Roger Deakins to train his camera on. Indeed Deakins’ Oscar-winning work here has the effect of towering over that of his celebrated colleagues (Villeneuve included)— no doubt a byproduct of his being given complete creative control over the film’s technical aspects by his director. For example, he reportedly rejected the line producer’s request to shoot with nine cameras instead of one, foregoing the idea’s time-saving advantages because of his belief that multicam shoots result in “sloppy camerawork” (5). BLADE RUNNER 2049 seems to possess a visceral weight that other effects-laden sci-fi films do not, likely because of Villeneuve and Deakins’ insistence on capturing as much of the film in-camera as possible. As such, green screens were minimally employed, allowing for Deakins’ evocative, neon-infused lighting designs to truly inhabit the expansive sets and dramatically set-dressed locations that surrounded the actors. To embrace the use of flimsy CGI set replacement would have been to rob the audience of some truly inspired lighting approaches, arguably best showcased in the set for Wallace’s monolithic ziggurat— a moody, seductive cocoon of ambient amber light and stark shapes punctuated by a shimmering effect on the walls that’s achieved by essentially blasting large lights through a water tank.

BLADE RUNNER 2049 was shot digitally, employing an Arri Alexa XT Studio camera that Deakins preferred to keep perpetually mounted on a crane arm so as to more quickly achieve Villeneuve’s stately, sweeping shot list (2). Because the finished film would be available both in the conventional theatrical format as well as IMAX, the filmmakers toyed with the idea of using a large format camera like the Alexa 65, they ultimately preferred the “grainier” quality of the XT’s comparatively smaller sensor (6). Faced with varying aspect ratios for their separate deliverables, Villeneuve and Deakins split the difference by shooting open gate— capturing an image with the full sensor while framing for the 2.40:1 theatrical master and the taller IMAX format (2). A set of Zeiss Master Prime lenses give the image a premium sort of clarity that cuts through the heavy atmospherics of BLADE RUNNER’s heavily-corroded future. Indeed, “atmospheric” is arguably the most succinct way that one could describe the film’s aesthetic, being comprised of enigmatic silhouettes, cold rain, bitter snow flurries, and the diffuse glow of neon that trades on a compelling blue/pink dichotomy. Villeneuve and Deakins further expand on Scott’s iconic aesthetic with the subtle adoption of cool daylight-balanced fluorescents in spaces like LAPD headquarters and K’s box apartment, suggesting how a society might adapt to achieve necessary UV exposure/Vitamin D in a world where pollution blots out the sun.

Considering the significant cultural cache of Vangelis’ score for the original BLADE RUNNER, Villeneuve’s sequel faces a daunting challenge in having to balance an aesthetic adherence to what came before while fashioning something new. His original choice for composer — frequent collaborator Johán Johánsson — fell too heavily on the side of the latter, forcing him and his producers to find a replacement that held truer to Vangelis’ established sound (1). The idea of replicating somebody else’s work might seem beneath the stature of a highly regarded and in-demand composer like Hans Zimmer, but the iconic maestro always understands the assignment. Working together with Benjamin Wallfisch, he manages to strike the right balance between fealty to Vangelis’ original themes and a pulsing assertion of its own identity. Throbbing percussion and eerie synth textures relentlessly propel K forward through the central mystery, amplifying our growing unease while evoking the inhospitality of the landscape. Ethereal piano clinks add a touch of the whimsical, offering up the possibility of wonder and vulnerability as K taps into an innate emotionality he had once thought to be impossible. A key aspect of the score’s sonic identity is an aggressive “vrooming” texture that’s not unlike the revving of a motorcycle— a truly inspired contribution to the BLADE RUNNER aesthetic that was reportedly achieved by sampling a male choir and piping it through a series of electronic filters to approximate the desired mechanical quality (1). Villeneuve further expands BLADE RUNNER’s musical character by slotting in a handful of needle drops unified by their mid century big-band sound; artists like Frank Sinatra and Elvis are used to salient effect in the Vegas sequences as sophisticated ghosts from a glamorous past, reinforcing the idea of this ash-choked future as a new kind of Dark Age.

Though Villeneuve is playing in a massive sandbox that he did not create, his core artistic signatures find themselves right at home in Scott’s dystopia. His ability to conjure an overwhelmingly foreboding atmosphere is arguably his greatest asset in this regard, evidenced by numerous aerials that soar over devastated wastelands, endless fields of solar arrays, and towering structures whose architectural details are obscured and abstracted through varying degrees of air pollution. He paints a vivid picture of a climate-ravaged future, complete with the extinction of all animals and the widespread adoption of masks among the populace— an image that takes on a particularly chilling air in light of the coronavirus pandemic that would soon send all of us (well, most of us) under their protective cover. 

Also indicative of Villeneuve’s stamp is the increased prominence of women in this iteration of BLADE RUNNER. Previous films like POLYTECHNIQUE, INCENDIES and SICARIO explored the idea of asserting feminine strength in a brutalizing environment. This use of the word “strength” is something of a misnomer, and a contentious one at that. Because the established convention for male protagonists is the achievement of self-actualization by direct, tangible action and the use of force, many filmmakers mistake the idea of a “strong” female protagonist as having similar qualities. In short, they must be tough-as-nails badasses (just as Hoeks’ Luv is). This patronizing, reductive view might have its place in a certain subset of action cinema, but Villeneuve is far more interested in the feminine characteristics that serve as their own kind of strength; traits like compassion & emotional expression that require far more in the way of courage than pointing a gun at another man. With Villeneuve’s filmography in particular, this kind of strength asserts itself through motherhood. This is also true of BLADE RUNNER 2049, which contains a triumvirate of mother figures. Rachael’s importance to the plot (despite her absence) takes on a Madonna quality— and I’m not talking about the pop icon. That a replicant who cannot procreate by design manages to somehow conceive a child draws heavy comparisons to the birth of Jesus Christ and the Christian dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Rachael, then, becomes a new kind of Holy Mother for this 21st-century dystopia, ward to a sickly little girl who will one day grow up to become a messiah figure for her kind. As K’s superior, Wright’s Lt. Joshi also possesses a maternal quality in her balancing of stoic authority with genuine care for K; though she’s the farthest thing from a softie, she allows a disgraced K a generous head start to flee the city before sending her men after him. The third maternal figure bears the least amount of weight on the plot (while clearly laying the foundation for the plot of a hypothetical third installment), appearing briefly as the eye-patched leader of the replicant resistance. She’s the one who divulges the cold, hard truth to K about his supposed origins, simultaneously shattering his newfound sense of hope while imbuing him with the resolve to keep fighting.

The characters of Joi & Mariette, by virtue of their romantic companionship with K, are emblematic of this dystopia’s rampant objectification of women— their existence as holographic software and a bioengineered life form, respectively, leads to a presumed absence of humanity by their male counterparts and their subsequent reduction into empty vessels of sexual gratification. That Villeneuve makes a pronounced effort to exhibit their interior lives (Joi as a Pinocchio-type who just wants to be a real girl, and Mariette as a resolute activist working for the liberation of her people) makes for a strong counterargument to critics who decried BLADE RUNNER 2049’s supposed subjugation of the fairer sex. Make no mistake: these characters are moving through an inhospitable world that exaggerates the misogyny of our own, but this is not a reflection of Villeneuve and company’s personal attitudes towards women. Indeed, the narrative displays a wide spectrum of femininity that is nevertheless united by the strength that comes from inner resilience and the ceaseless hope that a better future lies ahead if they are willing to work toward it.

Just as BLADE RUNNER 2049 successfully captures the beat-down spirit of the original, so too does it replicate the bittersweet reception that unnecessarily prolonged the road to classic status. Despite possessing all the conventional hallmarks of a hit — a buzzy director, an iconic movie star, splashy visuals, a generous marketing budget that ensured the poster’s presence pretty much everywhere, and a story rooted in a well-known property with a dedicated fan base, — the sequel failed to spark the box office like the producers might have hoped. It wasn’t an abject failure, but $260 million in worldwide ticket sales doesn’t fully justify the approximately $185 million the film cost to make (7). Armchair analysts jumped at the opportunity to argue over a supposed fatal flaw that did Villeneuve’s film in— Ryan Gosling wasn’t a big-enough star to open a picture; the BLADE RUNNER franchise wasn’t as beloved as the producers assumed; the film, at 2 hours 45 minutes, simply was far too long (if only they knew that editor Joe Walker’s earlier four-hour cut of the film prompted the filmmakers to strongly consider breaking it up into two separate films (1)). Unlike Scott’s original film, however, critics were quick to realize and promote the brilliance of Villeneuve’s work. After appearing on several year-end lists as one of the top films of 2017, BLADE RUNNER 2049 would score several Oscar nominations in technical categories like Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, and Visual Effects. It would also garner nods in higher-profile categories where sci-fi sequels are rarely recognized: Best Production Design and Best Cinematography. The latter would serve to become, perhaps, BLADE RUNNER 2049’s ultimate triumph, finally awarding Deakins with his long-deserved and long-overdue gold statue. Only a few years into its post-theatrical life, BLADE RUNNER 2049’s own status as a modern classic seems assured as the rare sequel that can stand toe-to-toe with its original counterpart. Though it may not have met financial expectations — and likely put any talk of a third installment to a swift end — Villeneuve’s career thankfully manages to avoid any tarnishing. Indeed, his profile has only grown, expanding beyond the arthouse and awards circles that made his name to capture the obsessive hearts of genre fanatics. His upcoming remake of the storied sci-fi property DUNE is positioned to further reinforce his dominance in this arena, its own buzz having ballooned as one of the most-anticipated films of 2021 after the coronavirus pandemic delayed its release by a year.

In its broad sweep, the trajectory of Villeneuve’s filmmaking career is rather staggering— and inspirational. His gifts in visual storytelling were immediately apparent as far back as his 1994 short debut, REW FFW, and his uncompromising early features did nothing to slow his inevitable ascent… even with a nine-year hiatus thrown in the middle to focus on parenting. We tend to marvel at “meteoric rise” narratives in the film industry, perhaps because it better reflects our own innate desires for instant gratification while catering to our proclivities to work as little as possible. Slow and steady marches like Villeneuve’s, unfolding over several years and decades, are not nearly as sexy, but they really do speak to the power of sustained focus and simple endurance. The results speak for themselves, finding Villeneuve at the peak of his craft and empowered by his considerable experience as he ventures further into the biggest and highest-stakes phase of his career. The artist he has yet to become is anybody’s guess, but if BLADE RUNNER 2049 is any indication of what’s to come, then the future will be anything but dystopic.

BLADE RUNNER 2049 is currently available on 4K ultra high-definition Blu Ray via Warner Bros.

Credits:

Written by: Hampton Fancher, Michael Green

Produced by: Bud Yorkin, Broderick Johnson, Andrew A. Kosove, Cynthia Sikes

Director of Photography: Roger Deakins

Production Designer: Dennis Gassner

Editor: Joe Walker

Music by: Hans Zimmer, Benjamin Wallfisch

References:

1. IMDB Trivia Page

2. American Cinematographer article

3. Via Wikipedia: Jacob Kastrenakes (November 25, 2014). “Ridley Scott won’t direct ‘Blade Runner’ sequel”. The Verge. Vox Media, Inc. Archived from the original on November 26, 2014. Retrieved November 26,2017

4. Via Wikipedia: Sharf, Zack (October 9, 2018). “‘Blade Runner 2049’ Production Diary Reveals Alternative Title and 9 More Things You Didn’t Know About the Sequel”. IndieWire. Archived from the original on April 15, 2020. Retrieved April 14, 2020.

5. Via Wikipedia:  Sharf, Zack (April 8, 2020). “Roger Deakins Refused to Shoot ‘Blade Runner 2049’ the ‘Sloppy’ Way Hollywood Studios Expect”. IndieWire. Archived from the original on April 19, 2020. Retrieved April 18, 2020.

6. Via Wkipedia: Staff. “More Human Than Human”. British Cinematographer. Archived from the original on April 19, 2020. Retrieved April 19, 2020.

7. Via Wikipedia: Blade Runner 2049“. Box Office Mojo. IMDb. Archived from the original on October 30, 2019. Retrieved February 15, 2021.