Also, I'm reading up on Blade Runner reviews now and one of them pointed out that the whole interchange that K has when he comes back from his missions to test his emotional baseline is directly lifted from Nabokov's Pale Fire. They also noted that Pale Fire's plot (such as is - it's one of the most famous meta-texts ever) concerns a father's search for his lost daughter.

Aside from everything else I noticed/appreciated all the subtle nods it made to other science fiction movies. I felt it pinged on...Silent Running, A.I., Planet of the Apes, Her. Lots of Kubrickian scenes in those empty hotel spaces. Bits of Moebius (that jacket that covers the lower half of the face) and The Fifth Element too.

There's a lot buried in the naming too. K, of course, alludes to Kafka and his characters that are simply named K.

But also the KD seems to refer back to PKD.

Plus Joi/Joshi/Joe.

The one thing I didn't like was how vacant everything seemed. It's been years since I saw the original, but it seemed like people were crammed everywhere in the scenes on the streets. In this one I only got a sense of there still being a lot of people around in the stairwell of K's building and at the orphanage, everywhere else seemed deserted.

Sylvester Stallone is on my nope list.

And yet Creed was really good, and he was good in it.

I suspect that for every actor we name as a complete turnoff, there's one movie we'd probably admit to enjoying them in. Although I can't identify that movie for Tom Cruise yet.

I'd note, Matt, that this movie strayed much further from Los Angeles than the first one did. It went out into basically the Central Valley for that first scene. The big trash dump was in San Diego. And that last section was in Las Vegas. When they were back in LA proper it was densely populated.

I suspect that for every actor we name as a complete turnoff, there's one movie we'd probably admit to enjoying them in.

Yep. While I found the character repulsive, I thought Miles Teller was magnetic in the first thing I saw him in, which was Whiplash.

I'm weirdly fond of quite a few Tom Cruise vehicles even though he is a total weirdo in a cult. A couple of recent MI movies (Ghost Protocol and Rogue Nation) as well as The Edge of Tomorrow were a few of the most fun action movies I've seen in the theater in the recent years. I hear EoT has a sequel in the works and I'm legit psyched about that, although it's mostly about Emily Blunt.

I hear EoT has a sequel in the works and I'm legit psyched about that, although it's mostly about Emily Blunt.

Mostly about Emily Blunt would be awesome! Though I really liked Tom Cruise in EoT.

I still didn't like Cruise in EoT. I just don't like him, even in otherwise good movies. But I would totally watch Emily Blunt being awesome in another EoT movie.

Hahaha, I meant my being psyched about the EoT sequel is mostly about Emily Blunt, not that the actual movie would be centered on her character (I wish!) I do remember hearing that her character will be back though.

Hahaha, I meant my being psyched about the EoT sequel is mostly about Emily Blunt, not that the actual movie would be centered on her character (I wish!)

Okay, my wishful thinking totally got your post backwards! A movie centered on her character would kick serious ass.