Blade Runner 2049: Aerodynamik

Amazing edit that sets out for one simple goal and delivers on that goal perfectly. It truly is amazing that I felt absolutely nothing missing from any scenes throughout the movie and it was able to speed along at a much better pace due to the edits. I found myself enjoying a movie I already love even more, because of the better pacing.

Excellent fanedit and for sure my definitive version of the movie from now on.

Lovely edit. Improves enjoyment of watching by cutting some dragged scenes, without making it feel 'snappy'. Great fine-tuning overall. Personally, I like the dialogue to music volume a bit more balanced. For some dialogue, I had to increase the volume just to turn it down after when the soundtrack blasted my ears.

Still, it's a great improvement over the original.

The many small changes here are subtly done, the audio and video cuts are seamless. They work wonders by reducing the constant unresolved tension, felt throughout the entire original film, because all the scenes are dragged on, most with no apparent conclusion / reveal at the end.

One of the only reordering of scenes done for the edit, happening just at the ending, worked really well, both in a story and cinematography perspective.

The pièce de résistance here is the change of the color palette. Does it look much better now, yes it does…

Also, the almost invisible fixes (they’re so well done that the viewer sometimes doesn’t catch them) for the few continuity mistakes are technically impressive; as incredible as the quite frequent “fusing of takes into single shot” moments, which streamline dialogue and do so much for the new tighter pacing.

My only minor point is that I’m left wondering if the film could be further improved by trimming the fat, by being more aggressive and removing dialogue / characters. However, considering the author’s stated objective for this version, that purpose has definitely been delivered and then some.

Full disclosure. I love the Blade Runner franchise and most everything by Ridley Scott (Legend (1985) is a guilty pleasure). I consider Blade Runner (1982) a masterpiece and I have two (2) fanedits (The Penultimate (TM2YC) and Extended Edition (ADigitalMan)) which are quintessential in my film collection. When I heard that Blade Runner 2049 (2017) was being made I was very interested, to put it mildly, to see the next chapter of the franchise. It is a very good movie, mind you not directed by Scott, but never the less a worthy addition to the lore. If I had a criticism it would be the pacing. As great of a movie that it is, there are points where it feels like it slows, almost to a stop. So I when I saw that an edit had been released which said it was going to fix that very thing I had to to see how brilliant this diamond could become.

After watching I can say, without a doubt, this edit is superior to the theatrical release. As it is stated in the description of the edit, everything in the original release is here but with a runtime 13 minutes shorter. It is also surprising how the trimming of the little bit of fat present improved the pacing so much. It really is a testament to the skill of the editor that he was able to do so much by changing so little.

This edit is my preferred version of 2049 and I would recommend it to anyone who has watched the theatrical release, as well as anyone who has not. I would normally say that you should really watch the director's original vision before watching an edit, but since this edit doesn't remove any story, I think it is safe to say the viewer would get the same vision, just in a slightly faster, but superior, pace.

On back to back days I have watched Blade Runner: The Penultimate Cut and Blade Runner: Aerodynamik, both by TM2YC. Taking two (2) excellent films and making them more than what they were is really a quite a feat and I appreciate the time and effort you took and your generosity in sharing them with the community.

TM2YC turns in another one of my favorite fanedits with this carefully-crafted cut of Blade Runner 2049. A film that many people liked but thought felt overly slow or long, this version with shortened shots does a lot to improve the flow and feel. I think it reveals that part of the issue is actually in the script rather than the direction (as I elaborate on in my review here: https://letterboxd.com/nottheacademy/film/blade-runner-2049/) but I'm not actually sure any edit can change that. Perhaps if you cut out the C-plotline of the revolution and focus instead on "K" and his Pinocchio-esque quest, but I don't know if there's enough conflict in the end then.

What we have here instead is a cut that ups the dramatic tension, though it does leave you feeling a bit disoriented at times. The film lacks any narration and with such a silent protagonist, I think a bit of on-screen text would be subtly helpful to orient a first-time viewer, though seemingly unnecessary for a rewatch. That little quibble aside, I want to point out how well the other subtle changes that TM2YC made work to enhance the story. Even when I read the change-list beforehand, the push-ins and reordered shots were so subtle that I missed most of them, though I was aware of the greater dramatic effect. The wooden horse (broken unicorn?) reveal scene in the factory is particularly tense, as is that Sapper Morton opening.

Overall, this is a great example of what fanedits can be. Too often, we focus on adding or cutting whole scenes or plot lines. Here is an edit which significantly improves the original film, without any extreme alterations. It simply makes the experience more "aerodynamik".