Review Detail

BR2049 is one of my favorite films of the past decade, but even upon the first viewing it felt obvious that this score should have gone to Jóhann Jóhannsson (the director Denis Villeneuve's chosen composer for several previous projects) and/or Vangelis, and that Zimmer's best tracks were when he hewed closest to either or both of their styles. With only a few exceptions, his attempts to substitute or supplant them in 2049 swing from adequate to exhausting, and in particular, his choices toward the end of the movie veer ever-closer to the musical equivalent of getting repeatedly smacked in the temple with a rubbet mallet. (For the record, I think his score for Dune is great, but that he wouldn't have gotten there without practicing imitation of these two composers on 2049 first.)

I really enjoyed this edit, with only a few quibbles with scoring choices, almost none with the narrative restructuring (sure don't miss Leto's bits at all, tunnel scene greatly improved in every way as well as its implications for the flow of the last act of the film--and flawlessly done from a technical standpoint). After the first 20 minutes or so, I started watching it in more-or-less parallel with the theatrical cut and comparing straight across because the cuts are seamless. (Yes, this made this a roughly 8-hour project spread across days. I really like BR2049.)

All of my disagreements with the edit are about making quiet parts louder and specifically *pushier*, like adding music during the crash landing in San Diego, K's entrance into Vegas, and the Wallace/Deckard interrogation. These scenes felt to me in the theatrical cut as if the existing quietness heightened the drama, with the stings of Zimmer's already incessantly-pushy, demanding score only distracting from action better served by silence; adding more music in these cases seems like an odd choice. I also think the entire flying car chase would be far better without any music at all, Zimmer's or Vangelis', until at least the crash of Luv and Deckard's car; there's already so much going on in the audio. Watching this edit caused me to realize that the film might be better served by having no music at all from the beginning of the chase until after Luv's death--and possibly through the end of the film. I'm not a huge fan of the score for K's death in either edit, but I do think that removing Ana's dialogue from Deckard's reunion with Ana makes for a much stronger final scene.

Most of the rescoring choices, however, are unambiguously superior, and some scenes are made truly beautiful: in particular, K's discussion with Ana feels much more moving, and it leads exceptionally well into the bit of Zimmer's score that remains in the snowfall scene directly after; the mingled-body sex scene with Joi and Mariette remains unsettling, as intended, but the rescore keeps it romantic as well, as I think was also intended by Villeneuve. Overall, I think as a Vangelization, this edit is very good, but I'm still searching for a definitive version of BR2049: one with more silence, and more Jóhannsson, yet still with Vangelis. I've never before been so motivated to learn how to edit myself.