I'm so sorry to anyone who's trying to find me online, I simply Do Not Exist. But my website and social media accounts are linked here and maybe I'll post there once in a while. I'm hummus or hummus-tea pretty much everywhere o7
This post necessarily contains spoilers for Blade Runner 2049. If you haven't seen Blade Runner 2049, I suggest not reading this and just going and watching Blade Runner 2049.
…so. I really like Blade Runner 2049. Like I really like it.
I learned something wild about it yesterday. I'm going to take a minute to talk through the context, but if you just want to know what I learned, skip to "Dropping In" below.
lovely, fascinating post! also happy to see someone else prizes 2049 over the original for more or less the same reasons. would disagree about what PKD is-or-is-not 'interested in' though, but that's a topic for another time
"but that's a topic for another time" what is this, the end of "the neverending story" (1984)
To be clear that entire paragraph is just a condensed transcription of something Christine Love said once during one of her many rants about why she does not like the first Blade Runner movie (Christine is a huge Dick fan and is consistently disappointed by every adaptation not by Richard Linklater), to the point where after I wrote the paragraph I literally called Christine over and asked "is this an accurate summary of your position"
ah! that makes sense - lovely image, "is this your ire, depicted well" - i absolutely agree with the dislike of Blade Runner, but it's probably the fate of pkd-likers that we all disagree with one another.
this is an amazing essay you've written, and will be the thing that finally Pierces The Veil for me and gets me to watch the film (something Ryan Gosling is usually capable of on his own, but for various reasons that didn't work for BR 2049)
This is a great essay on a scene i already love, thanks so much for writing this up!
what a fantastic post, thank you for writing this up!
i love both blade runner films a lot, but each i like for different reasons (and i have issues with each, again for vastly different reasons), and you've put into words one of the primary reasons i love 2049. i knew a lot of the other background context (gosling writing the baseline scene, etc) but this is my first time learning in depth about "Dropping In." incredible stuff
This was enthralling to read. Lots for me to think about. I hadn’t realized the purpose of the Voight-Kampf test had been changed from the book. Despite enjoying PKD’s works I never thought about reading it for whatever reason. But I’d like to read the book now because that is a much more interesting reason for the test. I didn’t know that the baseline test procedure was based on something real either, or that Ryan Gosling had suggested it. The implications of the Dropping In technique and what K is doing with Pale Fire at home is going to be top of mind the next time I rewatch 2049. I like the first movie a lot but K is just a better and more interesting character to me. To watch, and learn about, and to see the world reflected in his image. The movie is driven by all of his attempts to understand himself, trying to understand and integrate into the culture that hates or devalues him, because maybe he feels that’s all he has to work with. Coming home to dinner with his AI girlfriend comforts him even if it’s tied up in the system that abuses him. It’s the “real” life that he is capable of obtaining. And these drives just conflict and rip everything apart. The movie is just so emotional and filled with friction.
that scene felt like a gut punch when I first saw it and all of this additional context adds so much emotional depth to it. beautiful post, thank you!
i actually picked up and started reading pale fire because of this scene in 2049. i think i'll go pick up do androids dream of electric sheep? now. awesome and insightful post, ty
Great find!! Thanks so much for sharing as a fellow lover of this movie. I wanna try it now
This is so intense and honestly fascinating. I always felt that there were layers of meaning I was missing from the baseline scene, and this is such interesting material. Really bringing a new appreciation there, dang.
A fascinating analysis of one of the most striking moments of the film! Thank you for contextualizing it for me in such an impactful way.
This is fascinating! It's been so long since I've seen the film, I'm going to have to return to it (and the books) with this in mind. Thank you
amazing read, thank you for writing this up.
it seems to me this process of dropping-in has already been appropriated by scientology. their use of e-meters while having a one-on-one with someone "deeper in" who is supposed to unemotionally read questions and remark when the e-meter blips just reeks of the baseline test.
Ok, they claim it's beneficial but i would argue it would be more beneficial without the e-meter and allowing for emotions.
Hm, well the scientology version of this might technically predate "Dropping In".
Scientology's processes often kind of just look like feral, homegrown psychotherapy techniques, because to a large extent that's exactly what they are, which is why Scientology processes can sometimes have some benefit, but probably never as much as therapy from the licensed/evidence-based world would. (It's also why Scientology is so doctrinally opposed to psychologists; that's their competition.) If there's a similarity to Blade Runner here I'd speculate it's probably because there's ultimately a shared parentage, IE, the use of probing questions in both Hubbard's techniques and PKD's Voight-Kampff test was probably guided by awareness of old-school Freudian psychoanalysis, which as I understand does have probing questions as one component. ("Describe in single words only the good things that come into your mind about your mother...")
Just a thought, your local public library probably has an ebook-borrowing app.
I'd need to double-check the timing but it's also possible the VK is a direct e-meter reference by PKD
this was absolutely fascinating to read, it brought me back to the movie theatre and the experience of first watching that movie
thank you for writing this
v interesting! Didn't realize it was Pale Fire. Must reread it; I remember loving it but have forgotten 100% of the content
Thank you for this essay. I didn’t enjoy some aspects for BR2049 that much, but I might revisit it now with a different eye.
at what point does "it requires multiple watches" not even apply to a movie
Thank you so much for writing this. I'm glad I'm not alone in preferring 2049 over the original. I've always felt like 2049 took the things I liked about the original movie and made a story that was mostly about those things. I also love reading about behind-the-scenes stories in movies; a lot of people tend to think of movie-making as a very individual process wherein the director controls every aspect to make a singular vision, but in reality it's deeply collaborative and those collaborations ultimately make movies better. I'm following you now and I look forward to reading anything you write in the future!
Thank you for this wonderful deep dive which only made me love this film even more. Given the state of the industry, it is a miracle the film came together as good as it did.
Okay so this post is seven months old but I only just this second realized an entire additional level of intertextuality I missed the first time:
You can get from this scene to Shakespeare by two totally different paths! Fuck!
I read this three days ago and made an account so I could comment. My brain doesn't seem to be working right now, so I'll just say hello! This was so awesome to read. You rock!
Fantastic post.
You should read Pale Fire, which is my favorite book. "[A] man who comes to the false conclusion that he is the protagonist of someone else's story" is not really an accurate characterization of either Kinbote or Shade. You might say that story presents the reader a puzzle about which of two characters has invented the other, though that's also a little reductive.
I'll consider it then! By the way, thank you for the private note about the spelling error.
I think this is fundamental evidence that films aren't just their directors, films are the culmination of many people working together to synthesise a vision. Villenueve is defaulted to for praise, whether by reputation, systematically or otherwise.
The baseline test alone shows the brilliance of Ryan Gosling and why, I think, he is the reason why a film as.... pretentious(??) as Only God Forgives is made better... I do believe he understands a director like NWR, and works towards the vision set by him. A scene in that film was also 'created' by Gosling the same way the baseline test is the brainchild of Gosling.
In short, Gosling is just cool. BR2049 is amazing. Can't wait for Dune: Part Two.
i dunno if you saw, but this post got a shoutout on kottke: https://kottke.org/24/01/0043871-the-baseline-scene-cells-
now to go watch the movie so i can read your post.....
This is fascinating; I definitely found that part of the movie intriguing and now I want to watch it again.
I do think this is weird though:
“May All To Athens Back Again Repair”
May
Do you like the month of May? May.
Because "May" the month and "may" the verb aren't the same word at all, they just happen to be spelled the same way.
So my theory above is that Dropping In is fundamentally about making the actor consider a range of ideas that are conceptually "near" the words in the line and so could influence the line's reception. If this is the point, then the exercise is really about anticipating all the ways that an audience (or, diegetically, a character) might spontaneously free-associate upon hearing (or saying) the word. And if this is the idea, then conceptual "nearness" need not refer to the word's actual dictionary meaning as used in context, because split-second reactions are not necessarily logical.
this makes complete sense to me
incredible essay. when I first saw BR2049, I went in with a pretty cynical lens, but now I'm excited to revisit it with fresh eyes. thanks!
I'm a big-time dumb guy who likes BR2049 and didn't know a single piece of the context in this essay. I liked reading it and now I'm adding Do Androids and Pale Fire to my (long, life-long) reading list.
Two thing the movie lacks from the book which are essential parts of the context of the novel version of the VK are Mercerism, which is a new religion structured around a machine that puts you into the sufferings of a messianic (or nega-messianic kinda) figure, and the Penfield Mood Organ, which is exactly what it sounds like, a machine for making you feel specific emotions.
