Y'know what? Who cares if Blade Runner 2049 didn't start off great at the box office? No matter what it's still going to be one of the most discussed movies of the year, and will likely end up a classic just as its predecessor did. In fact, the conversation has already begun on many of its grand ideas, themes, characters, and that haunting finale.
Screenwriters Hampton Fancher and Michael Green spoke with Collider about the film's ending, which I personally think is very straight forward, possibly the easiest section of the film to decipher. But others feel differently, and the writers have their own viewpoint on what it all means.
To recap, the ending finds Ryan Gosling's Officer K escorting Harrison Ford's ex-blade runner Rick Deckard to the location of his daughter (Carl Juri), conceived with the replicant Rachel (Sean Young) from the original movie. It's a great moment, one that makes you realize you've been holding on to a bunch of tension the entire film, and this is the moment where it's okay to let it all out.
Fancher admitted that his ending was different (more on that in a sec), and the one we got in theaters all belonged to Green, who says...
“When I saw my way through a story that preserved a lot of what Hampton did and had a few different turns along the way, that was from Minute One the ending. It was in the first outline I wrote, never changed. I think the only thing that changed in that scene is occasionally a bit more dialogue came in and out, in and out, but that last moment was the moment. That was what the story to build for.”
As for Fancher's version, he tells The LA Times that if it were up to him, Deckard's fate would have been very different...
“In my script, Deckard died at the end, but you have him live,” he told Green. “The first time Ridley and I ever considered doing a second ‘Blade Runner,’ in 1986 or whatever it was, I came up with an idea about Deckard and his next job — and it’s kind of horrifying what happens in my little fantasy. Now that Deckard lives, that idea is back in my head. But I’m not going to tell you what it is.”
My guess is this will be the last Blade Runner movie we'll ever get, despite Scott wanting to branch out and franchise it. Maybe at half the budget it would be feasible, but Scott would never want it that way. It's not his style. I wouldn't be surprised to see a return to this world in a different format, however, like a TV series or in digital short films.
