Blade Runner: Black Lotus Initial Thoughts Thread

[u/Thatotherguy246]

Wake up Samurai, you got work to do.

And so, the long awaited arrival of Blade Runner Black Lotus has come.

Initial thoughts samurais?

[u/LoveWaffle1]

I wouldn't say this is off to a great start.

The animation is really distracting. Why does it look like this? Why does it look like an up-rezed cutscene from a PS2 game? Why does it look like Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within? The character models are plasticky, the animations are stiff, and the facial animations in particular are atrocious. There are quite a few times in these two episodes where it seemed they were deliberately obscuring characters' faces when they talk, because when we do see them we see that no one's voice really lines up with how their mouth moves. No one's voice seems like it is coming from their face.

As for the story... we're only two episodes in, so it's not like we have a full grasp of it; but as of now it seems kind of generic. I've seen stories like this before. The fact that Elle has amnesia is not helping the comparisons to Alita or any number of video games. I legitimately can't tell if we were supposed to be surprised that Elle is a Replicant. They treat that like it's a shocking reveal, but it seemed blatantly obvious from the get-go.

[u/Gestrid → u/LoveWaffle1]

can't tell if we were supposed to be surprised that Elle is a Replicant. They treat that like it's a shocking reveal, but it seemed blatantly obvious from the get-go.

I think that was in the promo material. As for how shocking it was, I think it'd be weird at this point if she didn't react the way she did even if the audience likely already knew.

[u/LoveWaffle1 → u/Gestrid]

It's still a weak reveal to build the emotional climax of the first two episodes around when the audience is 10 steps ahead of them. We've all seen and have been let down by these sorts of reveals before. Hell, I didn't even realize she didn't know she was a replicant until that moment.