Warner Bros. has released the very first trailer for Blade Runner 2049 today and it teases a familiar face along with a new one.
The familiar face? Harrison Ford, naturally, looking as splendidly craggy as he did playing one of his other iconic characters in The Force Awakens. In Blade Runner 2049, he’s facing off with Ryan Gosling, who seems to be giving a good impression of a young Ford. I’m sure that the resemblance is intentional, as everything in this teaser trailer recalls the aesthetic of the original film. Dark streets full of cyberpunk machines, contrasted against bright and even gaudy interiors, with our hero – in this case, Gosling’s character K – stalking through them and looking just a little out of place.
It’s impossible to judge the quality of a film just based on a single teaser trailer, but we can at least say that Blade Runner 2049 appears to be relying heavily on its predecessor for its color scheme and mis-en-scene. Gosling’s even wearing a trench coat that strongly resembles Ford’s in the original. Hopefully this means that the sequel will attempt to provide a seamless transition between the old film and the new, the old hero and the newcomer, as the pair grapple with each other and whatever secrets and revelations await them in this brave new dystopian world.
All in all, the first Blade Runner 2049 trailer is a nice tease, giving us just enough to whet our appetites for the film without giving anything away. Things look just intriguing enough to prompt hopeful speculation, avoiding the pitfalls of trailers that either reveal too much or show so little as to provide nothing to talk about. As such, we can hope for only good things from the sequel.
Blade Runner 2049 will arrive in cinemas on October 6th, 2017.
