The models built by WETA Workshop for Blade Runner 2049 are insanely detailed and able to bring a sense of life and realism to the film that is simply amazing. Every detail is crafted so painstakingly well that the accuracy and the design of the movie is a sheer marvel to behold. If not for the story line and whatever else critics and others decided to nitpick about when it came to this film, Blade Runner should have been noted for its set designs alone. Every last little detail is rendered on a computer program first and then given the scale that will be needed to make it fit into the movie in regards to how big it is and how imposing it should be.
Anyone ever notice that? The buildings of Blade Runner 2049 and the original movie are simply dominating when it comes to looking at them and how they fit into the main part of the film. Everything from the LAPD building to the Wallace building is a masterful work of art that deserves a lot more development and explanation than is possible to put into the movie. And everything is undeniably dark. This is a vision of LA that doesn’t have any happy endings. There are no real good guys here, only a society in which everyone is attempting to survive without being preyed upon by those that would take advantage of them. Even the architecture is so foreboding that you half-expect the actors to look pensive and reluctant to enter a single building.
The stunning amount of detail that goes into each piece that WETA brought out for this movie is enough to make your jaw drop. Looking at them in person without anything to buffer them would be impressive, but it would be obvious that they were still just models waiting to be used for an epic movie. But watching them as the movie makes it difficult to believe that the viewer hasn’t just stepped into another world that’s dirty, dangerous, and apt to be their end if they’re not careful. Throughout the entire movie the mood is kept dark and foreboding as the landscape never really brightens but does shift and change as the main character goes along his way. The junkyard scene is kind of intense since the overall feeling had to be that he was in a massive junkyard and there could be no obvious mistakes anywhere else the entire scene would be lost.
Throughout the whole film there isn’t one mistake to be found unless a person is going to nitpick and take it frame by frame. Even then I would wager that those in charge would catch it and have it edited before anyone really noticed. This film took a group of people that are consistently on their game and can produce mammoth sets as well as true miniatures that are then used to set the landscape in a way that is able to create a spectacular movie. Learning how big the Wallace tower was in regards to a human being was an eye opener.
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