Blade Runner 2049 Trailer Strikes A Familiar Theme

Warner Brothers today released a new trailer for Blade Runner 2049 and, while the new film looks and sounds good…it needs that old Blade Runner magic.

The classic Blade Runner main titles theme of Vangelis returns, but it’s been reworked to fit a standard trailer formula. And the visuals tend toward CGI glossiness, rather than dripping with tangible atmosphere like the original.

The film is directed by Denis Villeneuve (Arrival). The score is being handled by Jóhann Jóhannsson – but it sounds like the trailer soundtrack was handled by someone else.

Jóhannsson has said this about his approach to scoring the Blade Runner sequel:

It has to be music that exists in the world of Blade Runner, but it’s Blade Runner thirty years later. It’s not a remake, it’s a sequel, so a lot of time has passed and things have changed. I think that will be reflected in all elements of the score and the film.

Obviously, Vangelis’ music played a huge part in creating that world, and Vangelis’ score to Blade Runner is one of my all-time favorites. It was a huge part of why that film is so strong, so yes, it’s something that I’m very aware of, but as I said, this is a sequel, not a remake, so we’re doing something that exists in the world but is new as well.

Based on Jóhannsson comments and on his previous work, the Blade Runner 2049 soundtrack should at least be interesting. Check out the trailer, embedded above, and let us know what you think about the prospects of revisiting the BR world.

45 thoughts on “Blade Runner 2049 Trailer Strikes A Familiar Theme”

      1. no its not ok, vangelis music is too great to make a terminator movie to
        and I mean, explosions and bangs and so, it was no miscredit to brad
        i just want more music to this movie

  2. You know how it is.. apparently the only way to get people to show up to a movie these days is with banging explosion sounds at every scene cut/change.

    I thought the trailer music was perfectly executed for Battle L.A. (done by Johann), but the movie score was awful.
    Hopefully this is the inverse!

    I’m definitely a huge fan of Johann’s work. I think he’s perfectly qualified for the task of continuing Vangelis’ BladeRunner legacy, though Johann really isn’t a synth-head, he’s an orchestrator.

    I’m looking forward to hearing it 🙂

  3. The movies absolutely love tremolo sound fx. If theres a place in a trailer that it doesn’t work, they haven’t found it yet.

  4. I have mixed feelings about it. Everything that I love about the original cannot be replicated (pardon the pun) so it makes perfect sense to do something different this time, obviously more modern, while still paying homage to the original.

    My fear has always been the audience. Even today, with the growing cult fan base, I still don’t think most people get Blade Runner, and I can’t help but see tremendous pressure from the studio (yet again) to package and market this new film for a demographic that will never understand what made the original so great.

    1. I don’t think Harrison or Ridley would allow the studio to meddle. And I think it’s naive to assume one generation can understand the film, but another cannot.

      Either it works well or it doesn’t. It’s really down to the script. Everything else looks like it will be well done, but if the script isn’t there…. wish PKD could be here to see.

      1. Obviously haven’t seen many of Ridley Scott’s latest offerings then have you?

        Mostly it’s trash.

        You don’t need to be naive to assume that more recent generations wouldn’t get Bladerunner. You just have to look closely at what is popular now as compared to what was popular when Bladerunner is made.

        1. “You just have to look closely at what is popular now as compared to what was popular when Bladerunner is made.”

          Blade Runner was a bomb when it was released; ET was the big hit that year. Your argument makes no sense.

          A film like Blade Runner is appreciated more in retrospect, when people catch up with it, can appreciate its merits rather than its weaknesses, and can see its influence on other films.

      2. Blade Runner was misunderstood by its own generation. I don’t think it’s a generational problem at all. It’s a cultural one. Blade Runner is contemplative, insightful, intelligent. This film is competing against a movie about giant time travelling robots from outer space teaming up with King Arthur and Winston Churchill to go fight Nazis and evil time-travelling TransFuhrers.

      3. I think it’s naive to assume studio executives will not meddle with a potential cash cow. You do know that Harrison Ford hated Blade Runner, right? It looks very derivative to me, like it’s been shot through a Prometheus filter. That said, I have higher hopes for the score, as it has more freedom.

    2. Somehow trailer looks a Blade Runner pastiche. Visually striking, but not providing any new ideas on top of what was already done the first time.

      The first (I thought that I’d never need to add a number here) Blade Runner is absolutely my favorite movie of all time and part of the reason I’m on this site today. 🙂

      1. I’m on the older side of “millennial” and Blade Runner is my favorite film.

        It’s not like the generation around when it was released got it either. Blade Runner has never really reached popular fame. I’d be willing to bet that most people hadn’t heard of the original until the sequel was announced.

    4. Spot on! You nailed it.
      I doubt the new generation of kids will ever understand the original story by PK Dick, nor will they understand many version of Scott’s 1982 Blade Runner. I bet they’ve never even heard of Vangelis.

      I just hope this Blade Runner sequel (albeit produced by Scott) will also stand the test of tim

  5. Terminators Music was MUCH better than this. At least it’s rhythms were off beat and still didn’t sacrifice the groove. This stuff is just flat out boring. Sounded like a slowed down version of dubstep.

  6. Everyone is using the “same” Kontakt libraries for every film trailer. Boom boom boom drum corps buried in ‘verb. I’m sure the film will have some nice bits here and there.

  7. “Boom clap crap crap bash bang slap
    boom kerchom splat booom
    kerchompa kerchompa kerchompa
    crap crap crap……..
    bom blomp blomp blomp,
    buompa plomp plomp
    bang crap boom
    ba dom ba dom ba dom boom
    crap”

  8. I have no comment regarding what we have heard of the soundtrack so far other than the fact that i am overjoyed Junkie XL has nothing to do with it.

  9. When will somebody tell contemporary film makers that louder and bigger does not equal better? Hopefully this will not be as bad as the Total Recall remake. Another classic sullied by a trashy knockoff.

  10. This film must been a huge pressure on both makers of film and soundtrack. It’s worth the respect in it’s own right. Who knows what the entire movie will be like, seeing as there’s only a short trailer to go on.

    These are pretty marvelous times, looking at what the movie industry is capable of accomplishing. I hope it doesn’t make people jaundiced, jaded or even ungrateful in the long run.

    1. Hmm… is Gosling really the right for for this role? Looking so vulnerable and sensitive all through the trailer reminded me of Nicolas Cage’s uniface playing.
      Maybe Tom Hardy would have been better ….

    2. He’s a terrible actor. Want convincing? watch The Good Guys and then cringe at his Bud Abbot impression/rip off scene by the tree with the dead body… it’s a straight walk out the cinema scene.

  13. you know what the problem is? theres no real FILM GRAIN.

    it just looks too…Clean. The original feels organic and rich and lavish. They should have shot this new movie to film, not digital. Would have made the world of difference. Thats my opinion. Would have surely been obvious and a no-brainer i would have thought but obviously no.

  14. The original BR is elegant. Engaging. “Real”. This one seems to be… just-another-CGI-and-fireworks-abused stressing movie that maybe nobody needs.

    C’mon my dear Rachael, let’s go off-world… to the real one.

  15. So much for the theory that Deckard was a replicant, seeing as how he is old in the sequel. Unless ha is a nexus 7.

    2. it was confirmed they are sticking to him being a replicant. I suspect the film will center around Nexus 7 manufacturing themselves, and so Ryan G. must save the human race from the sexy Replicant Gang….and Deckard dies. I don’t have high hopes.

  18. At the end of the day I think the real reason the Blade Runner sequel was created was to satisfy the ongoing need for Blade-Runneresque samples for use in IDM music.

    1. He’s working on a new season of Twin Peaks. Which is actually much, much more important than directing a sequel to a film of which he did not direct the original.

  20. Usually different people make the trailer music/sound and editing than the film. they fill the trailers up with all the same annoying over the top FX. I dont get why you would mess with Blade Runner. Making a sequel 30 years later seems like a bad idea with a low chance of being good. I guess it would make lots of money but I care about it being good or not. sequels in general are rarely any good anyway

  23. Really wish they could have involved Douglas Trumbull in this production. [I don’t see his name listed in the BR-2049 Full Cast And Crew list on IMDB.] The look and feel he imparted on the original holds up well 35 years later.

  24. My favorite movie, and score, of all time.

    I used to know the production designer for the original ‘Blade Runner’. I remember when he mentioned to me that when the studio first screened the original ‘Blade Runner’ (which did not contain the voiceover) for the crew that worked on the film, pretty much everyone thought the film was horrible and nobody understood it either. Hence, the adding of the voiceover afterwards.

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