Shout-outs in Blade Runner 2049 to the original movie (spoilers ahoy!)

Cafe Society
1

Just post what you noticed yourself - not points or lists which anyone else compiled, please.

For me:

  • movie opens with a closeup of an eye
  • Tyrell pyramid (although all dark, presumably since the company went bankupt)
  • prostitute wears a furry coat just like Pris
  • Gaff does origami
  • Atari and Pan Am logos in the street advertising
  • blaring public announcement about the Off-World Colonies
  • K looks closer and closer at the bone scan, just as Deckard did of the photograph
  • Deckard has the same gun he did before
  • Deckard’s LAPD Spinner parked in the Vegas casino
  • Vangelis’s original theme plays over the scene where K is lying on the stairs in the snow at the end
2

Lots of things happening in the rain or in water.

3

When Luv and K control their drones through voice commands, it’s reminiscent of Deckard controlling the Esper machine.

4

Asian languages, especially Japanese and Chinese but also what looked to me like a South Asian language, are prominent on signs alongside and sometimes instead of English. IIRC even the cake in the birthday party memory had a message in an Asian language written on it.

However, unlike the original Blade Runner, there were few if any Asian people to be seen. This struck me midway through the movie, and after that I was paying attention in crowd scenes and didn’t even spot any Asian extras.

Back to similarities, K was repeatedly screened using some sort of test that required him to repeat a word in response to different prompts. This was never explained in detail, but it was presumably some sort of more advanced version of the Voight-Kampff test in the original that was checking his emotional response by measuring small changes in his eyes and face. Only instead of just checking to see if he was a replicant (which the police of course knew already) it was checking his emotional stability.

5

The opening music paid homage to the original Vangelis theme.
The footage of Rachael’s eye from her VK test as well as some of the dialog.

6

A Microscopic serial number embedded in a repilcant’s body part.