Ryan Gosling And Harrison Ford's 163-Minute Sci-Fi Epic Is Streaming For Free
Amazon's "Blade Runner 2099" series isn't set to hit Prime Video until November 25, but if you want to refresh your memory, or just enjoy some good sci-fi, then the movie that it follows is streaming for free on Pluto TV right now. The show takes place 50 years after the events of "Blade Runner 2049" and stars Michelle Yeoh as Olwen, a replicant nearing the end of her life. While you can rent or buy both movies on Prime Video before the premiere, there really isn't much reason to pay for the sequel when Pluto TV is already offering it for free.
In "2049," Ryan Gosling takes over the lead for Harrison Ford, though the well-known actor does make a comeback as the original's Rick Deckard. Over his career, Ford has starred in plenty of sci-fi movies, including icons like "Star Wars." But the "Blade Runner" series is certainly one of his best-ranked sci-fi movies outside of the George Lucas universe.
Directed by Denis Villeneuve, the same director who helped bring the "Dune" universe to life on the big screen, "Blade Runner 2049" does a good job of moving the universe forward and bringing the plight of the replicants back to the big screen. And if you're gearing up to dive into Amazon's new series, then now is a great time to catch up on the movies that spawned it all.
'Blade Runner' is part of why Villeneuve became a director
Villeneuve was only 13 or 14 when he began to dream of becoming a director, and Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner" was a big part of that. He saw it as a young teenager and has called it "inextricable from my passion for cinema." He even says that he and his classmates became fanatics of the movie after it came out. Villeneuve was a sci-fi addict all through his childhood, too.
Villeneuve says that when he heard there was going to be a sequel, he thought it was "the most fantastic, exciting and at the same time perhaps the worst idea I ever heard." He didn't say yes right away either when asked about it, partly because he was about to start shooting "Arrival" and partly because he wanted to be sure he could make the world his own. He has also joked that he took it because he "didn't want someone else to ruin it."
It wasn't easy on him, though. Villeneuve later called "2049" "the most challenging artistic journey of my life" and said that making it was like going to film school. He also said the sequel became relevant to him because of the way it deals with technology and how it affects human life, which is a big part of why "2049" still ranks among the best movies about AI.
'Blade Runner 2049' bombed in the box office but still won two Oscars
Even with Gosling and Ford on the poster, "Blade Runner 2049" just didn't bring in the kind of money it needed at the box office. It made about $259 million worldwide in its original theatrical release, and the movie was estimated to need around $400 million to break even. So it isn't hard to see why it's among the sci-fi movies that probably should have been massive hits but bombed instead.
Despite its limited box-office run, "Blade Runner 2049" still has an 88% score on Rotten Tomatoes, where the critics' consensus calls it "visually stunning and narratively satisfying." It also won two Oscars at the 2018 Academy Awards, one for its visual effects and one for Roger Deakins' cinematography. That was the first Oscar Deakins had ever won, even though he had been nominated 14 times going back to 1995. You can watch "Blade Runner 2049" for free on Pluto TV now.