These New 'Blade Runner 2049' Details Will Be Lost In Time, Like Tears In Rain

Today brings us two pieces of Blade Runner 2049 news, both of which could be seen as spoilers and both of which should be taken with the necessary grain of salt. This paragraph exists to warn you away from reading further if you want to go into this one blind. So, you know, spoiler warning.

The first of the two stories comes to us from The Terminator Fans, who cite a "source close to the production" when they say that Denis Villeneuve's upcoming sequel will feature the return of a Replicant character from Ridley Scott's original 1982 masterpiece. For those of you who need a quick reminder, Replicants are man-made androids that look like people but were built to serve humans. Naturally, these fully self-aware (if artificial) beings don't take kindly to being slaves and react accordingly, which is why the Replicant-hunting "Blade Runners" have to exist in the first place.

Anyway, the original Blade Runner featured a handful of important Replicant characters, including Rutger Hauer's Roy Batty, Sean Young's Rachael, and Daryl Hannah's Pris, with most of them not living to see the end credits. The extra rub here is that this character will apparently be brought back through "the power of CGI" and it won't be a blink-and-miss-it cameo, but will be featured in "at least 10 shots."

While the conversation around this rumor will undoubtedly shift toward which character will be returning, there is another question I'd like to ponder. Will this character be completely digital or will an actor will be digitally de-aged, Michael-Douglas-in-Ant-Man style? We've recently seen an example of the former with Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, where a long-dead actor was resurrected via CGI to play a crucial role...and people are pretty divided on the results. I'm personally not a fan, but it has more to do with a dead performer being utilized in this fashion – if they want to recreate a living actor with his or her permission (like that younger Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator: Genisys), I say go for it. But if the actor is still living, using CGI to de-age them feels like the less controversial and more well-tested choice.

But honestly, we're just saying stuff until we know more. Let's move on to the second of today's Blade Runner 2049 tidbits, which comes our way via Birth Movies Death, who say that Harrison Ford's Rick Deckard has been hiding out "in what remains of Las Vegas." This does align with what we know and what we've seen. The film does follow Ryan Gosling's Officer K as he seeks out the long lost Blade Runner, who has been missing for 30 years and the first trailer does feature Harrison Ford being discovered in a swanky room in the middle of a desolate desert environment. Even in the dystopian future, Las Vegas is still a fairly brisk drive for Los Angelenos, even if the vibe has taken on a different tone.

Blade Runner 2049 opens on October 6, 2017.