By Canadian Press

Quebec filmmaker Villeneuve says Scott warned him before making “Blade Runner 2049”

Sep 29, 2017 | 12:30 PM

MONTREAL — Filmmaker Denis Villeneuve said he was warned by the director of the first “Blade Runner” that he better do his homework before embarking on a remake of the film.

The Quebec director said Ridley Scott told him about the source of inspiration for the first movie, which came out in 1982, and the backstory.

“And then with the new one, he told me: ‘It’s your responsibility. If you do your homework correctly, it can be fantastic; if you don’t, it’s going to be (a) disaster,’” Villeneuve said Thursday in an interview with The Canadian Press.

Scott, who is executive producer on the remake, gave Villeneuve carte blanche, which is something the director said he needed to make the film properly.

“That’s what I needed to hear,” said the director of “Blade Runner 2049,” in theatres Oct. 6. “He would give me full responsibility but full freedom. And I felt great with that.”

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“It was all on my shoulders, and I wouldn’t have been able to make the movie any other way.”

Villeneuve said the first “Blade Runner” really influenced him when he first saw it, and he wanted to use his highly anticipated remake as a “love letter” to the classic.

The film already has critics raving, with words like “dazzling,” “stunning” and “beautiful” being tossed around. Villeneuve is also being praised for his attention to detail and respect for the original.

He explained that although the special effects in the film were executed with the help of a computer, he wanted to make sure each scene had “a sense of realism.”

“The film has very few shots that are entirely digital,” Villeneuve said. “(Most) of the shots are images taken ‘on camera’ and reworked after with a computer.”

A major theme of the movie, which stars Canadian Ryan Gosling, is the reflection on humans and technology.

“Replicants,” the robots first introduced in the original “Blade Runner,” are back in the remake and their presence brings up questions that are more pertinent today, Villeneuve said.

“When the first ‘Blade Runner’ came out in 1982, it was during the dawn of the computer age,” he said. “People were just starting to buy computers at home. Today, our relationship with technology has multiplied by 10 since that time, it has modified out social relationships, our intimate connections in a way that is very profound.”

One of the main goals of the film, he said, was to capture the gloom and sadness of the first one.

“There were several objectives,” he said. “One of them was to try and bring back that fantastic, beautiful melancholia that was in the first movie. I worked hard to try and bring that melancholia back to the screen.”

Villeneuve’s current project is “Dune,” although he was keeping tight-lipped about it since it’s early in the process. He did say the movie will be “at a level I’ve never approached before.”

He said he’d like to continue making science fiction films, but admitted they are “exhausting.”

“It demands a lot,” he said. “To create different worlds, but it’s intoxicating at the same time. I loved it.”

Vicky Fragasso-Marquis, The Canadian Press