This week Blade Runner 2049 comes out and its gonna be talked about for years to come.

This week the world get to see a sequel to Blade Runner that has been promised, withdrawn, promised again, and teased for several decades. The original film has had many cuts: director's cut, the "we found footage cut," the "this isn't quite it but we're getting close" cut, the "superior" cut, etc. In all of them, it is a slow-burning noire detective story swirled together in a science-fiction dystopian vision of the future (which essentially describes the entire cyberpunk genre). It's also (supposedly) pretentious as hell, because "pretension" just means artsy. There are those of us out here who welcome pretension in Ridley Scott movies. For lack of a better explanation, a dumb viewer needs to be self-aware that it's their stupidity that holds them back. After all, it's not the responsibility of every art object to make itself understandable to halfwits. That being said, Blade Runner 2049 promises to be all this and more.

Say what you will about Blade Runner, but it was a movie that accomplished many things. For its star, Harrison Ford, it broke the typecasting he might have fallen victim to (Mark Hamill was never able to escape this bear trap). And the sequel may also be significant in one way: Ryan Gosling might have to change his facial expression at least once. I kid I kid! I love Ryan Gosling, but you have to admit that he does have a remarkably unchanging facial expression at all times. And even in "stoic face" gosling is a pleasure to look at (I know the ladies will at least agree).

And there are Blade Runner purists out there a plenty, but early reviews have basically pegged the sequel as being a masterpiece, so I expect criticism to be few and far between. There will always be those that insist that Blade Runner should have been laid to rest, allowed to bask in its enduring glory forever, untainted by sequel, prequel, sidequel, upquel, downquel, or diagonalquel. But those people need to shut up now. The original was a film that continues to infect the thoughts of many long after the final credits rolled. This means it was good enough to warrant caring about what happened, but complex enough to require some actual thought to fully understand what we all saw.

So that you can be prepared for Blade Runner 2049, here is a run down via Comic-Con San Diego that was posted back in July (that details the events that occurred between the original Blade Runner and the monster sequel due out this week).

2019: Blade Runner Rick Deckard flees Los Angeles with a replicant named Rachael (obviously there's going to be questions answered like, "what has Deckard been doing with Rachael all this time?" I doubt it has been doing origami).

2020: The Tyrell Corporation introduces a new replicant model, the Nexus 8S, which has extended lifespans.

2022: An EMP detonation causes a global blackout that has massive, destructive implications all over the world.

2023: A Replicant prohibition is put into effect.

2025: A new company, Wallace Corp., solves the global food shortage and becomes a massive super power.

2030: Replicant prohibition is repealed.

2049: Life on Earth has reached its limit and society divides between Replicant and Human.

I gotta admit. This has got me excited guys! Anyone else planning on seeing it?

Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory

I listened to a podcast on This American Life. The link for it is here. I encourage all of you to take the time and listen to it. It's incredibly well written, funny in parts, and more or less gave me an insider's look through his eyes at what it takes to make these gadgets that you and I love.

Apple is undeniably cool. Wouldn't you agree? I'm sure you've seen the ads.

Mr. Daisey's fascination with Apple started when he got an iPhone out of a box that hadn't been wiped. It had pictures of people, conveyor belts, and other things in it and his curiosity became piqued. He asked Siri "Where are you made"? and Siri responded, "I'm not allowed to answer that." He states in the monologue that it was almost like Siri knew where and when and by whom she was created but that there was this thing that prevented her from speaking her mind.

Shenzhen by night. Doesn't it look incredible? Arcologies
and corporate super towers everywhere.

Because of the podcast, I now know that Apple products, namely the iPad and the iPhone are assembled in a place called Shenzhen near Hong Kong in China. Mike Daisey describes it as a city of the future and that it looks exactly what you'd expect a city to look like if Blade Runner were to throw up on itself. I think that's a great description and a great analogy.

This is a Sheraton Hotel

Around the tops of the skyscrapers, particularly at Foxconn, there are nets to catch workers because so many of them go up there to throw themselves to their deaths. In his time there, he talked with many under-aged workers (some as young as eleven) who worked a full-hour (not the American one filled with smoke breaks and slacking off). He clarifies that this is a full 60-minute shift with people standing behind them to monitor their work. And their shifts are back-breaking, some fall between 14- to 18-hour days. The work is so hard that it ruins the hands of many workers. They just get fired and have to go find work elsewhere.

This is the plan for a new corporate HQ in Shenzhen

He spoke with one worker that he found whose hands were ruined at Foxconn. This old man had a new job in a new factory. Mr. Daisey showed him the iPad and he'd never seen one turned on. All of these products (the iPad, iPhone, etc.) are manufactured and shipped back to the states. Imagine working back breaking shifts all day long for weeks and years on end, ruining your body, and never seeing one of them turned on so that you could play with it. To actually hold in your hands the thing that destroyed you.

The old guy in the podcast said, "It's like magic." I suppose it is so I agree with that statement. I play with my iPad and think "it's magic."

A nice cityscape photograph. This is the city where all of your tech comes from.

As writers, we really don't need to look very far to find inspiration for dystopian fiction. Maybe the reason dystopians are so popular is because they are more a reflection of how the world really works and how people really treat each other than utopias could ever possibly be. I will say this. Despite all my whining and bitching, I'm glad I'm not the worker class of Shenzhen. I think it sounds miserable, and I probably would have been one of the people that decided to check out early. Does this mean I'll stop buying Apple products?

Unfortunately no.

Workers in a Chinese factory.

I like the magic.

Does that make me a horrible person?