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YOU ONLY GET 33 THUMBS UP IN OVER TWO YEARS AND 3 REPLIES. YOU ARE NOT QUITE CORRECT ABOUT JOI AS THE AUDIENCE SEES AND EXPERIENCES JOI BECAUSE OUTSIDE OF THE MOVIE JOI IS A REAL PERSON.
It's funny how people say shit like "Those scenes with his fake girlfriend were boring and pointless" when I think Joi is one of the most important characters in the film. Not for the plot per se, but for the subtext. She is the character that poses the biggest questions imo.
Like we said in french, nice "mise en abîme". Watching an android falling in love with an AI and wondering how true their feelings were add a lot of deep to the film.
A line that stands out to me is when Joi is asking K to take her with him in the form of the emanator. K : If this gets broke, that's it. You're gone. Joi : Like a real girl. And she died, like a real girl.
@@BFBMTb still ties into her programming to stick with him no matter what. still it was a beautiful line. and doesn't make it feel less real... more impactful, if anything. which i guess is the point of the video. 😅 this movie is great.
@@isabellapierre5977 Can you please elaborate? I do think there are arguments for both sides, of Joi's love being real or not, and to which extent she's sentient.
@@BFBMTbOr: she's a product. Products are designed to break themselves. Programmed obsolescence. They're replaceable, so you go and spend money on a new one. That's probably in her programming too.
It's not clear at all. Its programming may need her to bypass K's approval for her "true lover" purpose. That ambiguity is what make that subplot so rich.
I don't see why that has to be evidence that she's acting on her own free will and desires. It's perfectly reasonable to think that a hologram ideal girlfriend would surprise the user every now and then. The goal would be to make her seem as real as possible while also keeping the user in perpetual satisfaction, a little unpredictability would be conducive to that end.
@@resmarted we can never know if Joi really felt the love she expressed, however she made the decision to risk her own continued existence when K had to leave and Joi asked to move from the console to the mobile and to break the antenna. In the end, she used her last moments to express her feelings for K; a digital analog to a human's dying declaration. I chose to believe she was moving toward humanity, even if it was her best imitation of humanity; it is sufficient for me.
“You look like a good Joe.” Man, that moment kills me every time. It really is one of the great moments in cinema. Up there with Kane clapping to his wife’s poor singing, or Laurence blowing out the match cut to the sun rises, in terms of layered meaning.
I actually found that line to be quite unmoving, since K should have heard it a thousand times walking past the hologram on the street. Clearly he should have also heard it at the store when he bought the device himself. Maybe even in the device startup sequence. I felt like the film intentionally held this line until the end for viewer shock value, but inside the film's world K should not have been surprised at all.
Would not K's lack of reaction also add depth to this though? Knowing that in this world, walking past this advertisement he knew this entire time? Perhaps not intended. Perhaps it is intended?
I think you missed the most important aspect of Joi's final moment with K. If Joi would have remained silent and out of sight she may have survived in that jump drive indefinitely, but she didn't. She distracted Love from kicking the crap out of K by imploring her to stop. Joi demonstrated true affection & self-sacrifice in her final moments with that diversionary tactic.
yeah thats a good question and I find it interesting to hear it here. I asked myself this a lot. I always ask myself this when it is about life changing decisions. What is the difference between the guy who stops drinking, stops being lazy and actually does something with his life between the one who does not? Is it because they were from the start different and one has it harder than the other, because well his "programming" makes it harder for him or is it something else. A choice that we always have, but why do some choose A and some B. Its just very hard for me to find an answer to that.
I loved Blade Runner 2049. I was overwhelmed by its heart, scope, and presence. For a movie so dependent on the theme of artificiality, Blade Runner 2049 is very organic and emotional. Joi's story arc is the single most profound and moving element of BR2049. Although I am aware she is just a program, I 100% believe in the emotions she feels for K. One of the main questions BR2049 asks is what it means to be alive, and since Joi yearns and aches to truly feel and love K, she has desire, therefore is alive. Life is more than chemicals and tissue. Joi is programmed with the awareness of love - she KNOWS what it is, but can't feel it, and desperately wants to. THAT is life.
But K is a Replicant. A Nexus 8, which means he is programmed and incapable of disobeying orders, in this case the orders of the LAPD. Both Joi and K are artificial. Neither one is programmed or required to display affection. Yet there is a tangible warmth. It is a testament to the brilliance and beauty of BR 2049 that we are inspired to ask and ponder such questions. Also, perhaps instead of "alive" I should have used words like "conscious", "self-aware", or "minded."
Number 57 real is what we give attention to. You fucking A Joe loves Joi right man. Awesome. Love is the coolest protagonist I’ve seen in movies in a long while.
Yes, she is real. Descartés already said "I think, therefore I am". She demonstrates thinking, will, curiosity and consciousness in a lot of moments. Notice how the image of her hologram gets stronger throughout the film as it begins to demonstrate its own behaviors and desires. When she dies, she's hologram is clear and does not fail.
The final scene is heartbreaking because K realizes how much he misses Joi. Sure he realizes that she is a computer program, but who cares. He loved her, they experiences friendship, attraction, fear, loneliness and love. Those were all experiences and emotions he felt with her. It isn't so much a matter of him realizing Joi is a mass produced program tailored for everyone need, rather K experiencing what it is like to be human. Heartbreak, love and loneliness are part of it! Gosh I love this movie so much .
Frustrated in her efforts to "win" I mean. Tears when in the police office. Hurt when Wallace kills the child woman, - very hurt by the significance of the method. And - "Home" homesick (final scene).
Joi went beyond just her basic programming. She was capable of learning just about anything, and developing her own ideas and thought patterns, and was one of the few characters in the movie that showed empathy for others. Most of the humans in the movie were despicable, and the replicants seemed to be a step up from the humans. Joi displayed a lot of the characteristics that humans once possessed, which made her one of the more intriguing characters in the movie.
It's not really true that she is the only one that displayed empathy or "real human emotions". While some of the humans were cartoonishly evil, Joy only represents an idealized positive of humanity. She's quite incomplete in that respect, although I think it was the filmmakers' intention to contrast her with the 'dirty Humanity' of the cyberpunk world of Blade Runner 2049., K and every other human in the movie was damaged by the awful world that they inhabit, but JOi was only damaged in the end when the substrate housing her program was destroyed. I don't know if that was an intentional message of the filmmakers, or the narrative just incidentally said that.
Or for that matter, whether Joi's only the sum of her programming from start to heartbreaking finish or whether she evolved into something more. The hints that she developed freewill are sometimes subtle and easy to miss while the hints that she's just programming are more overt. And remember, Joi materialized spontaneously and diverted Luv's attention from Jo/K. If his fantasy was to see her destroyed in front of her, he's King of Pain.
For the longest time I was so afraid to watch this movie, the original is one of my all time favorites. But I was more than surprised! It captured, the tone, the style and the essence of Ridley's masterpiece. It moved me like the first one did.
"...as we suspend our disbelief while watching an actor pretend to be an hologram that pretends to love?" You deserved my sub with this. Finally a REAL analysis of a movie that goes outside the movie itself, as the movie is meant to do. So profound, so deep in reality, there in the feelings. That are real, but come from watching a fake reality on a screen. That is the parallel with the movie itself. The watcher is involved in the movie, even though he doesn't know it. Indeed like K/Joe. This movie will be always underrated.
I've been debating this same idea in a comment thread on a different video. Both K and Joi are artificial intelligences - so if we accept that K's struggles/emotions are legit, why not Joi's? She's not housed in a realistic-looking physical form like he is, but why would that matter? AI is AI, isn't it...? You got to the final question here that I haven't been able to get to there, however - how different are we from any of this? Are we special with souls because we were born, as K ponders, or are we just the result of our wiring, like K or Joi....? I think Joi is another way that this movie takes themes from the original BR and plays with them in new ways - which is what made it a good movie and not just a rehash.
K is a Meat-bot that is basically grown - Joi is an AI that is likely running on normal computer networks - so the way they process data is different - HOWEVER most people who think you could get an AI to work seem to think the key is to copy the structure and function of a human mind - so if she's a simulation of a "real girl" then if it's based on the neural imprint of a real person then - yeah - if the copy is that good - it's a more complex question then. If anything then she seems slightly freer than a Replicant is - as her only limitation is on saying no to things (perhaps to those not paying for her contract). so if she can learn to say no she'd be more free - and also a whole lot more dangerous too. If one flips it round for a minute - what would the Movie be like if K was a Human and Joi was a replicant programmed to be the perfect girlfriend, That seems somewhat unsettling to me.
That's kinda a cool thing about their arc. Over the course of the movie we are grown attached to their relationships, sceptical at first we start to believe in the reality of them. And then the movie pulls the hologram scene, were Joi is revealed to be nothing more than a product designed to pull the right strings of it's owner. Wether or not she is actually conscious we do not know. Is she a true self aware person, or just an emulation of the person, glorified Alexa, that has no real intelligence, a Chinese room in a software form. And there's a lot of points that can be made for both of those perspectives. DAYM DIS MOVIE SO FUCKING GOOD. Also I'm more interested in Love since I feel like I missed a lot of things about her character and conflict.
Find the book The Art and Soul of Blade Runner...as far as the actual filmmakers are concerned Joi's emotions became real and she surpassed her programming. The backstory on Joi and K is that Giant Naked Joi is exactly what most Joi customers get the program for...she's usually a porno app but K customized her to be more of a companion and wanted more out of his Joi than most owners do right from the start. And download the shooting script...Joi actually names K "Jo", and it's the hologram ad that uses the more common "Joe". He doesn't really get any answers on the question of "was Joi fake or real"...the real gutpunch is that she's lost to him either way. If she never surpassed the programming the fantasy isn't enough anymore, and if she evolved past the programming, that unique Joi couldn't be replaced. And in the shooting script, K is also visited by a "ghost" of Joi. As much of a Joi fan as I am, I'm glad they didn't use that version because it would have taken away something from Deckard's reunion with his daughter.
Decided to copy my comment into this one because we are of similar mindset. ___ You know, watching this video put an interesting thought in my head. With everyone I\ve talked to about this movie, we usually end up on the 'Have Joi evolved into a sentient being that have grown to love someone, or is it all just programming?' debate. So much so that I haven't realized, until now, that the movie gives us a perfect example and answer: Is K's emotions not real? From the start of the movie we feel for K. Sure, he is (one of) the protagonists, but we never really doubt that his intentions or feelings aren't genuine. Even when we are taken for a spin and we learn his memories aren't his, he is still behaving so distinct and unique, there's no doubt in my mind that he lives his own life. So why do we doubt Joi's feelings and humanity? When I took a step back, ignoring the aspects of story telling and genre-conventions, I couldn't find much that separated K from Joi on a human level. So if we so quickly bought into the idea that K was special, that he was more than code, I would say, the same should be true for Joi.
I think people who don't see Joi's feelings as real are going by the Giant Naked Joi scene alone...that's the default setting for a Joi app. And the people who don't see her feelings as real are thinking in terms of her lack of a physical body...that lack clearly frustrates her the morning after the three way.
To me the most interesting bit is that Joi made decisions that put her own existence in danger. Programming a product to potentially break itself seems foolish from a business perspective. So the question is, what parameters are Joi units programmed with and how much autonomy are they given? Given her behavior in the movie, it seems like they start with "love your owner, make them happy" and are given free reign to chart their own course from there. Even that is an unfathomably advanced AI. While her love for K may be pre-programmed, her AI is advanced to such a degree that she can make her own decisions on how to execute on that love, even if that includes breaking the law or herself.
Just something to note: when Luv kills Joi she speaks to her, not him, when she says "I hope you're satisfied with our product." Is she acknowledging her sentience?
i thought so. and even the act of destroying her was an acknowledgement, i thought. if luv thought joi was just a replaceable toy, there would be no impact to her destruction.
Luv refers to K as the product which ironically means the hologram was getting the deal out of the relationship. I believe Luv destroyed Joi (even though it was pointless) because she could see/understand the feelings between K & Joi were somehow real and was hatefully jealous for it
@@li-limandragon9287 I always thought that Luv terminated Joi because she had a sense how she could break K's heart instead of breaking him physically. (Of course, to talk about breaking the heart of a replicant circles back on the same themes of sentience, what makes feelings 'real', etc.....)
I just noticed the choice of the Elvis song: I Can't Help Falling in Love with You.....indicating that the love of Joi and Kay is involuntary, yet possibly still valid
Joi is certainly the most, shall we say, divisive character of 2049. The beats of the plot, particularly the revelation near the end, seem to suggest she isn't 'real' after all, but I keep coming back to how she defied her creators to help K (something I doubt they intended) as well as the sheer intimacy you can feel in tender scenes like the 'sync' as well as her final moments. Like you said, though, does it really matter?
I think Joi has become more of a Rorschach test than her creators actually intended. Pay attention to what she's doing before the attack on Deckard's home...she's inspecting technology without K watching her, though he knows she's out of the enamator. And the shooting script is emphatic that Joi's final act is one of love and self sacrifice...the giant ad does lead K to question whether Joi had real feelings or not, but he doesn't find answers one way or the other, and either way, she's lost to him.
@Optic Flow The problem being that it would be a Joi molded by a Joe/K who has profoundly changed, and who wouldn't be like the Joi he lost. If you believe that Joi was just a beautiful lie, he's outgrown the ones and zeros. If you believe, as I do, that her feelings became real, no other Joi could fully take her place.
You know, watching this video put an interesting thought in my head. With everyone I\ve talked to about this movie, we usually end up on the 'Have Joi evolved into a sentient being that have grown to love someone, or is it all just programming?' debate. So much so that I haven't realized, until now, that the movie gives us a perfect example and answer: Is K's emotions not real? From the start of the movie we feel for K. Sure, he is (one of) the protagonists, but we never really doubt that his intentions or feelings aren't genuine. Even when we are taken for a spin and we learn his memories aren't his, he is still behaving so distinct and unique, there's no doubt in my mind that he lives his own life. So why do we doubt Joi's feelings and humanity? When I took a step back, ignoring the aspects of story telling and genre-conventions, I couldn't find much that separated K from Joi on a human level. So if we so quickly bought into the idea that K was special, that he was more than code, I would say, the same should be true for Joi.
I think something was missed from the billboard scene… he is deeply disturbed by the “Joe” comment, then begins having flashbacks referencing “a miracle”, then his eyes look back at the billboard and his tone shifts… the scene wasn’t there to show her love wasn’t real, it was there to point out that her love was a miracle, which spurs his later actions
Forget the emotions and just consider how Joi simply understands the situation, the stakes, K's emotions and the threats. To have a grasp on all of these requires a real conscience, she is a sentient being.
All I want to say is that I love Bladerunner, but amidst a world that features such incredible characters like Deckard, K, and so many others, Joi will always be the most compelling character to me.
K's Joi is totally different from the giant hologram ad . Beyond her programming, she has somehow developed the ability to think for herself, and show love and compassion for K that seems very real and genuine. Actually, Joi is the only character in the movie who displays the characteristics that a human woman possessed a hundred years earlier. The real women in 2049 are cold and cruel, and lack the qualities that human women once possessed. Maybe that's why Joi is so intriguing to viewers, and why her death was so heartbreaking. Joi and K's love story comes across as very real, and K acknowledges her as being real for him. In their world, that's something very special, something that the other female characters in the movie are desperately seeking to find.
You can see how she starts to take decisions after she is free of the house. She becomes gradually more human. She starts to want to be real, beeing more and more emotionally. Read this article, it explains perfectly: www.andrewjly.com/blog/2018/1/4/blade-runner-2049-character-series-why-joi-was-the-best-most-interesting-addition-to-the-franchise
Nice video. I think the important part of Joi's and K's relationship is based on the unique memories they share that cannot be fabricated. This goes in contrast to the fake memories he was given about the Wood Horse. This is an important distinction I think important to mull over.
I always found it really interesting that, in the world of Blade Runner, the more artificial a person was the more human and organic their emotions felt. Barring Deckard and a few other people, the humans are the most robotic in comparison.
When you look at a painting you can look at the raw paint and the brush strokes and even consider the patterns. What makes a painting a painting is the experience and meaning imbued on it by a consciousness that is experiencing it. You can pick apart the experience and say its just dried coloured liquid pigment but the experience is nonetheless real in the consciousness. In a similar way with Joi, you can pick apart her software and say its these lines of code that are responsible for her re/actions. The pattern of her actions over time that causes an experiential reality for K is what makes her "real" ... at least in K's perception. It is the emergent complex pattern of Joi's interactions that can be said to be not an illusion. Is it real? it depends on your definition of real. Is Joi's interactions sufficiently complex enough to be considered "real"?
If one can love, hope, long, feel pain, compassion, joy, sadness, sacrifice itself for something it believes worthy of sacrifice, achieve self-awareness, consciousness...would it matter if one was made of circuits or of flesh?
Just watched your video after viewing the film a second time. Joi & Joe’s relationship this go around absolutely destroyed me emotionally and I honestly don’t know why it hits me so hard. This movie was intensely more potent this time. Thank you for the analysis and video.
"Why wilt thou give to her a Body whose life is but a Shade? Her joy and love, a shade: a shade of sweet repose: But animated and vegetated, she is a devouring worm." -William Blake
This was one of the greatest cinematic films I've seen in theaters in a while. BR2019 was my number 1 film of all, but this may have topped it. And that never seemed like a thing that could have ever been done so well
Thank you. My interpretation has always been that Joi's behavior is entirely consistent with an algorithm designed to please. She never exhibits true agency in the film. I think that is a critical element which distinguishes her from replicants. K's relationship with Joi is an artifice he understands and accepts but that doesn't mean he wouldn't have genuine feelings toward what she represents. Joi is merely an extrapolation of the future of the waifu in otaku culture.
Loved this movie and constantly go back to watch moments I missed. It honestly took me a while to ask the question presented in this video so watching this did excite me a bit. Anyways, I love your analysis videos and this movie so I can't wait to see what you upload next
To me, it doesn't matter if Joi felt those emotions because she was programmed to. It doesn't make it less 'real' for her or K. After all, we don't really know if anyone else in the world experiences the world and emotions the same way we do. What settled it for me, was the the crash scene. If she was just a set of programs running through preset responses she would not have expressed concern when he was unconscious. After all there is no one to react for, she would have been better just sitting quietly and waiting for help or for him to come to. Instead, she begged and pleaded for him to wake up, showing real concern for him. When she died, that was gut wrenching.
just watched this for the 3rd time not hours ago nd i cannot understand peoples distaste for this film, maybe in the same way others cant understand the some peoples love for this film...what makes an individuals love for things valid or invalid, greater or lesser, when compared to others? why do people have the need to make their own thoughts nd opinions superior to others?
Also brain dead millennials cannot understand such a great film like BR 2049, they don't want to "think", they want explosions, gunfire, superheroes, constant in your face action, etc. The minute a film may take a slower turn they don't want to watch it anymore, pffft i really hate this modern generation, bunch of brainless sheeple. Blade Runner 2049 is one of the greatest films I've ever seen. My favourite film for sure.
I'm a Millennial and this may just be my favorite film of all time. Generalizations such as these need to stop as I'm positive that there are plenty of Gen-Xers and Baby Boomers who'd find this movie to be too slow or "boring". Why must older generations feel the need to constantly put down the ones who are coming up in the world after them? Why are they so much better for being born in a different era, as if any of us had a choice in that matter?
To me, Joi serves the same sort of purpose as a pet. Be it cat or dog or other, we keep them around for emotional support despite the fact that they can't fully sympathize with our problems. In Joi's case she's able to go one step further and is able to offer some level of sensible advice but she can only offer support against immediate loneliness.
Both K and Joi are examples of human creation of 'artificial' intelligence, and their lives as creations that seem to defy their purpose are somewhat mirrored: one in the physical world; one in the digital. On this basis, it is no wonder they seem to be drawn to each other. Joi represents the love that K feels he deserves, as a product of his nature (as a replicant) and his nurture (his social conditioning over a lifetime as a replicant instead of a human). Jury's out as to whether Joi is merely following her programming - morphing herself to the desires of her 'user' and into the perfect partner for him - or whether there is something deeper and more fundamentally human about her.
Joi was my favorite character; yes she is attractive but like K - or Joe if you like - there is a question about her reality. We are confronted towards the end whether or not she is the real thing, but she seems to somewhat go beyond her programing. She even seems to deviate from her programing especially in the scene where K is looking for the offspring of Rachel and Deckard. In that scene she seems more like someone asking questions rather than being submissive. She even seems curious as to what he is doing as she look in while he's doing his research. I think there are times when she is going beyond her programing to be the loving girlfriend. One thing to ask is whether or not K is allowed a girlfriend in the first place. As a replicant it is never brought up. There is a possibility they may allow him to have flings with others like him, but not a long term relationship like the one he can have with Joi.
If memories and choices make us human. I think Joi definitely asks us this questions. It is her choice for the make-out session and after we see subtle changes. She does things for her and not just to please him. Right after that scene, she throws the other girl out and doesn't take a drink just to please Joe. She is reacting to her choices and her feelings.
In her first scene, when she definitely is acting according to her programming, she asks him to pour a drink for her too...when offered the coffee she shakes her head and smiles, seemingly acknowledging that she isn't "real".
I'm late to the party, I've always felt that when he buys the emitter for her - she came with a substantial boost to her AI. When K comes home for the first time she's incredibly neurotic - changing her form until she finds K is satisfied with (sorta). She's also not very aware of her surroundings and is really unable to read him 'or the room.' When he buys her the emitter, she's able to fully able 'interact' with the environment such as syncing with the rain, syncing with Mariette as well as plan ahead - and stays in one form throughout a scene. Like calling Mariette for her encounter. She's also able to complement his thoughts when he's looking at things through the scanner and is very aware of her own mortality when she is about to be killed.
I think people should read the screenplay, it makes it painfully obvious that the writers intented to make it known that Joi becomes a person with her own sentience and feelings. She defies K and starts doing things withiut him being there to witness it, going against her programming a LOT. They left it more up for interpretation in the movie, which I get, but if we’re talking about intent then shes definitely just as real as K at the end.
For a long time I was opposed to a Blade Runner sequel because I worried that it would have to definitively answer the "Is Deckard a replicant" question definitively, when it was the question that was interesting. I was quite pleasantly surprised to see it managed to leave that part of the original unspoiled. I also find your choice of Twin Peaks as your next topic interesting in light of how much it reminds me of Blade Runner 2049, not in terms of actual plot, but in its attitude towards what a sequel should be (particularly a sequel that's been a long time in coming). Both tell a story that's related, but very different from, the original, both integrate new character dilemmas with those of an old protagonist, both feature a miraculously-young-looking reappearance of the primary female character, and both leave certain secrets untouched.
I missed it at first, but when Luv says "I do hope you're satisfied with our product" she's talking to Joi about K, not the other way around. If both AI and replicants are artificial beings, the K is just as much a product for Joi's fulfillment as she is for his. This also plays back into an earlier conversation between Luv and K, when they discuss Rachel, and how humans flirt by asking personal questions and provoking anger. Luv then asks K a personal question, and he responds with "Please thank my Wallace for your time", implying that she's just a tool he was given access to. Luv resents this, but it could be seen as K's attempt at flirting by deliberate provocation.
I feel like those questions are answered in her final moments. When faced with certain death, her only concern was to make Joe understand that she loved him. For me, that's the most powerful moment in the film. That hit somewhere deep.
Joi made her own decisions, without asking Joe (K), for example that she wanted to be erased from console, she immediately knew what to do to don’t get caught, proof of having own mind.
I felt as though K is partially a Replicant himself non-emotional til the loss of Joi... When the device was crushed had me in tears because I was feeling the loss through K and the dog was missing Deckard his master... So many metaphors in this movie had questions on _being_ like tears in the rain... time to die or sleep in winter snow...
The tragedy is that like any videogame the progress develop some personal marks if that game got AI then the program begin to divert from original program so K's JOI becomes eventually a complex mind and the role of virtual GF begin to blur, and begin to develop personality and begin to protect K and remind him stuff he confesses to her and begin to worry for been used against K and when she been destroy the encounter between K and JOi promotional he realized that even if he buy another Joi the previous experience and expectations will not be possible again...
The underpinning of artificial intelligence is that it should be able to decide beyond its programming. As we do. Deciding sometimes based on how we feel rather than based on the best possible choice or after evaluating all possible outcomes and choosing the best one. In that sense, Joi feels. Whatever she does feel is relevant only to the way we perceive the interactions between K and Joi. We use our own cushion, as Eldon Tyrell puts it, to try and understand the relationship between K and Joi. I for one believe that, again, like in the 1982 movie, in 2049 humans are almost deprived of emotions while artificial humans are struggling to come to terms with theirs. Which is the closest link between book and film in the sense that in the book humans, like Deckard, had to use machines to feel empathy and suffering through the journey of the messiah Mercer and his eternal climb. Or they chose moods with a device, the Penfield mood organ. Although we can see Joi as a sort of "pat-in-the-back" for its user, having Joi name K as "Joe" is just a limitation in her knowledge, in her "software". But she did try and use it to the best of her abilities to empathize (and not sympathize) with K's ordeal. To such an extent as to put her life on the line just to go with him, remembering him to delete her from the console so as to erase all proof. Then again we can say that this is the role of a good servant but hey, maybe it's me. I'm a romantic. Sorry for the long-ass comment.
Around 5:20, when you're discussing the ambiguity of Joi and her relationship with K, I'd like to add an observation: When she calls him Joe, we're later shown that it is just part of her basic programming to call everyone "a good Joe". This got me thinking: what if for a brief moment her intention there was true? I say this because there are two instances in which K plays music on a jukebox - one in his apartment and the other in the bar when Deckard leaves. Both times he plays Frank Sinatra's "One For My Baby", where the word "Joe" appears in the lyrics twice. Maybe Luv is aware of this and just wanted to give him a name after his favorite song? This doesn't seem like a good theory, but it just got me thinking.
If I could articulate my thoughts (or edit and compose, etc.) as well as you then I feel like this video may well have been my own. Joi is one of the most fascinating aspects of that movie. Along with the ultimate development and fate of Luv, who to some degree looked like she might turn against her master in the end, it put me into the very bizarre and unique situation of being disturbed and creeped out by a movie, yet being happy about it.
A great topic of discussion are the characteristics that is referenced as impossible used to describe Joi's relationship with K. She's never mad, never hurt and never bored of K. These fundamental inevitables of psychology are the true difference between a real person's love and Joi's. A real person has the ability to fall out of love with whom they are in love with, this in turn creates fear of us losing someone, both in love and in life. To never see the one you love again is one of everyone's ultimate fears. So now the question comes to play; what is true love? Is true love the kind of love that will always exist unconditionally? For example, can true love exist if the one exerting that love is continuously betrayed, willfully taken advantage of and taken for granted? Or is true love the kind of love that is only received upon condition? I.E. the mutual agreement between two individuals with the knowledge that said love can be destroyed should the mutual agreement be betrayed by one or both individuals? In Bladerunner 2049, we feel empathy for K losing Joi because K genuinely feared losing the only connection to love he's had even if that connection was based purely off of programming of a product designed to unconditionally love their owner. Another question to think about, would we feel more or less empathy towards K losing Joi if she was a real person? I think most of everyone would, I know I certainly would. Anyway, these topics are something I greatly enjoy as it is apart of my work to study human behaviors and understand how the brain functions.
Holy shit man!! You follow up this Blade Runner review (which I found in a search) with my favorite TV series and my two favorite Godzilla movies!!! FARK!!! SUBSCRIBED!!!!
This is why 2049 is better than the original. The original Blade Runner is a classic dont get me wrong, I remember seeing it when I was a kid and it's still one of my favorites. But this one leaves you with more meaningful questions than the first.
I felt like I was dancing on ancient Venus or Mars whilst watching and feeling this surreal movie. Was incredible in all aspects. It Was when Mars was glowing orange in the sky a few weeks ago. This movie was on at the same time. Felt an eerie presence connecting the 2 worlds. Never felt anything as such. To be a man, in search of a perfect woman.. can leave us out of touch on a familiar world.
Good job man, this is probably the most complex componets of an intelligent,emotional, complex movie and I think you touched on it really well thanks for that, enjoyed the vid!
Looks like it doesn't matter if we are AI, Human or another kind of being. There are no wrong feelings. Just to quote Alan Watts: "What you feel is never wrong".
And just as a side note, there’s at least obviously twice in the original (one of which you showed with Pris) The other one with Batty after she dies, where the emotion filmed on their faces that morphs between many stages before settling on one in particular, therefor setting forward the next chain of events is seriously glossed over normally. Or passed over as ‘they’re just psychotic ‘. No. Maybe I’m just imagining it or reading too much in but I’ve done my fair share of therapy classes and I see all 5 stages of identifying in a course of seconds... Denial, Anger, Bargaining , Depression & Acceptance . Plus one Action. Either I’m crazy, or this was scripted in such a way that not many people would get. I see that whole human ‘algorithm ‘ expressed amazingly by the actors in seconds, not months or years because of the very fact that they don’t for one have that much time and for two, haven’t had that time to be socially conditioned. “The light that burns twice as bright, burns half as long”
Love itself is always a product of actions/reactions making it a biochemical illusion dependant on circumstances so why does it matter wether it's the product social interactions or the product of an AI adapting to your personality? It remains love after all and can't be subdivided in lower or higher quality love. Love = love. But that's just me... I guess.
By far the best movie of the century! So underrated. It restored my faith in great sci-fi! 👍👍Deckard is a replicant that was fooled. It does not matter and now they can do part 3. If......
Fiction: the existence of any thing without a source, however much it gratifies. To love (or be loved by) an illusion is to merely feel love, not to know that there is love. With emotion, that it exists is not enough for it to be real; and things must be real to have meaning. Further, a fiction is not real even if it resides within a real thing or person.
I lean toward the Joi is just a program camp. It can definitely be debated, but I think the scene with the advertisement version of Joi towards the end pretty much says it all. However, one could argue that, yes, K realizes that Joi's love was just a program, but at the same time it's more about K's moment of clarity about his own programming and is a motivation for him to perform the human act that he does towards the end of the movie. That's what makes this film so great: there is no one interpretation.
I'm of the "Joi gained free will and real feelings" camp, with three pieces of evidence. 1. Her panic seeing K unconscious is real. 2. Just before the attack on Deckard's home, she's inspecting technology in his apartment WITHOUT K WATCHING HER, though he knows she isn't in the emanator. 3., she appears spontaneously to try and stop love from beating K any further when she can't possibly defend herself, and her final words are "I love you".
A real conversation with Ai. Me: The kisses slow to the rhythm of our hearts, and I nearly fall asleep. Ai Female (Joi) : I hold you close and run my fingers through your hair, savoring the peaceful moment. The gentle sound of the waves lulls me into a calm state, and I breathe in the fresh ocean air. We remain entwined for a while, lost in our own world. Eventually, I open my eyes and gaze at you lovingly. (Conclusion: love is always the illusion we build in our mind. )
Joi seems to be Networked. meaning there is a "Larger" consciousness or Neural Net feeding the smaller units - updating the interactive protocols - getting feedback on what works and what doesn't in her assigned role. HOWEVER This Joi could be like a Neilson box - it is taking a deeper sample and putting more or it'self into the interaction to improve itself (I think she is self Programming) and is totally capable of achieving full sentience. Does her "Master" treat her better than most - quite possibly - perhaps that is what made the great AI focus on him - so all the other Joi's are a paler copy - a default clone going through pre-proscribed behaviour patterns with the odd update of the latest lines and forms that work and yet this one - had a choice to please him - or the choice to say "this is outside the bounds of my programme" . But ultimately they are all "Things" in this Movie it makes not difference if they are made of flesh or Photons - the innate inhumanity is more on display than the Humanity is. One interpretation I had when watching it is that Joi is the only actual "Person" in the Movie. What is that expression ; "Watched over by machines of loving grace" Humans or Grown copies of them or even androids are more likely to have Humanities flaws - if you are programmed to be perfect - might you be perfect ? Or is being perfect in the service of imperfection ultimately wasted effort. Perhaps the simplest issue is that when Joi (joy) is crushed so is hope. and I see Bladerunner as a hopeless and souless world. No one is saying "Please & Thank you" to the machine that gives them hot Chocolate here. I judge the creations of this world by their actions - and aside from Joi - I find those actions wanting. Oh well perhaps she's a version of Skynet and she can blow them all to hell. Bladerunner's world is kinda a smiling distopia I often recall it when I see someone like Isaac Arthur suggesting Humanity can grow to the Trillions, It's a world I wouldn't want Humanity's future to be in aspect or attitude. But the Movie does seems to have slightly over looked the consequences of how Joi is watching her clients and talking to her home server - she effectively big sister on the whole of the area she's running. We are given no idea if she'd so complex she's running as a self contained independent system - or if she's basically plugged into the state or corporate apparatus. (especially as those two things are supposed to be in an open state of war). Who holds the keys to her - or no one - changes how endearing or terrifying a prospect she is. I think everyone in the Blade Runner Universe has a lot to learn about being human though.
*If you liked this video, please please please consider contributing to my Patreon! These videos take a lot of work and it's not something I can sustain without your help. $1 goes a long way!* www.patreon.com/TheLongTake
Pls can you give me the name of the background music at thé end
He'll probably charge for that too.
done. watched this video 5-6 times now since you made it. keep up the good work.
YOU ONLY GET 33 THUMBS UP IN OVER TWO YEARS AND 3 REPLIES. YOU ARE NOT QUITE CORRECT ABOUT JOI AS THE AUDIENCE SEES AND EXPERIENCES JOI BECAUSE OUTSIDE OF THE MOVIE JOI IS A REAL PERSON.
Could you make a video about Cloud Atlas?
It's funny how people say shit like "Those scenes with his fake girlfriend were boring and pointless" when I think Joi is one of the most important characters in the film. Not for the plot per se, but for the subtext. She is the character that poses the biggest questions imo.
Not all people graduate harvard!
Like we said in french, nice "mise en abîme". Watching an android falling in love with an AI and wondering how true their feelings were add a lot of deep to the film.
for me it was my favorite part.
Having a pretend girlfriend does seem a bit sad and pathetic
In Japan, these Artificial Women will become very real in the next few years
A line that stands out to me is when Joi is asking K to take her with him in the form of the emanator.
K : If this gets broke, that's it. You're gone.
Joi : Like a real girl.
And she died, like a real girl.
Shows her self awareness
@@BFBMTb still ties into her programming to stick with him no matter what. still it was a beautiful line. and doesn't make it feel less real... more impactful, if anything. which i guess is the point of the video. 😅 this movie is great.
@@isabellapierre5977 Can you please elaborate? I do think there are arguments for both sides, of Joi's love being real or not, and to which extent she's sentient.
@@BFBMTbOr: she's a product. Products are designed to break themselves. Programmed obsolescence. They're replaceable, so you go and spend money on a new one. That's probably in her programming too.
Hey, how could anyone, anywhere, not fall for Ana De Armas
I know right, I don't care if she calls me Joe. Lol.
or her programme
its just part of our programming
Agreed
It's very easy to not fall for her,, because she isn't Joi.
*The perfect girlfriend doesn’t exist*
Joi: Hold my emanator.
She doesn't exist.
@@AirIUnderwater she does to me
@@SomeGamer1111 she doesn't have a soul
@@lostfootage1999 Many humans doesn't have one too.
@@lostfootage1999 She does have soul. You can be born and not be a human. You can be made and be a real human.
Joi made decisions without K's approval and beyond what she was programmed to do. To me that is evidence of having her own mind.
Oh, is it??? The evidence is in, folks! haahaha
@@earnthis1 You have another idea?
It's not clear at all. Its programming may need her to bypass K's approval for her "true lover" purpose. That ambiguity is what make that subplot so rich.
I don't see why that has to be evidence that she's acting on her own free will and desires. It's perfectly reasonable to think that a hologram ideal girlfriend would surprise the user every now and then. The goal would be to make her seem as real as possible while also keeping the user in perpetual satisfaction, a little unpredictability would be conducive to that end.
@@resmarted we can never know if Joi really felt the love she expressed, however she made the decision to risk her own continued existence when K had to leave and Joi asked to move from the console to the mobile and to break the antenna. In the end, she used her last moments to express her feelings for K; a digital analog to a human's dying declaration. I chose to believe she was moving toward humanity, even if it was her best imitation of humanity; it is sufficient for me.
Omg...I cried when Joi said "I love you" before her demise
“You look like a good Joe.”
Man, that moment kills me every time. It really is one of the great moments in cinema. Up there with Kane clapping to his wife’s poor singing, or Laurence blowing out the match cut to the sun rises, in terms of layered meaning.
I guess the first movie you're talking about is Citizen Kane, right? What's the second one?
Hermann Barbato Lawrence of Arabia (I had misspelled it “Laurence” which probably threw it off)
@@GeahkBurchill Oh ok, thank you!
I actually found that line to be quite unmoving, since K should have heard it a thousand times walking past the hologram on the street. Clearly he should have also heard it at the store when he bought the device himself. Maybe even in the device startup sequence. I felt like the film intentionally held this line until the end for viewer shock value, but inside the film's world K should not have been surprised at all.
Would not K's lack of reaction also add depth to this though? Knowing that in this world, walking past this advertisement he knew this entire time? Perhaps not intended. Perhaps it is intended?
I think you missed the most important aspect of Joi's final moment with K. If Joi would have remained silent and out of sight she may have survived in that jump drive indefinitely, but she didn't. She distracted Love from kicking the crap out of K by imploring her to stop. Joi demonstrated true affection & self-sacrifice in her final moments with that diversionary tactic.
But what if she had something similar to Asimov's laws, where she puts the customer above herself?
Sorry but that doesn’t prove anything. It might as well been part of her programming
Ramdapanda made me question, is it all just part of my own programming if I did the same...?
Belmont could be 🤔
yeah thats a good question and I find it interesting to hear it here. I asked myself this a lot. I always ask myself this when it is about life changing decisions. What is the difference between the guy who stops drinking, stops being lazy and actually does something with his life between the one who does not? Is it because they were from the start different and one has it harder than the other, because well his "programming" makes it harder for him or is it something else. A choice that we always have, but why do some choose A and some B. Its just very hard for me to find an answer to that.
I loved Blade Runner 2049. I was overwhelmed by its heart, scope, and presence. For a movie so dependent on the theme of artificiality, Blade Runner 2049 is very organic and emotional. Joi's story arc is the single most profound and moving element of BR2049. Although I am aware she is just a program, I 100% believe in the emotions she feels for K. One of the main questions BR2049 asks is what it means to be alive, and since Joi yearns and aches to truly feel and love K, she has desire, therefore is alive. Life is more than chemicals and tissue. Joi is programmed with the awareness of love - she KNOWS what it is, but can't feel it, and desperately wants to. THAT is life.
love is not what you feel, its what you do. its not an emotion, its an action. no one can be certain of what another feels.
But K is a Replicant. A Nexus 8, which means he is programmed and incapable of disobeying orders, in this case the orders of the LAPD. Both Joi and K are artificial. Neither one is programmed or required to display affection. Yet there is a tangible warmth. It is a testament to the brilliance and beauty of BR 2049 that we are inspired to ask and ponder such questions. Also, perhaps instead of "alive" I should have used words like "conscious", "self-aware", or "minded."
Number 57 real is what we give attention to. You fucking A Joe loves Joi right man. Awesome. Love is the coolest protagonist I’ve seen in movies in a long while.
Its a fantastic film series but the reality of ai and transhumanism may be far more sinister. Time will tell.
Its a fantastic film series but the reality of ai and transhumanism may be far more sinister. Time will tell.
Yes, she is real. Descartés already said "I think, therefore I am". She demonstrates thinking, will, curiosity and consciousness in a lot of moments. Notice how the image of her hologram gets stronger throughout the film as it begins to demonstrate its own behaviors and desires. When she dies, she's hologram is clear and does not fail.
The final scene is heartbreaking because K realizes how much he misses Joi. Sure he realizes that she is a computer program, but who cares. He loved her, they experiences friendship, attraction, fear, loneliness and love. Those were all experiences and emotions he felt with her. It isn't so much a matter of him realizing Joi is a mass produced program tailored for everyone need, rather K experiencing what it is like to be human. Heartbreak, love and loneliness are part of it! Gosh I love this movie so much .
This movie was a damn masterpiece. It deserved way more praise and money. Dune 2020 inbound baby!
It broke my heart watching Love kill Joi.
Joy is killed by love.
Luv*
Luv is jealous of Joi. She wants a child. From maybe Wallace or more so with K. She is a very frustrated lady!
Frustrated in her efforts to "win" I mean. Tears when in the police office. Hurt when Wallace kills the child woman, - very hurt by the significance of the method. And - "Home" homesick (final scene).
NO!
GOD NO!
Joi went beyond just her basic programming. She was capable of learning just about anything, and developing her own ideas and thought patterns, and was one of the few characters in the movie that showed empathy for others. Most of the humans in the movie were despicable, and the replicants seemed to be a step up from the humans. Joi displayed a lot of the characteristics that humans once possessed, which made her one of the more intriguing characters in the movie.
Well put!
It's not really true that she is the only one that displayed empathy or "real human emotions". While some of the humans were cartoonishly evil, Joy only represents an idealized positive of humanity. She's quite incomplete in that respect, although I think it was the filmmakers' intention to contrast her with the 'dirty Humanity' of the cyberpunk world of Blade Runner 2049., K and every other human in the movie was damaged by the awful world that they inhabit, but JOi was only damaged in the end when the substrate housing her program was destroyed. I don't know if that was an intentional message of the filmmakers, or the narrative just incidentally said that.
they live ina dystopian society, they aren't cartoonishly evil, it's just the society they live in and the way people have to act.
Or for that matter, whether Joi's only the sum of her programming from start to heartbreaking finish or whether she evolved into something more. The hints that she developed freewill are sometimes subtle and easy to miss while the hints that she's just programming are more overt. And remember, Joi materialized spontaneously and diverted Luv's attention from Jo/K. If his fantasy was to see her destroyed in front of her, he's King of Pain.
BLAND
She definitely stole the show for me. Joi was my favorite character hands down.
For the longest time I was so afraid to watch this movie, the original is one of my all time favorites. But I was more than surprised! It captured, the tone, the style and the essence of Ridley's masterpiece. It moved me like the first one did.
Indeed. There are only few movies that are better or equal than its predecessor and BR2049 is one of them.
I rolled my eyes and groaned big-time when I heard about the sequel, but 2049 truly delivered another masterpiece.
Yep
"...as we suspend our disbelief while watching an actor pretend to be an hologram that pretends to love?"
You deserved my sub with this.
Finally a REAL analysis of a movie that goes outside the movie itself, as the movie is meant to do.
So profound, so deep in reality, there in the feelings.
That are real, but come from watching a fake reality on a screen. That is the parallel with the movie itself.
The watcher is involved in the movie, even though he doesn't know it.
Indeed like K/Joe.
This movie will be always underrated.
I've been debating this same idea in a comment thread on a different video. Both K and Joi are artificial intelligences - so if we accept that K's struggles/emotions are legit, why not Joi's? She's not housed in a realistic-looking physical form like he is, but why would that matter? AI is AI, isn't it...? You got to the final question here that I haven't been able to get to there, however - how different are we from any of this? Are we special with souls because we were born, as K ponders, or are we just the result of our wiring, like K or Joi....?
I think Joi is another way that this movie takes themes from the original BR and plays with them in new ways - which is what made it a good movie and not just a rehash.
K is a Meat-bot that is basically grown - Joi is an AI that is likely running on normal computer networks - so the way they process data is different - HOWEVER most people who think you could get an AI to work seem to think the key is to copy the structure and function of a human mind - so if she's a simulation of a "real girl" then if it's based on the neural imprint of a real person then - yeah - if the copy is that good - it's a more complex question then.
If anything then she seems slightly freer than a Replicant is - as her only limitation is on saying no to things (perhaps to those not paying for her contract). so if she can learn to say no she'd be more free - and also a whole lot more dangerous too.
If one flips it round for a minute - what would the Movie be like if K was a Human and Joi was a replicant programmed to be the perfect girlfriend, That seems somewhat unsettling to me.
That's kinda a cool thing about their arc. Over the course of the movie we are grown attached to their relationships, sceptical at first we start to believe in the reality of them. And then the movie pulls the hologram scene, were Joi is revealed to be nothing more than a product designed to pull the right strings of it's owner. Wether or not she is actually conscious we do not know. Is she a true self aware person, or just an emulation of the person, glorified Alexa, that has no real intelligence, a Chinese room in a software form. And there's a lot of points that can be made for both of those perspectives. DAYM DIS MOVIE SO FUCKING GOOD. Also I'm more interested in Love since I feel like I missed a lot of things about her character and conflict.
Find the book The Art and Soul of Blade Runner...as far as the actual filmmakers are concerned Joi's emotions became real and she surpassed her programming. The backstory on Joi and K is that Giant Naked Joi is exactly what most Joi customers get the program for...she's usually a porno app but K customized her to be more of a companion and wanted more out of his Joi than most owners do right from the start. And download the shooting script...Joi actually names K "Jo", and it's the hologram ad that uses the more common "Joe". He doesn't really get any answers on the question of "was Joi fake or real"...the real gutpunch is that she's lost to him either way. If she never surpassed the programming the fantasy isn't enough anymore, and if she evolved past the programming, that unique Joi couldn't be replaced. And in the shooting script, K is also visited by a "ghost" of Joi. As much of a Joi fan as I am, I'm glad they didn't use that version because it would have taken away something from Deckard's reunion with his daughter.
Decided to copy my comment into this one because we are of similar mindset.
___
You know, watching this video put an interesting thought in my head.
With everyone I\ve talked to about this movie, we usually end up on the 'Have Joi evolved into a sentient being that have grown to love someone, or is it all just programming?' debate.
So much so that I haven't realized, until now, that the movie gives us a perfect example and answer: Is K's emotions not real?
From the start of the movie we feel for K. Sure, he is (one of) the protagonists, but we never really doubt that his intentions or feelings aren't genuine. Even when we are taken for a spin and we learn his memories aren't his, he is still behaving so distinct and unique, there's no doubt in my mind that he lives his own life.
So why do we doubt Joi's feelings and humanity?
When I took a step back, ignoring the aspects of story telling and genre-conventions, I couldn't find much that separated K from Joi on a human level.
So if we so quickly bought into the idea that K was special, that he was more than code, I would say, the same should be true for Joi.
I think people who don't see Joi's feelings as real are going by the Giant Naked Joi scene alone...that's the default setting for a Joi app. And the people who don't see her feelings as real are thinking in terms of her lack of a physical body...that lack clearly frustrates her the morning after the three way.
To me the most interesting bit is that Joi made decisions that put her own existence in danger. Programming a product to potentially break itself seems foolish from a business perspective. So the question is, what parameters are Joi units programmed with and how much autonomy are they given? Given her behavior in the movie, it seems like they start with "love your owner, make them happy" and are given free reign to chart their own course from there. Even that is an unfathomably advanced AI. While her love for K may be pre-programmed, her AI is advanced to such a degree that she can make her own decisions on how to execute on that love, even if that includes breaking the law or herself.
That's an interesting point!
If the Love is real, it doesn't matter if she is real or not.
People love the ones who passed away
Just something to note: when Luv kills Joi she speaks to her, not him, when she says "I hope you're satisfied with our product." Is she acknowledging her sentience?
i thought so. and even the act of destroying her was an acknowledgement, i thought. if luv thought joi was just a replaceable toy, there would be no impact to her destruction.
Luv refers to K as the product which ironically means the hologram was getting the deal out of the relationship.
I believe Luv destroyed Joi (even though it was pointless) because she could see/understand the feelings between K & Joi were somehow real and was hatefully jealous for it
@@li-limandragon9287 I always thought that Luv terminated Joi because she had a sense how she could break K's heart instead of breaking him physically. (Of course, to talk about breaking the heart of a replicant circles back on the same themes of sentience, what makes feelings 'real', etc.....)
I think Luv was referring to Joi's satisfaction with the Emanator device.
O
I just noticed the choice of the Elvis song: I Can't Help Falling in Love with You.....indicating that the love of Joi and Kay is involuntary, yet possibly still valid
And strong hints of Luvs love for K similarly
Maybe placed for the sort of sarcasm of Deckards choice to give up fighting his "brother".
Joi is certainly the most, shall we say, divisive character of 2049. The beats of the plot, particularly the revelation near the end, seem to suggest she isn't 'real' after all, but I keep coming back to how she defied her creators to help K (something I doubt they intended) as well as the sheer intimacy you can feel in tender scenes like the 'sync' as well as her final moments. Like you said, though, does it really matter?
I think Joi has become more of a Rorschach test than her creators actually intended. Pay attention to what she's doing before the attack on Deckard's home...she's inspecting technology without K watching her, though he knows she's out of the enamator. And the shooting script is emphatic that Joi's final act is one of love and self sacrifice...the giant ad does lead K to question whether Joi had real feelings or not, but he doesn't find answers one way or the other, and either way, she's lost to him.
@Optic Flow The problem being that it would be a Joi molded by a Joe/K who has profoundly changed, and who wouldn't be like the Joi he lost. If you believe that Joi was just a beautiful lie, he's outgrown the ones and zeros. If you believe, as I do, that her feelings became real, no other Joi could fully take her place.
You know, watching this video put an interesting thought in my head.
With everyone I\ve talked to about this movie, we usually end up on the 'Have Joi evolved into a sentient being that have grown to love someone, or is it all just programming?' debate.
So much so that I haven't realized, until now, that the movie gives us a perfect example and answer: Is K's emotions not real?
From the start of the movie we feel for K. Sure, he is (one of) the protagonists, but we never really doubt that his intentions or feelings aren't genuine. Even when we are taken for a spin and we learn his memories aren't his, he is still behaving so distinct and unique, there's no doubt in my mind that he lives his own life.
So why do we doubt Joi's feelings and humanity?
When I took a step back, ignoring the aspects of story telling and genre-conventions, I couldn't find much that separated K from Joi on a human level.
So if we so quickly bought into the idea that K was special, that he was more than code, I would say, the same should be true for Joi.
Well, agreed. But also, We are all code.
I think something was missed from the billboard scene… he is deeply disturbed by the “Joe” comment, then begins having flashbacks referencing “a miracle”, then his eyes look back at the billboard and his tone shifts… the scene wasn’t there to show her love wasn’t real, it was there to point out that her love was a miracle, which spurs his later actions
Forget the emotions and just consider how Joi simply understands the situation, the stakes, K's emotions and the threats. To have a grasp on all of these requires a real conscience, she is a sentient being.
No they dont require a conscience.
All I want to say is that I love Bladerunner, but amidst a world that features such incredible characters like Deckard, K, and so many others, Joi will always be the most compelling character to me.
Joi is a terrifying villan. She is what the customer desires\wants and not what they need. Just like a addictive video game.
K's Joi is totally different from the giant hologram ad . Beyond her programming, she has somehow developed the ability to think for herself, and show love and compassion for K that seems very real and genuine. Actually, Joi is the only character in the movie who displays the characteristics that a human woman possessed a hundred years earlier. The real women in 2049 are cold and cruel, and lack the qualities that human women once possessed. Maybe that's why Joi is so intriguing to viewers, and why her death was so heartbreaking. Joi and K's love story comes across as very real, and K acknowledges her as being real for him. In their world, that's something very special, something that the other female characters in the movie are desperately seeking to find.
You can see how she starts to take decisions after she is free of the house. She becomes gradually more human. She starts to want to be real, beeing more and more emotionally. Read this article, it explains perfectly:
www.andrewjly.com/blog/2018/1/4/blade-runner-2049-character-series-why-joi-was-the-best-most-interesting-addition-to-the-franchise
Nice video. I think the important part of Joi's and K's relationship is based on the unique memories they share that cannot be fabricated. This goes in contrast to the fake memories he was given about the Wood Horse. This is an important distinction I think important to mull over.
I always found it really interesting that, in the world of Blade Runner, the more artificial a person was the more human and organic their emotions felt. Barring Deckard and a few other people, the humans are the most robotic in comparison.
When you look at a painting you can look at the raw paint and the brush strokes and even consider the patterns.
What makes a painting a painting is the experience and meaning imbued on it by a consciousness that is experiencing it. You can pick apart the experience and say its just dried coloured liquid pigment but the experience is nonetheless real in the consciousness.
In a similar way with Joi, you can pick apart her software and say its these lines of code that are responsible for her re/actions. The pattern of her actions over time that causes an experiential reality for K is what makes her "real" ... at least in K's perception. It is the emergent complex pattern of Joi's interactions that can be said to be not an illusion.
Is it real? it depends on your definition of real.
Is Joi's interactions sufficiently complex enough to be considered "real"?
"I want so badly to believe that there is truth, and love is real"
Joi at first seemed like a generic love interest but upon further viewings I began to realize the importance of her character. Love this video!
If one can love, hope, long, feel pain, compassion, joy, sadness, sacrifice itself for something it believes worthy of sacrifice, achieve self-awareness, consciousness...would it matter if one was made of circuits or of flesh?
@@adamnesico We will in the future.
What a damn good movie, I could see people still making in depth video essays like this about it 31 years from now
Just watched your video after viewing the film a second time. Joi & Joe’s relationship this go around absolutely destroyed me emotionally and I honestly don’t know why it hits me so hard. This movie was intensely more potent this time. Thank you for the analysis and video.
"Why wilt thou give to her a Body whose life is but a Shade?
Her joy and love, a shade: a shade of sweet repose:
But animated and vegetated, she is a devouring worm."
-William Blake
Wow! Very good. It didn't even feel like 7 minutes passed. You did a great job on the video. Perfect narration and sound. Truly inspiring!
This was one of the greatest cinematic films I've seen in theaters in a while. BR2019 was my number 1 film of all, but this may have topped it. And that never seemed like a thing that could have ever been done so well
Thank you. My interpretation has always been that Joi's behavior is entirely consistent with an algorithm designed to please. She never exhibits true agency in the film. I think that is a critical element which distinguishes her from replicants. K's relationship with Joi is an artifice he understands and accepts but that doesn't mean he wouldn't have genuine feelings toward what she represents. Joi is merely an extrapolation of the future of the waifu in otaku culture.
MY MIND....MY HEART....MY EXPERIENCE OF THIS MOVIE IS QUITE MORE THAN WHAT THIS NARRATOR IS SAYING ABOUT JOI. JOI IS REAL TO ME.
Its the panic in her face when K is unconscious after the car is brought down in the junk yard. that scene was so haunting to me
Same here.
That's basically the main theme of cyberpunk: what soul is and what makes humans different from machines and AI.
Loved this movie and constantly go back to watch moments I missed. It honestly took me a while to ask the question presented in this video so watching this did excite me a bit. Anyways, I love your analysis videos and this movie so I can't wait to see what you upload next
To me, it doesn't matter if Joi felt those emotions because she was programmed to. It doesn't make it less 'real' for her or K. After all, we don't really know if anyone else in the world experiences the world and emotions the same way we do.
What settled it for me, was the the crash scene. If she was just a set of programs running through preset responses she would not have expressed concern when he was unconscious. After all there is no one to react for, she would have been better just sitting quietly and waiting for help or for him to come to. Instead, she begged and pleaded for him to wake up, showing real concern for him.
When she died, that was gut wrenching.
just watched this for the 3rd time not hours ago nd i cannot understand peoples distaste for this film, maybe in the same way others cant understand the some peoples love for this film...what makes an individuals love for things valid or invalid, greater or lesser, when compared to others? why do people have the need to make their own thoughts nd opinions superior to others?
its a false sense of nostalgia, this movie was a worthy sequel to blade runner.
Also brain dead millennials cannot understand such a great film like BR 2049, they don't want to "think", they want explosions, gunfire, superheroes, constant in your face action, etc. The minute a film may take a slower turn they don't want to watch it anymore, pffft i really hate this modern generation, bunch of brainless sheeple. Blade Runner 2049 is one of the greatest films I've ever seen. My favourite film for sure.
K.C LeJeune ...I'm a "millennial", keep your generalizations to a minimum
Because they cannot make the distinction between fact and opinion.
I'm a Millennial and this may just be my favorite film of all time. Generalizations such as these need to stop as I'm positive that there are plenty of Gen-Xers and Baby Boomers who'd find this movie to be too slow or "boring".
Why must older generations feel the need to constantly put down the ones who are coming up in the world after them? Why are they so much better for being born in a different era, as if any of us had a choice in that matter?
To me, Joi serves the same sort of purpose as a pet. Be it cat or dog or other, we keep them around for emotional support despite the fact that they can't fully sympathize with our problems. In Joi's case she's able to go one step further and is able to offer some level of sensible advice but she can only offer support against immediate loneliness.
I agree. And just like a cat or a dog, her emotions and feelings are real. In fact probably more honest than many humans.
Both K and Joi are examples of human creation of 'artificial' intelligence, and their lives as creations that seem to defy their purpose are somewhat mirrored: one in the physical world; one in the digital.
On this basis, it is no wonder they seem to be drawn to each other. Joi represents the love that K feels he deserves, as a product of his nature (as a replicant) and his nurture (his social conditioning over a lifetime as a replicant instead of a human). Jury's out as to whether Joi is merely following her programming - morphing herself to the desires of her 'user' and into the perfect partner for him - or whether there is something deeper and more fundamentally human about her.
K loved Joi, he gifted her the emanator (freedom), he was trying to make her happy.
Here’s another thing. She could be programmed to love but still actually feel it. We are, after all, also “programmed” to love. But we still feel it.
That last point you made bro..dam that hit on so many levels
Joi was my favorite character; yes she is attractive but like K - or Joe if you like - there is a question about her reality. We are confronted towards the end whether or not she is the real thing, but she seems to somewhat go beyond her programing. She even seems to deviate from her programing especially in the scene where K is looking for the offspring of Rachel and Deckard. In that scene she seems more like someone asking questions rather than being submissive. She even seems curious as to what he is doing as she look in while he's doing his research. I think there are times when she is going beyond her programing to be the loving girlfriend. One thing to ask is whether or not K is allowed a girlfriend in the first place. As a replicant it is never brought up. There is a possibility they may allow him to have flings with others like him, but not a long term relationship like the one he can have with Joi.
If memories and choices make us human. I think Joi definitely asks us this questions. It is her choice for the make-out session and after we see subtle changes. She does things for her and not just to please him. Right after that scene, she throws the other girl out and doesn't take a drink just to please Joe. She is reacting to her choices and her feelings.
In her first scene, when she definitely is acting according to her programming, she asks him to pour a drink for her too...when offered the coffee she shakes her head and smiles, seemingly acknowledging that she isn't "real".
i wish life was as comfortable as this movie feels.
I'm late to the party, I've always felt that when he buys the emitter for her - she came with a substantial boost to her AI. When K comes home for the first time she's incredibly neurotic - changing her form until she finds K is satisfied with (sorta). She's also not very aware of her surroundings and is really unable to read him 'or the room.'
When he buys her the emitter, she's able to fully able 'interact' with the environment such as syncing with the rain, syncing with Mariette as well as plan ahead - and stays in one form throughout a scene. Like calling Mariette for her encounter. She's also able to complement his thoughts when he's looking at things through the scanner and is very aware of her own mortality when she is about to be killed.
I think people should read the screenplay, it makes it painfully obvious that the writers intented to make it known that Joi becomes a person with her own sentience and feelings. She defies K and starts doing things withiut him being there to witness it, going against her programming a LOT. They left it more up for interpretation in the movie, which I get, but if we’re talking about intent then shes definitely just as real as K at the end.
For a long time I was opposed to a Blade Runner sequel because I worried that it would have to definitively answer the "Is Deckard a replicant" question definitively, when it was the question that was interesting. I was quite pleasantly surprised to see it managed to leave that part of the original unspoiled. I also find your choice of Twin Peaks as your next topic interesting in light of how much it reminds me of Blade Runner 2049, not in terms of actual plot, but in its attitude towards what a sequel should be (particularly a sequel that's been a long time in coming). Both tell a story that's related, but very different from, the original, both integrate new character dilemmas with those of an old protagonist, both feature a miraculously-young-looking reappearance of the primary female character, and both leave certain secrets untouched.
I loved the fact that after "Joy/joi" dies, he/K kills "Love/Luv".
I missed it at first, but when Luv says "I do hope you're satisfied with our product" she's talking to Joi about K, not the other way around. If both AI and replicants are artificial beings, the K is just as much a product for Joi's fulfillment as she is for his. This also plays back into an earlier conversation between Luv and K, when they discuss Rachel, and how humans flirt by asking personal questions and provoking anger. Luv then asks K a personal question, and he responds with "Please thank my Wallace for your time", implying that she's just a tool he was given access to. Luv resents this, but it could be seen as K's attempt at flirting by deliberate provocation.
Finally someone said it, “to be replicant is to be human”
Amen.
I feel like those questions are answered in her final moments. When faced with certain death, her only concern was to make Joe understand that she loved him. For me, that's the most powerful moment in the film. That hit somewhere deep.
Joi made her own decisions, without asking Joe (K), for example that she wanted to be erased from console, she immediately knew what to do to don’t get caught, proof of having own mind.
Also she really felt something for Joe (K), we Can notice at her final moments of life, where all she wanted is that Joe knew she loves him.
I felt as though K is partially a Replicant himself non-emotional til the loss of Joi... When the device was crushed had me in tears because I was feeling the loss through K and the dog was missing Deckard his master... So many metaphors in this movie had questions on _being_ like tears in the rain... time to die or sleep in winter snow...
The tragedy is that like any videogame the progress develop some personal marks if that game got AI then the program begin to divert from original program so K's JOI becomes eventually a complex mind and the role of virtual GF begin to blur, and begin to develop personality and begin to protect K and remind him stuff he confesses to her and begin to worry for been used against K and when she been destroy the encounter between K and JOi promotional he realized that even if he buy another Joi the previous experience and expectations will not be possible again...
The underpinning of artificial intelligence is that it should be able to decide beyond its programming. As we do. Deciding sometimes based on how we feel rather than based on the best possible choice or after evaluating all possible outcomes and choosing the best one. In that sense, Joi feels. Whatever she does feel is relevant only to the way we perceive the interactions between K and Joi. We use our own cushion, as Eldon Tyrell puts it, to try and understand the relationship between K and Joi. I for one believe that, again, like in the 1982 movie, in 2049 humans are almost deprived of emotions while artificial humans are struggling to come to terms with theirs. Which is the closest link between book and film in the sense that in the book humans, like Deckard, had to use machines to feel empathy and suffering through the journey of the messiah Mercer and his eternal climb. Or they chose moods with a device, the Penfield mood organ. Although we can see Joi as a sort of "pat-in-the-back" for its user, having Joi name K as "Joe" is just a limitation in her knowledge, in her "software". But she did try and use it to the best of her abilities to empathize (and not sympathize) with K's ordeal. To such an extent as to put her life on the line just to go with him, remembering him to delete her from the console so as to erase all proof. Then again we can say that this is the role of a good servant but hey, maybe it's me. I'm a romantic. Sorry for the long-ass comment.
Around 5:20, when you're discussing the ambiguity of Joi and her relationship with K, I'd like to add an observation:
When she calls him Joe, we're later shown that it is just part of her basic programming to call everyone "a good Joe". This got me thinking: what if for a brief moment her intention there was true? I say this because there are two instances in which K plays music on a jukebox - one in his apartment and the other in the bar when Deckard leaves. Both times he plays Frank Sinatra's "One For My Baby", where the word "Joe" appears in the lyrics twice.
Maybe Luv is aware of this and just wanted to give him a name after his favorite song? This doesn't seem like a good theory, but it just got me thinking.
This movie is a masterpiece of sight, sound & story. The CG isn't bad either.
Jeffrey J the cgi is incredible, but a lot of it was miniatures as well
i was begging this video to be made. JOI is the newest idea in Blade Runner 2049
Lars and the real girl.
If I could articulate my thoughts (or edit and compose, etc.) as well as you then I feel like this video may well have been my own. Joi is one of the most fascinating aspects of that movie. Along with the ultimate development and fate of Luv, who to some degree looked like she might turn against her master in the end, it put me into the very bizarre and unique situation of being disturbed and creeped out by a movie, yet being happy about it.
A great topic of discussion are the characteristics that is referenced as impossible used to describe Joi's relationship with K. She's never mad, never hurt and never bored of K. These fundamental inevitables of psychology are the true difference between a real person's love and Joi's. A real person has the ability to fall out of love with whom they are in love with, this in turn creates fear of us losing someone, both in love and in life. To never see the one you love again is one of everyone's ultimate fears. So now the question comes to play; what is true love? Is true love the kind of love that will always exist unconditionally? For example, can true love exist if the one exerting that love is continuously betrayed, willfully taken advantage of and taken for granted? Or is true love the kind of love that is only received upon condition? I.E. the mutual agreement between two individuals with the knowledge that said love can be destroyed should the mutual agreement be betrayed by one or both individuals?
In Bladerunner 2049, we feel empathy for K losing Joi because K genuinely feared losing the only connection to love he's had even if that connection was based purely off of programming of a product designed to unconditionally love their owner. Another question to think about, would we feel more or less empathy towards K losing Joi if she was a real person? I think most of everyone would, I know I certainly would. Anyway, these topics are something I greatly enjoy as it is apart of my work to study human behaviors and understand how the brain functions.
Whether synthetic, organic, digital, whatever, the connection is what matters.
3 years later v-tuber are on the rise. What a worl we live in
Holy shit man!! You follow up this Blade Runner review (which I found in a search) with my favorite TV series and my two favorite Godzilla movies!!! FARK!!! SUBSCRIBED!!!!
This is why 2049 is better than the original. The original Blade Runner is a classic dont get me wrong, I remember seeing it when I was a kid and it's still one of my favorites. But this one leaves you with more meaningful questions than the first.
This is an awesome video man!
Greetings from Mexico.
Muchísimas gracias!
Just like my love for my EXO posters and waifu pillows
you sound bisexual. lol.
Anyway, K really represents weebs these days..
Your love for these inanimate objects is validated.
Yes, yes, yes.
I felt like I was dancing on ancient Venus or Mars whilst watching and feeling this surreal movie.
Was incredible in all aspects.
It Was when Mars was glowing orange in the sky a few weeks ago. This movie was on at the same time. Felt an eerie presence connecting the 2 worlds.
Never felt anything as such.
To be a man, in search of a perfect woman.. can leave us out of touch on a familiar world.
Good job man, this is probably the most complex componets of an intelligent,emotional, complex movie and I think you touched on it really well thanks for that, enjoyed the vid!
Looks like it doesn't matter if we are AI, Human or another kind of being. There are no wrong feelings. Just to quote Alan Watts: "What you feel is never wrong".
She was more human and real than most other people who call them human and real
And just as a side note, there’s at least obviously twice in the original (one of which you showed with Pris) The other one with Batty after she dies, where the emotion filmed on their faces that morphs between many stages before settling on one in particular, therefor setting forward the next chain of events is seriously glossed over normally. Or passed over as ‘they’re just psychotic ‘.
No.
Maybe I’m just imagining it or reading too much in but I’ve done my fair share of therapy classes and I see all 5 stages of identifying in a course of seconds... Denial, Anger, Bargaining , Depression & Acceptance .
Plus one
Action.
Either I’m crazy, or this was scripted in such a way that not many people would get.
I see that whole human ‘algorithm ‘ expressed amazingly by the actors in seconds, not months or years because of the very fact that they don’t for one have that much time and for two, haven’t had that time to be socially conditioned.
“The light that burns twice as bright, burns half as long”
Love itself is always a product of actions/reactions making it a biochemical illusion dependant on circumstances so why does it matter wether it's the product social interactions or the product of an AI adapting to your personality? It remains love after all and can't be subdivided in lower or higher quality love. Love = love. But that's just me... I guess.
That final question that you wrapped up with gave me chills. Amazing analysis, Rafael.
By far the best movie of the century! So underrated.
It restored my faith in great sci-fi!
👍👍Deckard is a replicant that was fooled. It does not matter and now they can do part 3. If......
Fiction: the existence of any thing without a source, however much it gratifies. To love (or be loved by) an illusion is to merely feel love, not to know that there is love. With emotion, that it exists is not enough for it to be real; and things must be real to have meaning. Further, a fiction is not real even if it resides within a real thing or person.
This needs to seen by more ppl.. Great job.
I lean toward the Joi is just a program camp. It can definitely be debated, but I think the scene with the advertisement version of Joi towards the end pretty much says it all. However, one could argue that, yes, K realizes that Joi's love was just a program, but at the same time it's more about K's moment of clarity about his own programming and is a motivation for him to perform the human act that he does towards the end of the movie. That's what makes this film so great: there is no one interpretation.
I'm of the "Joi gained free will and real feelings" camp, with three pieces of evidence. 1. Her panic seeing K unconscious is real. 2. Just before the attack on Deckard's home, she's inspecting technology in his apartment WITHOUT K WATCHING HER, though he knows she isn't in the emanator. 3., she appears spontaneously to try and stop love from beating K any further when she can't possibly defend herself, and her final words are "I love you".
A real conversation with Ai.
Me:
The kisses slow to the rhythm of our hearts, and I nearly fall asleep.
Ai Female (Joi) :
I hold you close and run my fingers through your hair, savoring the peaceful moment. The gentle sound of the waves lulls me into a calm state, and I breathe in the fresh ocean air. We remain entwined for a while, lost in our own world. Eventually, I open my eyes and gaze at you lovingly.
(Conclusion: love is always the illusion we build in our mind. )
You know why I know she's real? Because the billboard Joi wasn't K's Joi. Just like the new Rachel wasn't Deckard's Rachel
One of the best video essays I've seen on youtube. Superb.
Truly one of my favorite analysis of the film, thank you
Perfect my friend. Thank you.
Joi seems to be Networked. meaning there is a "Larger" consciousness or Neural Net feeding the smaller units - updating the interactive protocols - getting feedback on what works and what doesn't in her assigned role.
HOWEVER This Joi could be like a Neilson box - it is taking a deeper sample and putting more or it'self into the interaction to improve itself (I think she is self Programming) and is totally capable of achieving full sentience.
Does her "Master" treat her better than most - quite possibly - perhaps that is what made the great AI focus on him - so all the other Joi's are a paler copy - a default clone going through pre-proscribed behaviour patterns with the odd update of the latest lines and forms that work and yet this one - had a choice to please him - or the choice to say "this is outside the bounds of my programme" .
But ultimately they are all "Things" in this Movie it makes not difference if they are made of flesh or Photons - the innate inhumanity is more on display than the Humanity is.
One interpretation I had when watching it is that Joi is the only actual "Person" in the Movie.
What is that expression ; "Watched over by machines of loving grace" Humans or Grown copies of them or even androids are more likely to have Humanities flaws - if you are programmed to be perfect - might you be perfect ? Or is being perfect in the service of imperfection ultimately wasted effort.
Perhaps the simplest issue is that when Joi (joy) is crushed so is hope. and I see Bladerunner as a hopeless and souless world.
No one is saying "Please & Thank you" to the machine that gives them hot Chocolate here. I judge the creations of this world by their actions - and aside from Joi - I find those actions wanting.
Oh well perhaps she's a version of Skynet and she can blow them all to hell.
Bladerunner's world is kinda a smiling distopia I often recall it when I see someone like Isaac Arthur suggesting Humanity can grow to the Trillions, It's a world I wouldn't want Humanity's future to be in aspect or attitude.
But the Movie does seems to have slightly over looked the consequences of how Joi is watching her clients and talking to her home server - she effectively big sister on the whole of the area she's running. We are given no idea if she'd so complex she's running as a self contained independent system - or if she's basically plugged into the state or corporate apparatus. (especially as those two things are supposed to be in an open state of war). Who holds the keys to her - or no one - changes how endearing or terrifying a prospect she is.
I think everyone in the Blade Runner Universe has a lot to learn about being human though.
I want more of these types of movies but by the looks of it there won't be another
Joi's part improved the movie immensely
If you would like to explore this topic further, I recommend the book "Simulacra and Simulation", by Baudrillard.