The original Blade Runner delivered a neon-lit dystopia that changed sci-fi movies forever. Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049 has a lot to live up to in that respect (and more), but a clip from the sequel teases a dark new storyline—involving child labor—and landscape. Ryan Gosling’s Officer K leaves the skyscraper-filled city for a more desolate dome, one that holds a bunch of sickly kids, toiling over scrap metal and circuitry. Lennie James plays the owner of this “facility,” who appears to both fear and mock K. He tells the LAPD officer that he’s already run afoul of people “Bigger than you… bigger than you have tried to shut me down. Bigger than you.. and they were men, at that.” Is the “they were men” remark a dig at K’s masculinity, or is this creepy supervisor hinting at the detective’s inorganic roots? We’ll find out when Blade Runner 2049 hits theaters October 6.
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