+++ rant beginning in 5_4_3_2_1 +++
I didn't like the look of the BR:2049 teaser on the first look in December...
https://forums.fanedit.org/thread-14245-post-276610.html#pid276610
...and last night I saw it on the big screen for the first time and I was even less impressed. It all looks kinda blandly shot and digitally tinted to hell but one shot really stood out, this one...
The top is the one in the teaser with an aggressive orange digital tint, to fool a general audience into thinking it looks good. The middle is my attempt to remove the tint and reveal the shot underneath and it looks like a lobby shot from a corporate Hotel's brochure. The bottom is greyscale to further illustrate how unimaginative, drab and flat the shot is... in comparison to the original movie... in comparison to modern movies in general, it's acceptable I suppose.
Ridley Scott and his cinematographer would have had strong diffuse light pouring in from the left, spot lights picking out the glitter from the chandeliers, a backlight behind Gosling so he stands out, a backlight behind the wolf (that you probably didn't see at first because of no backlight). I mean bloody hell the two table lamps aren't even switched on. It's clear that no creative thought went into this shot whatsoever and this from a movie trying to live up to Blade Runner. Even you couldn't be bothered to light the scene properly, then perhaps simply compose the shot slightly differently so Gosling is standing in the lit doorway providing natural framing. For example the way Orson Welles did in Citizen Kane...
Compare that teaser shot to 3 similar shots of people standing in rooms from the original movie (greyscaled to remove colour distractions) and we can see the titanic golf between Scott and Denis Villeneuve as film Directors...
One only has to look at some screenshots from 'Arrival'...
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Arrival-Blu-ray/164834/#Screenshots
...to see how poor Villeneuve is at visuals (The cinematography got nominated for an Oscar so what do I know?) So why has he been given the job of Directing a movie that should at a base level be about beautiful visuals. 'Blade Runner' was a movie of style
and substance. Let's hope BR:2049 can deliver on one of those at least.
+++ rant complete +++
Additional: Just read that Villeneuve's next project is scheduled to be a new adaptation of Frank Herbert's 'Dune'. Noooooooo