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One of the surprise hits of SDCC this year was the first trailer for Blade Runner 2099. Alasdair’s following the clues.

0.01 – Into the Sun

Climate was a major part of the worldbuilding for Blade Runner 2049 and we’re going to see a lot of that here too. Having the first shot be two spinners flying into the Sun over an industrial landscape feels very un keeping too.

0.03 – Hunter Schafer!

One of the most interesting actors working today and a first good look at the aesthetic. That’s at least three layers of clothing, what looks like a flight harness and a massive amount of shoulder bulk. It’s an interesting look and Michelle Yeoh’s character is similarly dressed.

0.05 – The Sea

Back with the two Spinners and my guess is that the Sea Wall that was such a major part of Blade Runner 2049’s ending has collapsed in the last fifty years. LA sure looks flooded to me.

0.13 – Property Division

As Schafer’s character says ‘we already fought a war’ we see them skulking in a corridor near a sign saying Property Division. We’ve got very little indication yet of who they are and what they do, but this seems to make us want to think they’re a cop of some sort. Aso ‘Property Division’ means a lot of different things in a world where you can own bag grown living slaves.

0.18 – Buster Friendly and his Friendly Friends

The billboards are a big part of the Blade Runner aesthetic. Also look top right. The sea, once again.

0.20 – LAPD?

Unless I miss my guess this is the enormous precinct house K operated out of in 2049, or something very similar.

0.22 – Michelle Yeoh

There she is! Same wardrobing and she looks to be running a team of people. I wonder if the set up here is going to be Blade Runners are now used to hunt down rogue humans?

0.30 – ‘How much longer?’

They’re being coy about this sequence but the burlesque dancers (or is it a fashion show?) are accompanied by an enormous hologram of a ballet dancer. You can see her shoes here.

0.33 – Escape

Lots of quick shots of someone in a boiler suit escaping from an industrial facility. Maybe Schafer’s character escaping a human work camp?

0.37 – Face Off

This pair of shots wants us to think Schafer’s being hunted by Yeoh. If they are in the same scene, this does add weight to the ‘Blade Runners hunt humans’ theory.

0.46 – Brutal

Schafer getting methodically beaten in what seems to be a prison cell, followed by Yeoh, in a VERY Blade Runner trenchcoat, facing them while they’re strapped down.

1.01 – THE OFFWORLD COLONIES?!

A chance to begin again?! Note the last in the background, and the full face mask and the rocket launch. Is this Earth or has someone got their ass to Mars?

1.09 – Yeoh in space

This framing suggests she’s in space. Not the flight stick in one hand, the shielding on the walls, the orientation shift and the world outside the window. The world that looks a lot like the world we just saw, in fact.

1.10 – Birthing Sacks

Schafer watches a new replicant (?) emerge from a technology very similar to what we saw briefly in 2049.

1.12 – High Orbit

We don’t get much here but what we do get is super intriguing. That’s a single engine craft, trailing heat exhaust and heading towards a cluster of domes. It looks like an unusually steroidal Soyuz capsule which tracks with the aesthetic in the previous shot and the station it’s heading towards looks a lot like the forest biomes from classic SF movie Silent Running.

1.16 – Tyrell Corp Building

Lots of quick cuts of explosions but I’m convinced this shot of a Spinner is flying over the remains of the old Tyrell Corp building from the original movie.

1.19 – Voight-Kampf

I was waiting for this. That’s a V/K test, the one Blade Runners use to detect Replicants and that can, so easily, be used the other way…

Blade Runner 2099 is a six-episode miniseries premiering 25 November on Amazon Prime. If you’re interested, check out the Titan comics and both original movies and prequel animated show Black Lotus, they’re all really good.