by Tanya Lapointe

Titan Books, out now

A lavish gallery of production artwork from Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049.

A worthy companion to Tanya La Pointe’s 2017 ‘making of’ tome The Art and Soul of Blade Runner 2049, this new volume of production drawings and paintings is printed on high quality paper stock and is a must-buy for both fans of the franchise and those with an interest in fine art movie design.

With yet another volume from the movie due next April – The Storyboards – is there a danger of over-saturation of this content? Quite simply, no. Blade Runner 2049 is such a heavily-designed film that there’s no shortage of material to share after the event. By coming out long after the movie’s release, there’s no concerns about holding back any aspects of the plot for fear of spoilers, and we get a full end-to-end overview of the project. What comes across is the dedication of all artists, connecting to the future past of the 1982 original, while also developing the technology organically to the updated future.

Designer George Hill explains how he studied the original movie extensively, as well as Villeneuve’s previous movies, infusing these two key influences into his work. Across double-page spreads and series of sketches we look at the key components of the world, from the flying Spinners to the handgun artillery. We visit the urban landscapes of wider Los Angeles and its key buildings, from the Wallace Corporation and Police HQ to K’s Brutalist apartment block, pulling heavily from the Hungarian real-world filming locations. Moving out of the city, we look at the desolated landscape including Morton’s farm and the trash mesa, the sea wall and Las Vegas. Sin City benefits from pages of designs, from the statues on the approach to the abandoned casino and Deckard’s apartment.

Verdict: Meeting the high standards we’ve come to expect from Titan’s ‘making of’ books, this focus on the creative output of Blade Runner 2049’s art department reveals a level of detail that even the IMAX screenings couldn’t reveal and some great insight into how the future is imagined on paper long before the camera rolls. 9/10

Nick Joy

Click here to view some of the images from the book

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