Blade Runner 2049

Blade Runner 2049 Plot

Bioengineered people, known as replicants, are slaves in 2049. K (short for his serial number, KD6-3.7), a Nexus-9 replicant, is a “blade runner,” an officer who hunts down and “retires” (kills) renegade replicants for the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). He retires Sapper Morton, a Nexus-8 replicant, and discovers a box concealed under a tree at Morton’s protein farm. The remains of a female replicant who died during a cesarean section are included in the box, indicating that replicants can procreate physiologically, which was previously thought impossible. Lt. Joshi, K’s boss, is concerned that this would result in a conflict between humans and replicants. She instructs K to locate and remove the replicant infant in order to conceal the truth.

K pays a visit to the Wallace Corporation’s headquarters, which is the successor to the defunct Tyrell Corporation in replicant production. Rachael, an experimental replicant built by Dr. Eldon Tyrell, is identified as the deceased female from DNA archives by Wallace staff members. Rachael’s love ties with former blade runner Rick Deckard are revealed to K. Niander Wallace, CEO of Wallace Corporation, aims to unlock the secret of replicant reproduction in order to expand interplanetary colonization. He dispatches Luv, his replicant enforcer, to kidnap Rachael’s remains and track K down to Rachael’s child.

K discovers 6.10.21 etched into a tree trunk at Morton’s property and knows it from a childhood memory of a wooden toy horse. Because replicant memories are artificial, Joi, K’s holographic AI girlfriend, feels this proves that K was born rather than manufactured. He looks through LAPD records and finds twins born on the same day with identical DNA except for the sex chromosome, but only the boy is reported as alive. K locates the child in a wrecked San Diego orphanage, but the records for that year are missing. K knows the orphanage from his childhood recollections and locates the toy horse that he had hidden.

Dr. Ana Stelline, a replicant memory designer, certifies that the orphanage’s memory is accurate, prompting K to believe he is Rachael’s son. K fails a post-traumatic baseline exam at LAPD headquarters, designating him as a rogue replicant; he lies to Joshi by saying that he killed the replicant infant. K has 48 hours to pass the baseline exam or he would be’retired,’ according to Joshi. Mariette, a prostitute replicant, is hired by Joi as a surrogate for sex with K. Mariette, a member of the replicant freedom movement, tags K with a tracker. K grudgingly moves Joi to a mobile emitter at Joi’s request so that he cannot be monitored through her console memory-files. He gets the toy horse examined, which reveals radiation traces that lead him to the Las Vegas ruins. Deckard informs him that he is the father of Rachael’s kid and that he has scrambled the birth records to protect the child’s identity; Deckard has left the child in the care of the replicant liberation movement.

Luv assassinates Joshi and follows K to Las Vegas. Deckard is kidnapped, Joi is destroyed, and K is left to die. The replicant liberation movement rescues K using Mariette’s tracker. When their leader, Freysa, tells him that she assisted in the delivery of Rachael’s child and that the child was a girl, K realizes that he is not Rachael’s child, deduces that Stelline is her daughter, and that the memory of the toy horse is hers, implanted among the memories of other replicants whose memories she designed. Freysa requests K to kill Deckard for the greater welfare of all replicants in order to prevent him from bringing Wallace to Stelline or the freedom movement.

Deckard is taken to the Wallace Corporation offices by Luv to meet Wallace. In exchange for divulging what he knows, Wallace promises Deckard a Rachael clone. Luv kills the clone after Deckard refuses. K intercepts Luv’s shuttle and tries to save Deckard as he is being transported off-world to be tortured and interrogated. He battles Luv and drowns her, but he is mortally wounded in the process. Before driving Deckard to Stelline’s office and delivering him her toy horse, he staged Deckard’s death to protect him from Wallace and the replicant freedom movement. Deckard enters the building and meets his daughter for the first time as K dies on the steps, looking up at snow falling from the sky.