Major spoilers for Blade Runner 2049.
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Blade Runner 2049 isn't just a great sequel that expands the world of the 1982 classic, it also manages to directly address some of the problems with fellow Harrison Ford legacy-quel Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Denis Villeneuve's film is a much-hyped sequel to a beloved sci-fi classic that fans have been waiting for since the early 1980s, presenting us with a familiar-yet-new world and allowing Harrison Ford to resurrect one of his most iconic characters. Of course, this isn't the first time (nor will it be the last) that Ford's returned to his past.
In 2015, Star Wars: The Force Awakens rebooted the saga with gusto and saw Han Solo back home on the Millennium Falcon after 32 years. In the three decades since Return of the Jedi, he and Leia had had a son whose eventual turn to the dark side splintered the couple, sending him back to smuggling. He reenters the galactic struggle when coming across plucky new heroes and helps them in their fight against the First Order. This time around, though, Ford got to deliver on his long-held desire to kill the scoundrel.
Rick Deckard's return isn't as fatal - against all the odds he survives 2049, once again saved at the last minute by a rogue replicant - but certainly is just as seismic. We learn how he and Rachael had a child following their escape from L.A. in the original film, leading to her death and him hiding out for the next 35 years in Las Vegas. He's dragged back into the fray by Blade Runner K, fighting through a Biblical conspiracy to finally reunite with his daughter.
Related: Blade Runner 2049's Ending Explained
There are some obvious parallels between the elder Solo and Deckard's arcs. Both are recollective, aging men seemingly running from their previous responsibilities but really struggling to face up to them, and ultimately wind up being a pivot for the new characters' narrative. And, of course, it's through their children that do that (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull also went this route, although let's not go there). This is, to a degree, expected: legacy-quels need some passing of the torch and children of the original hero is the most emblematic way to do this. However, they're executed very differently.
The Children of Harrison Ford
Kylo Ren (born Ben Solo) is the villain of not just The Force Awakens, but the entire sequel trilogy. The specifics of his turn to the dark side aren't yet known, but he essentially rejects the Solo/Organa legacy in favor of the Skywalker one, attempting to follow in grandfather Darth Vader's leather-booted footsteps. Unfortunately for him (and anybody working under him), he's got too much of Episode II Anakin in him, vulnerable to his emotions and spates of teenage anger (in being this, he's also a not-so-thinly-veiled meta-commentary on Star Wars fandom and obsession).
Driver and Ford only share one scene, but Kylo's relationship with his father is essential. He alludes to Rey - who adopts Han as a de facto parental figure herself - that he to-a-degree resents his father, but at the same time still struggles with the assigned task of actually killing Han. The death scene is emotionally wrought with conflict for both sides: the son having to do the unthinkable and the father fighting his instincts to bring his boy home.
In Blade Runner 2049, the existence, location, and identity of Deckard and Rachel's child is the plot-driving mystery. They represent a cataclysmic shift in the divide between humans and replicants, breaking down one of the final barriers between species, and so they're the target of Wallace, the Resistance, and the LAPD. Deckard's in hiding and willingly ignorant of their location in order to protect them, eventually forced to face up to the relationship when K - at this point suspecting he's the kid - tracks him down.
We eventually learn that the daughter (not a son as initially suggested) is Ana Stelline, the artificial memory creator met briefly earlier on in the film, literally held away from the outside world by an autoimmune deficiency and right under the nose of those hunting her. We end with Deckard - who is now presumed dead and thus able to live freely - finally uniting with her, a powerful father-daughter moment in itself but one that resolves the film's notion of love in life on a thematic scale.
Related: Blade Runner 2049 Changes The Meaning of the Original Movie
Both of these are very well done in their respective ways. Kylo Ren and Ana Stelline are integrated fully into the story and frankly couldn't have been executed in the other; Deckard's son as the big bad or a muted switcheroo in The Force Awakens would have felt out of sorts for the franchise and annoyed fans. You could argue Star Wars took the route of least resistance (to the point it had already been done in the Expanded Universe), but it's effectively done and - it must be stated before we go further - the film overall is of a high quality.
However, the parental aspect goes deeper than just the children themselves, and it's here the two films really distance.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens Made Every Character "Important"
Part of the original Star Wars' appeal (aside from its strikingly different used-future aesthetic and ground-breaking special effects) was the sense of everyday origins; a farm boy, a princess and a scoundrel came together and against insurmountable odds took down an Empire. They were unlikely heroes inspiring a generation, and while connections later emerged that didn't take away from their journey. The prequels sanded that a little with the Chosen One prophecy (although it should be stated Lucas was trying to subvert the trope), but in the sequels it's all out of the window.
In Star Wars: The Force Awakens, every character is presented as being pre-destined to fall into greatness: Poe is the unequivocal best starfighter pilot in the galaxy and hero of the Resistance; Kylo is the grandson of Darth Vader; Rey is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma and thus of the utmost importance. Only Finn has a lick of the unexpected, and even his turncoat future feels pre-ordained. They're strong characters yet because the movie treats them as integral to the bigger picture from the start and with the reverence of fans, it loses some of the effect of telling a story with them (little wonder Rian Johnson has created Rose for The Last Jedi).
And, because Star Wars is at the end of the day a family drama, that importance becomes tied into genealogy. This is powerful for the film and specifically Kylo, but also damages other elements, most noticeably the mystery over Rey's parents. Despite Episode VII being all about her moving past that dogmatic obsession with their potential return to Jakku, discussion about Daisy Ridley's hero almost entirely centers on if she's a Solo, Skywalker, Kenobi or other. It's mercurial storytelling given too much pressure; the hero's journey, but when the hero knows where they're going from the start.
Through this we've not even talked about the old characters. Every single one of them feels greater than themselves just by existing: Han is back as a smuggler yet infamous for all manner of reasons and the single point of no return for Kylo; R2-D2 holds the entire map to Luke; and Skywalker just turning up is the entire plot motivation. All of them are important just because you know who they are. Again, this mostly works in action but it's a melding of story and fan expectation all the same.
Indeed, it's this aspect that leads to The Force Awakens' reuse of A New Hope's broad narrative being a recurring criticism; it's overly familiar and predictable when you have arcs so evident from the start (the same goes for the less valid Mary Sue complaint). When everyone's important, no one will be.
Blade Runner 2049 Makes Nobody Important
Blade Runner 2049 subverts that in a manner similar to what Lucas tried with prophecies in the prequels. The prominence of the mystery of Deckard's child leads both the audience and K to suspect that he is the son; the replicant has memories presumed implanted that are clearly real and directly link him to the investigation, and he's repeatedly told by Joi that he's "special". To a viewer, it becomes even more painfully obvious; K's the protagonist of the story, of course he's going to be related to the original hero. But he's not. He is just a regular replicant thrust into a spectacular situation.
The twist of the daughter isn't just a good rug-pull the film had been relying on audience investment to work, though. It's used to comment on the expectation of importance; all members of the Resistance have believed - or hoped - at one point or another they're the special one. Even Deckard, the original hero and father of the one actually important person isn't made essential just because he was in the first film; K only hunts him down for self-serving reasons and while Wallace does kidnap him, it's not for who he is or anything close to the replicant mystery that so obsesses fans - he simply needs Rick to tell him who took care of the child. Even the Messiah (2049 has a neat throughline of Biblical allegory) is someone meek, unassuming and tangential to the story; she's only brought in as an adviser. The film highlights the power of the individual and how importance (or, in narrative terms, being a human or replicant) comes from choice and belief.
Blade Runner 2049 isn't totally devoid of fan service that tips the hat towards the original. We get a CGI de-aged Sean Young to prove a point and Gaff pops up in a minor plot hole, but the film mostly lacks the confusion of subtext and meta-textuality that dominates The Force Awakens and most legacy-quels. While in many areas 2049 hews close to Blade Runner, it knows where to pivot away.
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Viewing Blade Runner 2049 and Star Wars: The Force Awakens together shows the two opposing ways legacy-quels can work. One primarily celebrates the real-world legacy of the original, the other asks what the story that powered the legacy is really about. Neither's intrinsically bad but it's clear that one's better.
