A key relationship in Blade Runner 2049 is between K and holographic girlfriend Joi (Ana de Armas, Knives Out). Blade Runner 2049's Joi is an A.I. designed by the Wallace Corporation to cater to the desires of customers, telling them what to want to hear.
People who have seen the film may anticipate that the “real girl” I mention in the headline is Joi, K's hologram girlfriend, but it's not. Joi is a troubling figure in the film, a commodified embodiment of male fantasy which the film never examines closely or critically enough, and she deserves a piece all her own.
For Blade Runner 2049, Nelson and company sought to recreate actress Sean Young as faithfully as possible to her 1982 appearance as the replicant Rachel. The team went to great lengths to achieve this near-perfect double.
As a form of hologrammatic artificial intelligence (AI), Joi is a new addition to the Blade Runner universe. We know, of course, that Joi is synthetic, in the sense of being a technological artefact, but as the movie progresses it becomes increasingly difficult to see her as anything other than a virtual person.
But whereas Scarlett Johansson's disembodied Samantha is clearly either self-aware from out of the box or becomes so by the end, de Armas' Joi is open-ended in her awareness.
You Don't Like Real Girls | Blade Runner 2049 [Open Matte]
Why did Joi call K Joe?
Later at K's apartment, he informed Joi of his conclusion that his memory was indeed real. This overjoyed her, as she always believed him to be special, insisting that he now be called "Joe." Unsure, K sought further information and Joi suggested finding the one responsible for creating memories for replicants.
In Blade Runner 2049, Ana de Armas plays Joi, an artificial intelligence sold by the Wallace Corporation. She's a customizable hologram that the people of Blade Runner's futuristic America can purchase as a live-in romantic partner.
Blade Runner 2049's Joi is an A.I. designed by the Wallace Corporation to cater to the desires of customers, telling them what to want to hear. K's Joi is depicted in this way, providing loving warmth when he returns home and when he learns he's might have been born from a replicant, she encourages his wish.
Luv, wanting to break K's spirit, realizes how much Joi means to K and thus smashes the mobile emanator, effectively killing Joi before taking Deckard with her.
Because of this memory, K became convinced that he was Rachael and Deckard's child, but was eventually informed by Freysa that he was not and that the child was female. With this revelation, K soon determined that Stelline was the child. K took Deckard to Stelline's lab as she interacted with a snowfall hologram.
The film reveals that Deckard was able to conceive a child with Rachael, and this was possible because she was an experimental prototype (designated Nexus-7), the first and only attempt to design a replicant model capable of procreation.
Blade Runner 2049 revealed that Rachael was the first replicant to get pregnant. Deckard is the father, and it's suggested - though never stated aloud - that the only way a replicant could get pregnant is by another replicant.
During the final fight with K, after subduing him, she smugly kissed him and retorted "I am the best one!", as if trying to prove her superiority over not just K, but all other replicants, further hinting at her deep-seated insecurities that she kept well-hidden.
The corporation also brought digital technology back to the planet's citizens with the introduction of the Wallace Datalink Network. Replicant prohibition was lifted in 2036 with the introduction of the Nexus-9. Despite the pressure to leave Earth, many humans continued to live on the overcrowded planet as of 2049.
The humans in Blade Runner 2049 fail to look beyond themselves to recognize that they are living with a species not fundamentally different to themselves. Replicants like K are capable of feeling sensations, and emotions, and having thoughts similar to humans.
Then we are introduced to Luv for the first time, and K instantly recognizes her as a replicant. K's ability to spot a replicant on sight is something that Deckard could not do.
Plot. In 2049, 30 years after the events of Blade Runner, bioengineered humans known as replicants are slaves. K (short for serial number, KD6-3.7), a Nexus-9 replicant, works for the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) as a "blade runner", an officer who hunts and "retires" (kills) rogue replicants.
When Joi and K are standing in the rain, she says to K, "I am so happy when I'm with you," Why does K respond, "You don't have to say that"? I don't understand . . .
One of the most significant – and moving – sequences in Blade Runner 2049 arrives in its third act, when K learns that he is not, in fact, Deckard and Rachael's missing child. K is what he was told he was all along: a replicant, nothing more, nothing less.
In the movie, K tells Joshi, his boss, that beings that are born have souls, and that he has never retired anything with a soul before. K's definition of what it means to be human involves the existence of the soul. Since he was never born of woman, he has accepted the idea that he does not have one.
However, he later learns that, even if the memory is real, it was not his own but Dr Ana Stelline's. Through her work, Dr Stelline shared her memory with K, and this allowed him to understand what it was like to walk in her shoes, but most importantly, to believe himself a free, loved replicant.
K started the movie believing he was made, with implanted memories. He then thought he was born, and that the memories were real. In fact, as revealed by the end of the movie, he was made and the memories were implants – but they were real, implanted memories from the actual daughter of Deckard and Rachael.
Replicants were sometimes referred to as "skinjobs" or "skinners," as they were indistinguishable from non-engineered humans, except for their empathetic abilities. These terms were considered slurs.
