#Blade runner black lotus series#

While the book was originally set in the sprawling megalopolis Los Angeles of 1992, the film changed the date to 2019-a future where robots called replicants are built with expiration dates and implanted memories designed to perfectly mimic humans, and where specific police detectives are required to chase down and eliminate the runaways. The influential 1982 film, a high-tech, gritty neo-noir starring Harrison Ford, has been released as several different cuts.

#Blade runner black lotus series#

The new series reunites the creators behind last year’s Ghost in the Shell: SAC 2045, executive producer Joseph Chou-who has been trying to bring the series to animation since seeing The Animatrix and produced the 2017 anime short Blade Runner: Blackout 2022-and directors Shinji Aramaki and Kenji Kamiyama. Longstanding fans and newcomers alike can get a new view on the fictionalized megalopolis Los Angeles in Black Lotus. The film helped popularize the cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction-pioneered by novels like William Gibson’s Neuromancer and Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash-for global screen-going audiences, leading to a direct design and thematic influence on various futuristic works from seminal anime films Ghost in the Shell and Akira to the Star Wars prequels and Batman Beyond. Dick’s 1968 novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the 1982 film Blade Runner received mixed reviews at first, but had outsized influence. Given the way the world’s been going, this particular dystopia might be more relevant than ever.īased on Philip K. And now Crunchyroll and Adult Swim add to that legacy with Blade Runner: Black Lotus, a new animated series that premieres on Nov. Then, in 2017, three short films were added in the lead-up to Denis Villeneuve’s sequel to Ridley Scott’s classic.

For 35 years, the on-screen iterations of the IP stood as one film and a few videogames from the mid-’90s.

In their respective efforts, both Ridley Scott and Denis Villeneuve managed to put together some of the best visual spectacles of their era, meaning if one is to make a Blade Runner spinoff, it’s key to get the look right.Blade Runner is a film franchise with a remarkable pedigree and enduring legacy. Regardless of the vast budget differences between hand-drawn 2D anime and this type of 3D modeling, the sad reality is that the CGI in Black Lotus does not do Blade Runner justice. While Black Out 2022 proved Blade Runner could make the jump to animation, it did so with traditional anime aesthetics rather than the antiquated graphics Black Lotus adopts.

This marks Black Lotus’ biggest commitment: the desire to pursue character development much more than it does its world-building, a decision that is probably better suited to the anime due to limitations that the CGI style brings upon it. The CGI anime instead introduces Elle, its unambiguously replicant protagonist who, despite suffering from amnesia, does not keep the viewer guessing as to her exact nature, unlike her predecessors. Both Blade Runner movies start off with cinematic shots that take audiences by the hand as they slowly walk in the dystopian landscape that dominates these worlds - but not Black Lotus.