On the heels of the latest trailer released strategically in advance of Comic-Con, Blade Runner 2049 wasn’t going to waste the opportunity to woo its hardcore fans. Enter the Blade Runner 2049 Experience, which rapidly garnered a block-long line outside of the big top erected across form the convention center.  Needless to say buzz has been white hot around Denis Villeneuve’s sequel to Ridley Scott’s Philip K Dick inspired, noir inflected sci-fi story. The 35-years-in-the-making follow up to Scott’s 1982 cult classic itself takes place 30 years after the events of the original story which was set in 2019 and stars Ryan Gosling alongside original blade runner Harrison Ford.

The long anticipated film will open on October 6. In the meantime rabid fans had the opportunity to get a dose of the film’s world at the Blade Runner 2049 Experience which begins with a gallery of stunning renderings from production designer Dennis Gassner’s  art department. The film’s no less than six credited art directors confirms that attention to detail, like in the original, will once again be a hallmark of the film.

The main attraction of the Experience is the virtual reality segment. Here a dozen viewers at a time are fitted with goggles and headsets and seated on sensurround seats – and promptly swallowed into the world of Los Angeles circa 2049. We find ourselves staring at the dashboard of a “spinner”, the flying cars that cruise the rainy skies over downtown LA. As per the radio instructions we receive from dispatch, we are blade runners pursuing a suspect. The seat shudders as the spinner takes off and begins rising in the tangle of  buildings, electronic billboards and ventilation ducts that crisscross the city. We soon intercept a suspicious vehicle, also weaving its way in city airspace and are told to tail it inconspicuously, without engaging…”repeat, do not engage!”

The non-virtual atmosphere at the Blade Runner 2049 tent: a fair warning, lovely replicants and a thriving bar scene.

hfpa/Luca Celada

It goes without saying that blade runners  are, ehm, ambivalent about following orders and there will be some engagement after all – to say the least. Suffice it to say  that this VR ride is pretty breathtaking and – once the issues that remain with definition are addressed (VR still leaves a lot to be desired in  that department as computing resources are evidently diverted to the reality engine) this has the potential of becoming a truly immersive experience. Especially since, after the minutes-long sky chase, the headsets come off to reveal a fully built Blade Runner city block including rain pouring, smoke rising from the steamy alleys, and a crowd  of futuristic denizens milling around a seedy downtown district.  Here users are propositioned by alluring ladies and gents of the night, crowd around a bar and take in the panoply of languages that beckon from the billboards dotting the landscape of Los Angeles as futuristic Babylon.

A fitting tribute all in all, to the look and feel of the original film and the immersive world it so successfully created.

Read director Denis Villeneuve’s exclusive interview.