Michelle Yeoh Ascends Beyond ‘A Mere Human’ in First Look at Blade Runner 2099

According to Blade Runner 2099, humanity only has about 73 years left, which sounds about right. In the Prime Video limited series, set 50 years after Blade Runner 2049, the simmering conflict between the artificial beings, known as Replicants, and humans has erupted into outright war, and humans lost. The series, creator Silka Luisa (Shining Girls) said at the show’s NYCC panel, is about “what happens when our time as a species ends … can we accept that loss, and hold onto our humanity?”

Like the Blade Runner films, 2099 will explore that question through the lens of a detective story. Michelle Yeoh plays the Replicant Blade Runner Olwen, who is at the end of her lifespan and embarks on one last hunt that causes her to cross paths with Cora (Hunter Schaefer), a human posing as a Replicant.

“I don’t want to be a mere human,” Yeoh joked in front of the crowd assembled in front of New York Comic-Con’s Empire Stage. As an incredibly physical actor, she thought a lot about how she would modify her performance to accentuate her lack of humanity, but ended up getting philosophical because you’re not really supposed to be able to tell the difference between human and Replicant. Empathy, she decided, was the differentiating factor. “When you show concern for another person — [Replicants] are more about just doing things.”

Empathy being humanity’s defining quality in the face of an artificial intelligence that has subjugated us to its will certainly feels timely, perhaps in a way that wasn’t intended. But the probing of humanity, and how different characters on both sides of the divide seek it out or lose it is one of the major themes of the show. 

“Replicants are in control, but they are made in our image, so they have our desires,” Luisa said, noting, for example, how a Replicant red light district in the show is very different from one frequented by humans. “Instead of selling sex, they sell experiences.” A new trailer shows this eerie roleplay for sale, as a Replicant woman wears a prosthetic belly with a squalling animatronic baby in her arms, umbilical cord still attached. 

This is Blade Runner 2049 examining the other end of this new status quo. Replicants are also looking for their identity as the dominant species, and if God made humans in his image as humans did for Replicants — well, some Replicants might want to find out how to become gods.

But Blade Runner isn’t just known for cerebral questions about existence and purpose, it’s also known for breaking visual ground. Luisa noted how original film’s vision of 2019 is indelibly unique, and the Denis Villeneuve-directed sequel brought its own visual flair to the universe, so  it was important to find a new aesthetic for 2099.

“It’s about a birth — the birth of a city, a society, a new era,” Luisa said. “When I think of birth, I think: hot, sticky, chaotic. That informs the look of the show.” 

That’s reflected in the clips shown to the audience, which, unlike the previous films, really gives the sense that this place smells. People sweat under a perpetual golden haze, and in one scene, Matthew Needham’s squirrelly cop remarks that he knows where people come from based on how they smell, different pollutants marking different neighborhoods. Him? He’s from L.A. “Don’t I smell like sunshine?” he quipped.