Can ‘Blade Runner 2049’ Become Box Office’s Next ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’?

Tyrell Corp. is still at it
The trailer opens with a look at the pyramid that serves as headquarters for the Tyrell Corporation — also known as the company that makes Replicants. In the “Blade Runner” universe, Replicants are robots used to do tough jobs like create colonies on other planets or even fight battles. Replicants are outlawed on Earth, which is why special cops known as Blade Runners hunt them down to “retire” them.

Atari means alternate timeline
It's pretty obvious that "Blade Runner" doesn't take place in exactly our universe, but this giant Atari ad is a good reminder. Atari was a big gaming company in the late '70s to early '80s, but has since shrunken significantly.

Tyrell is going strong
Replicants are still good business, it seems. In a scene that appears to, ah, replicate the start of the investigation in "Blade Runner," Ryan Gosling's "Officer K" seems to be heading to Tyrell to gather information.

Jared Leto is some kind of bad guy
It seems the guy still making androids at Tyrell is Jared Leto, who gives some creepy monologue lines throughout the trailer. He appears to be pulling strings and creating conflict throughout the story.

How are Replicants are made?
We've never gotten much information about how Replicants work or how they're made. Dialogue in "Blade Runner" suggests they're sort of biologically engineered, somewhat-programmable creatures. They seem to bleed and eventually die, usually after only a few years.

Happy Inception Date
It's hard to say exactly who is being born here in the trailer, since there's never a good look at her non-goo-covered face. It could be Carla Juri, who's character hasn't been revealed yet.

The LAPD looks huge
Harking back to the Los Angeles Police Department building of "Blade Runner," this shot of a massive flat LAPD headquarters suggests the organization is enormous.

Robin Wright is Officer K's LAPD captain
Seems like an easy guess. She's seen presumably talking about the need to maintain order by retiring Replicants through a rainy window, with Officer K in the background.

A possible alternate take on the Cold War
The novel by Philip K. Dick on which “Blade Runner” is based imagines a post-nuclear war world, one in which nuclear fallout is a fact of weather and everyone wears lead-lined jackets to keep from mutating. It’s also a future imagined from the midst of the Cold War. Things like history and geopolitics don't get mentioned much in the original film, but this ad could be a hint that in this version of 2049, the Soviet Union still exists, at least as suggested by advertising in the trailer.

A relationship with a Replicant?
From concept art, we know this shot takes place on Officer K's apartment building's roof, where shares a seemingly romantic moment with Joi, played by de Armas. She shows up at several other points in the trailer, leaving her status as human or Replicant at least partially up in the air.

A ruined Las Vegas?
The prevailing theory (which seems backed up by the trailer) is that Officer K tracks "Blade Runner" protagonist Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) to a hideaway in a desert city that's probably Las Vegas. The city is notably destroyed, possibly by the aforementioned nuclear war the original seemed to hint at.

Deckard in hiding
What's very obvious from this shot as K enters the hotel is that its occupant is expecting trouble. Officer K stepping carefully over a tripwire suggests a lot about what has been going on with Deckard since he left Los Angeles with the Replicant Rachael (Sean Young) 30 years earlier.

Rick Deckard is back
Of course, Deckard leading his meeting with Officer K with a gun is also a good indicator that he's hiding out from the authorities, nefarious forces -- or both.

Everyone wants Deckard
It's tough to parse too much from the clips of action at the hotel, but it does suggest that K has been followed by bad guys -- maybe Leto's goons. And we see someone bust through a wall to take down Deckard. It's hard to tell in the fast-moving image, but it sure does look like the man plowing through a wall is, in fact, Officer K. It's not the only suggestion that Ryan Gosling is playing a Replicant, either.

Who is Mackenzie Davis?
It's not clear yet who Mackenzie Davis' character is, but given her outfit and determination, she comes off like another Replicant -- possibly one of a group K is tasked with retiring earlier in the film. Her outfit calls back clothes worn by Replicants Pris (Daryl Hannah) and Zhora (Joanna Cassidy) in "Blade Runner."

Finding Rachael's grave
This section, shot in snow with K and Deckard, looks to have some revelatory significance. The series of numbers -- 6-10-21 -- suggests a date of June 10, 2021. That'd be two years after "Blade Runner" takes place in 2019, which makes it a good bet this is where Deckard buried Rachael (Sean Young) after her Replicant lifespan ran out. The surrounding shots suggest this information might have some serious significance for K as well. Maybe because his memories are actually Deckard's, much the way Rachael's memories were those of Eldon Tyrell's niece? Just a guess.

Sylvia Hoeks is hunting Deckard
Seemingly dispatched by Leto, it seems clear that Hoeks is the antagonist who'll be giving Officer K the most grief in "Blade Runner 2049." She definitely comes off as a Replicant, as well.

Dave Bautista is definitely a Replicant
Immediately after the first shot of Bautista in the movie, he's tossing Officer K through a wall. Super strength is a well-known Replicant quality, leaving little doubt. 

Joi as a hologram
Joi appears repeatedly in the trailer as both a human and, seemingly a holographic ad. That seems like pretty good evidence that she's actually a Replicant, or one of many copies, although it's possible posing for hologram ads is just her job.

A lot is going on at this nightclub
Several shots from the trailer appear to be set here. They include K and Deckard together, where it seems like Deckard throws a punch at K, as well as some suggestion that the performer on stage is one of K's Replicant targets -- at the very least, a shot of a knife suggest violence is about to ensue. Expect some kind of throw-down.

Deckard captured
At some point or another, it looks like Hoeks manages to snag Deckard -- he appears to be handcuffed in her car here. That suggests Leto is after Deckard for some reason. That Tyrell Corp. is hunting an old ex-Blade Runner might lend credence to ambiguous suggestion from the original film: Rick Deckard is a Replicant. Although, he'd have to be a special one with no limit on his lifespan, which might be why he's being hunted in the first place.

No idea what's going on here ...
... but this apparently holographic room sure does look cool. That appears to be Officer K in the background, but it's hard to glean any other info from this shot.

More Joi advertising
With Joi's name appearing in this ad, a theory starts to take shape: Maybe by 2049, Replicants aren't banned on Earth, and business is booming. Joi may well be a commercially available Replicant model that anyone can purchase -- with all the creepy connotations that go with that.

One page left
The final shots of the trailer land in rapid succession. We see Officer K visibly angry, more shots of gunfights and an additional look at the attack on Deckard's hotel. The trailer closes with dialogue from Joi, telling K he's special -- and that his story isn't over yet, with one page left to be written. The closing shot of the book with pages torn out seems to give some clues about Officer K. If he's a Replicant with replaced memories, then his history isn't his own -- perhaps indicated by the book missing pages. And "one page left" in his story could well mean he's approaching his Replicant death.