Surprising no one, Blade Runner 2049 has been Rated-R by the Motion Picture Association of America Film. The reason given is: “For violence, some sexuality, nudity and language.” So the question now is clearly: who gets naked? Will Gosling’s mysterious Agent K character be revealed to be a replicant in the nude?
On Thursday, SlashFilm reported on the rating, noting that the “ neo-noir landscape” of the original film “lent to a rather gruesome experience.” But if we brush aside the obvious violence, what about the sex?
The original 1982 Blade Runner had nudity, too of course. One of the escaped replicants Zhora, was topless in the original film, that is, right before Deckard shot her in the back. Actress Joanna Cassidy played Zhora, a character some fans might remember better as “the snake lady.” Back in 2015, Cassidy expressed interest in returning to the franchise, with the idea that she would play the human that the replicant had been based upon. “My thought is… the replicants were based on real people,” she said, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Sadly, an older human Zhora is not in Blade Runner 2049, but plenty of other people are. But which one of them will have the nude scene?
If Blade Runner 2049 wants to push the envelope, it could be argued that a full-frontal nude scene should happen with one of the male characters, and not one of the female characters. And since Ryan Gosling is in the movie, it seems like he’s the logical choice for such an undertaking.
So far, the plot of Blade Runner 2049 seems to suggest Ryan Gosling might be a replicant, Jared Leto might a replicant, and Harrison Ford — as everyone has said for years — also might a replicant. But now, we finally realize that asking who is and is not a replicant in Blade Runner has been the wrong question all along. The real question should have been, which one of them is going to take off their pants?
Blade Runner 2049 hits theaters on October 6.
