The adventures of a young Harrison Ford were always going to be the backdrop of Blade Runner 2049. But everyone expected Ford’s portrayal of Rick Deckard to be the source of that nostalgia, not the adventures of Dr. Herny Jones. But, a new clip from Blade Runner 2049 seems to reference a scene from The Temple of Doom anyway.
On September 9, Warner Bros released new footage from Blade Runner 2049. In it, Ryan Gosling’s Officer K finds a sweatshop populated by children. We’re told they are making spaceship parts for the fabled “Off-World” colonies. In the original Blade Runner, the Nexus 6 Replicants were used as slave labor on Off-World, but now it looks like human children have been added into the mix, too. Which, could paint Niander Wallace’s attempt to make more Replicants in a slightly different light. Is he trying to end child slavery by replacing it with Replicant slavery? Here’s the clip in full.
Plot details for Blade Runner aside, there’s a scene right at the beginning which seems directly lifted from the finale of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. As Gosling’s Officer K walks into a shack, a bunch of slave kids get up and start touching him like he’s a savior. The same exact thing happens to Indiana Jones at the end of The Temple of Doom when he frees a bunch of slave kids from what is a basically dark magic.
So, what’s the deal? Is this scene an intentional reference to Indy or just an accidental homage? Because if it is intentional, it’s a strange way to reference The Temple of Doom. Not only is it the most casually racist of all the Indiana Jones movies, it’s also probably the second worst of the franchise.
Still, something the Indy movies have that Blade Runner doesn’t have is genuine heroics. Perhaps Gosling and Ford will team-up on Blade Runner 2049 to do more than just save themselves. Maybe they can prevent these little kids from having to make spaceship parts in a sweatshop, too.
Blade Runner 2049 hit theaters on October 6.
