Blade Runner 2049 teaser pits Harrison Ford vs. Ryan Gosling

OkayVilleneuve: you got me.Ryan Gosling.Harrison Ford.Another dust-covered, dystopianfuture with strains of Vangelis echoing in the background?

Yes, please.

Let's take a moment to appreciate the challenge before Denis Villeneuve, the Canadian filmmaker behind Arrival, Prisoners and Incendies.RidleyScott'sBlade Runner isn't just a fan favourite, it's a film that defined a movie genre.Like Metropolisor Stanley Kubrick's2001, what Scott presentedback in 1982 changed how we envisionthe future.

When a sequel to Blade Runner was first announced, I was horrified. What's next: asequel to Spartacus? Don't some films deserve to stand on their own?

But the first glimpse of Blade Runner 2049indicates Villeneuve is paying tribute while also offering a distinctive vision of his own.

In the teaser trailer, RickDeckard, the original Blade Runner officer now missing for the past 30 years,emerges from orange gloom. Ford looks as grizzled as ever.

"I had your job once.I was good at it," he croaks.

"Things were simpler then," is the response from Gosling, playing the man sent to find him.

But Blade Runner was never about simplicity:the enigmatic nature of the story is part of what inspired volumes about just who or what Deckard was.

If anyone can handle that heady debate (replicants or real people?),it's Villeneuve. Just look at his sci-fi film now in theatres: Arrivalisatale of first contact that pulses with humanity, as well as a movie that looks like nothing else out today.

In fact, speaking with press, Villeneuve has said his greatest challenge was "avoiding the trap of falling into the comfort of things we've seen before."

The Montrealer is not someone who does things simply or comfortably.Bring on Blade Runner 2049.