July 5, 2019

A comparison of the protagonists Agent K and Neil Armstrong in Blade Runner 2049 and First Man. Both characters have similar emotional profiles and affects, and both movies use strikingly similar motifs to explore similar themes and challenges:

Piloting, crashing small hovering aircraft
High G-force maneuvers
Flight
Extreme physical, emotional testing, vetting by employers
Extremely hazardous work
Calm under pressure
Perseverance despite danger, injury, bloody face
Blunted affect
Extreme physical endurance
Gravesite, small wooden coffin
Emotional outburst; broken glass in hand, indifference to pain, bloody wound
Isolation, quarantine behind glass
Face to face through glass
Extreme emotional distance
Touch
Longing to connect
Violent, unpowered aircraft landing
Loss
Emotional crash, crying over lost, missing child
Small token of lost child
Novel, world-changing mission
Mission accomplished