Playback / Blade Runner 2049
Blade Runner 2049 · 2017
Vegas
An overwhelming, vivid orange palette saturates K's arrival in Las Vegas, the colour associating the ruined city with toxicity.
Watch for
- The overwhelming, uniform orange palette that floods K's arrival in ruined Las Vegas.
- How the single dominant colour makes the city feel toxic, dead and irradiated.
- The way colour alone sets the mood and tells us this place is poisoned, before any dialogue.
A worked reading · COCA
CContention
Villeneuve uses a saturating orange palette to make a whole city read as toxic and lifeless.
OObservation
K's approach to Las Vegas is drowned in a thick, uniform orange haze that colours every surface of the deserted ruins.
CConnotation
A single oppressive colour with no relief feels unnatural and irradiated, associating the dead city with poison, decay and dread.
AAudience
We feel the place is hostile and ruined before we are told anything, the colour doing the world-building and setting the ominous mood.
Your turn
- What is the dominant colour, and what feelings or ideas do you associate with it here?
- How does flooding a scene with one colour change the mood compared with a natural palette?
- How does colour build the world and tell us about this place before any dialogue?
For teachers
A striking example of a dominant colour palette setting mood and connotation. Suitable for Year 10 and senior. Pairs with the Colour page.
