10 Movie Scenes With Unexpected Influences
5. Las Vegas Was Modelled Off The 2009 Australian Dust Storm - Blade Runner 2049
Blade Runner 2049 is one of the most visually stunning movies of all time and rightly won Roger Deakins his first Best Cinematography Oscar.
One of the film's most memorable sequences occurs late in the story, when replicant K (Ryan Gosling) heads to Las Vegas and crosses paths with Deckard (Harrison Ford).
The city is bathed in a gorgeous orange fog as K makes his way to Deckard's location, and while it's easy to assume that Deakins, director Denis Villeneuve, and production designer Dennis Gassner came up with this surreal, seemingly unrealistic aesthetic choice on their own, it's actually got some fascinating real-life inspiration.
The trio were influenced by the 2009 Australian dust storm, which caused Sydney to be blanketed by dirt and soil, resulting in the city temporarily having an apocalyptic orange hue. Of the choice, Deakins said:
"We discussed it at length and we came up with these images of Sydney during the dust storm that they had a few years ago. There are these wonderful photos of the Sydney Opera House and it's covered with red dust. That formed the basis for Las Vegas."