There Are People Whose Entire Job Is To Keep The Blade Runner Timeline Straight

Some people have all of the luck. During a virtual press panel for the Television Critic's Association press tour, the folks at Alcon revealed that they employ two individuals whose primary job is keeping the "Blade Runner" continuity straight. Alcon is the "keeper" of the IP, a job Alcon co-founder and co-CEO Andrew Kosgrove clearly takes very seriously. 

Adult Swim and Crunchyroll's upcoming animated series "Blade Runner: Black Lotus" takes place between the events of the 1982 film "Blade Runner" and its 2017 sequel, "Blade Runner: 2049." The canon of "Blade Runner" has always been pretty strict, so it makes sense that the folks in charge of it want to have it straight for the newest incarnation. Thankfully for the folks working on "Black Lotus," there are already two employees at Alcon who spend their days managing the timeline. 

"We have two people who work for us at Alcon whose — I wouldn't say it's their full-time job, (but) it's the majority of their job," Kosgrove said. He explained that they take their jobs very seriously, "interweaving the different stories and making sure the timelines, the canon, the character motivations are all seamless and have a logic within the canon."

So why did the folks behind "Black Lotus" decide to set the animated series in 2032?

Kosgrove had this to say:

"Our goal at Alcon, because we're the keeper of the 'Blade Runner' IP, and therefore we take the canon of the franchise very seriously, because the fans, of which there are so many, have invested so much of themselves in the material. And so what we wanted to do was to make sure that we were setting the show in a time where the timeline between the events one had seen in the original film, Ridley's original, and Denis's '2049' made sense in that timeline. And so this year, as fans see the show, there are little Easter eggs and nuggets of the of the various things occurring in the 'Blade Runner' universe that line up into that timeline. And so that's why we picked the year that we did."

"Blade Runner: Black Lotus" follows Elle (voiced by Jessica Henwick for the English version and Arisa Shida for the Japanese version), a young woman who wakes up with no memories and deadly skills. Her only clues? A locked data device and a tattoo of a black lotus flower. She must try to solve the mystery of her identity by hunting down the people responsible for her brutal and bloody past. 

"Black Lotus" has a massively talented voice cast and was directed by Shinji Aramaki ("Appleseed") and Kenji Kamiyama ("Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex"). Joseph Chou, who worked on "Appleseed" and "The Animatrix," executive produced. "Cowboy Bebop" creator Shinchiro Watanabe, who directed the brilliant "Blade Runner: Black Out 2022" short, served as a creative producer. 

Check out "Blade Runner: Black Lotus" when it debuts on Adult Swim and Crunchyroll this fall.