The opposite of typical Hollywood assemblyline junk--this movie is ART (Spoilers)

Fair points--opinions vary.
You mention the "unimportance of the plot". The initial plot is......a new emergence of corporate mass production of replicants....a risk that those replicants will become not just self-aware (they already are)....but also self-SERVING. They're more intelligent than humans...and they're stronger. If we (humans) can't control their quantities.....memories....behavior, etc. If we can't "police" those things, the replicants can turn on humans, and "break the world", if they choose to. Fair or not? That is just one of the questions posed in the movie: What does it mean to be human, and what rights are our "birthright"?

You can see just with the police protocols alone (daily "baseline testing"), that there's a real paranoia about losing control of replicants. We also see (toward the end of the film)...that there is INDEED a replicant uprising in the works. That is just one part of this layered plot. There's also the story of K wanting to find his humanity. (This may not be compelling to you, but it is for many). There's also the storyline of....whatever happened to Deckard and Rachel? We discover they had a child, and this is revealing on many levels, and has huge implications.
What happened to Wallace? While we don't need to be spoonfed with every single character having a conclusion spelled out for us....I think it's safe to say Wallace's story arc is still in motion (cough-cough, "another sequel in the works", cough-cough). The room full of slave kids? We don't need to know what became of them. All we need to know is....that ispart of what the world has become. And, that is where K (or Deckard's daughter) came from (per the memory K had, which he had always assumed was a fake implant). Did the world break? We don't need to actually witness the collapse of humankind to understand why the worry of the threat of that happening. Just as 4 replicants were a threat in the first movie....mass quantities of rebelling replicants (who can reproduce)? Much worse.

And amdist all of this, there is a subtle and poignant love story--a connection. K's hologram comes across as the most "human" of all the characters in his life. Did she have a "soul"? What does it mean to have a soul. She loved him, and he loved her. Poignant irony....tragic and bittersweet. Because neither of them were "real". Or....what really DEFINES being real? I think, therefore I am. I think.....(and feel) therefore I am.

If none of things compell you, or move you....at least enjoy the stunning feast for the senses. The music...the sounds....the visuals...the nuances....the cinematography. Knocking CGI for the very principal of it never made sense to me. When it's done unnecessarily, or poorly, ok. But for Blade Runner, it was 100% necessary....in order to recreate (and evolve) the world R.Scott created in the original movie.

the plot isn't the point of 2049... i'd go as far as to say it's incidental to the experience and to what the director, no, the artist wants to communicate to us... ;)

The bare and simple plot is just there to set up the existential questions that the movie poses, the sparse but appropriate visual style and the slow cuts and transitions from scenes are there to give us breathing room to reflect on these concepts without the distraction of plot and the clutter of spectacle... the point is to minimise the plot so it is not a focus of the movie...

This is key to the non-video game aesthetic of 2049... as a viewer you are not in control, you observe... incident and action only matter to the extent they give us a new perspective to think about... even the score follows this; apart from the final shot the score is mostly just ambient noise... the movie doesn't tell you how to feel, rather it invites you to think about it's themes and the situations it portrays...

For example you will find people have very different thoughts about how K relates to the Joi app. There are viewers who have basically considered her as sentient and see their "relationship" as love, which is tragicly ended... others will find the way K uses the joi app as a surrogate for real connection very hollow and sad and while we may feel sympathy for K when he comes to that painful realisation on the bridge when he sees the giant pink interactive Joi hologram,it also feels cathartic as it is one less barrier for K to break down in order to embrace his latent humanity. The director is inviting us to bring something to the movie and engage with it in a cerebral and emotional way... If we are unwillling or not interested/compelled to do so, then the movie will fall flat and seem tedious, as can be seen by the numerous walk-outs on both screenings that I've been to. 20 people left during the first screening on opening weekemd and 6 during the second screening a week later.

if it didn't work for you, that's OK.

kinda how I see it also. but, it IS impossible for a global discussion hive of unlike-minded people to all see things the same way. I get that. I'm just as puzzled anyone can see this as a masterpeice, as much as they are oppositely puzzled that I can't. And that's fine. :)

NORMALLY, you discuss it with your local friends face to face... discover opposing views... rib each other for a while over it, end it with, "Aw, yer an idiot", laugh, slap each others' backs, and move on to better things.
Where the NET lets you drag out opinions that NEVER end, to strangers that don't care and never wanted to hear it in the first place. :) God bless the misinformation superhighway. :D

It's interesting how opinions vary on this movie. For me, I liked the sequel better than the original. It had a much longer running time, and yet the first one is the one that really seems to drag for me. Not much really happens in the original, there are long dry spells, and the plot doesn't require much thinking. However, the final scene with Roy Batty's speech: perfection.

With the sequel, there were some extremely gratifying little grace notes along the way. Sinatra's "Summer Wind" playing in the background of K's apartment. Heck, the Sinatra hologram, emanating from a retro jukebox, in an abandoned Vegas casino. The sepia hues and barren landscapes. The bizarre, gigantic nude statues in the wasteland. The use of winter snows and water. The Treasure Island quote. The scene with Joi once the eminator allows her to walk outside in the rain and "experience" a taste of living. And really.....ANY scene with Joi was mesmorizing, like the "sharing" love scene. And the most heartbreaking, when she made a plea to be spared, and lunged at K to try and embrace him as her last words were to tell him she loved him.

The cool, fearless calm K had in the face of Bautista in the opening scene. The cold, empty loneliness of K's apartment.
The irony that Deckard's daughter (the very "birthed" replicant Wallace had been seeking) was a distant employee of his the whole time. The sad irony that Joi was a hologram, and yet had more soul and love than any "human" in K's life. The poignant and ultimately tragic hope K had that perhaps he indeed was born, and therefore had a soul....and the memories he had were real afterall. And his slow shutting down on the steps, as the snow fell on his blank, yet soulful stare into the graying sky.

It was just a really, really cool and poignant cinematic "experience". I'd think I was the oddball in thinking of this movie in this fashion, but enough other people had the same reaction to kinda validate. Some people just really kinda "got it". But it's definitely not for everyone.

"I enjoyed the film, but it was no-where near as good as the original - not even close imo."

That's how I feel, too. I can't rate it a 10, because the original BR was a 10 and to give BR2049 the same rating wouldn't be right.

But I'm still not sure exactly how much I did like the film--I've just seen it once so far and I know I will rate it somewhere in the 7 to 9 range. I want to reserve my final opinion until I see it a second time.

So all hollywood movies look the same?