That they have Denis Villeneuve directing, Ridley Scott is stepping back as producer, and some of the original writers involved also gives me great hope.
Villeneuve is young, has the French-Canadian "arty" thing going for his style, but not so much of it that it's unbearable, and seems like he'd respect the original slower and mostly moody pacing of the original Blade Runner.
I could always be wrong, but it really seems like they're trying to respect the original Blade Runner, and it's not just some studio effort to beat some money out of a "sure thing" with a modern day formulaic take on what drives box office sales driven by market research or whatever. And when there were broad exterior shots, we were given what we always wanted in the original, to "see more of that world" etc. Because "Los Angeles 2019" was the real star of that film. Maybe other cities elsewhere in the world. Presumably the big orange dusty place was somewhere plagued by dust storms/haboobs, as contrast to the perpetual rain in Los Angeles...
Also, the scene with Gosling walking behind the big street-sweeper hover-bus or whatever that was, it looked to be snow, or ash, and not rain. So it evoked similar shots in the original Blade Runner, but was still "different".
