Holy shit this movie is pure art. The visuals and aesthetic are spot on for Cyberpunk and the sound direction is so good. Literally every set had me engaged because how good they looked. The scene with K just going around the city with these big ass logo's of dead and alive companies was so good. Visually, this movie is a masterpiece.
The whole plot of K finding a purpose and then losing it to then making up one himself is great. Pretty similar to Detroit become human. The plot kept me hooked throughout. The whole section in the ruins of Las Vegas was peak. The pacing was also so much better than the first movie.
And then there is the Ryan Gosling is literally me propaganda which I fully subscribe to. K feels very similar as to his lack of purpose and being stuck in a society that fucking sucks. The AI Girlfriend thing has gained a whole new meaning since ChatGPT dropped. God I love this 
scene.
The ending was great. K did the most human thing possible after breaking his shackles even when he was not HIM hence proving that every single replicant is a living being but lack purpose and memories which shape their personalities.
And Jared Leto somehow gave his best performance in this movie. This is his peak after Paul Allen.
I believe he is a replicant.
That's the amazing thing about the film and why I was really hesitant that their was a sequel being made. You can have a favorite cut of the original and view Deckard in a different way than others and yet 2049 will still be true to your version. It's crazy they pulled that off.
I've always thought that the original movie is more meaningful if it takes a synthetic person's emotions to draw out Deckard's buried-by-trauma emotions. If a "fake" person can love a "real" person then does it matter they're "fake"? Doesn't that make them just as "real"?
I think that interpretation also fits more neatly into 2049's story. "Real" and "fake" are a matter of intention, not origin.
But I fully agree that it was amazing that 2049 could pull off a sequel that satisfies both of sci-fi-fandom's legendarily-at-odds camps. An incredible movie. Every time I think that Hollywood is creatively bankrupt, one of these gems manages to slip through into the annals of sci-fi history.
There are absolutely great interpretations of both. The bubbling internal conflict of being a Blade Runner while also being a replicant, the fact that replicants are so indistinguishable from a human that only a replicant could do the job, the mind fuck of meeting a replicant that doesn't know they're one. The directors cut was my introduction to the film so I just gravitate towards it.