I think it's a shame to set it in California (again) and Nevada when it could be set in, say, one of the three enormous Chinese megacities / conurbations that are currently being planned by the PRC.
When it could show the enormous geopolitical shift of the next thirty or so years that's predicted by every analysis.
Like I said in my review, I think it's really important to ground this sort of film in believable dystopian speculation. A fictional dystopia has an opportunity to disturb and unsettle its audience, and I think BR 2049 missed a few tricks. The "Black Out" - some kind of mass electrical disfunction - it alluded to felt designed to explain the relative disconnect between today and its setting.
In many ways I would've preferred a "spiritual successor" that retconned those aspects of the original Blade Runner's future that didn't happen.
But a bigger issue than setting was the plot trajectory and main conflicts. The confrontation between Batty and Tyrell in the original is so good on so many levels. We were really deprived of that layered profundity in this film.
