Blade Runner 2049 is a film that poses as many questions as it answers. Some are big, meaty, existential questions that make you look inwards and perhaps learn about yourself. Others, like the ones we like, are just a bit nerdy.

We got a chance to sit down with director Denis Villeneuve, and posed 9 of our favourites to him. He was very patient.

How did Deckard and Rachel meet Resistance Replicants while on the run?

Denis Villeneuve: Being a Blade Runner, he is a detective, and the cops are close to the world of criminals, meaning that they have links in between people. That's what we understand - at that point, Deckard will know which door he needs to knock on if we wants to be in contact with some people that could help him, that will not be linked with the police, or people that will protect Rachael.

What triggers Luv's tears?

Have all Resistance members had the horse memory, or just K?

: I think that, Luv being a replicant, she is stronger than us, more intelligent, but emotionally she's a bit f**ked up. I mean, she hasn't necessarily experienced, digested emotions and she's confused. She reacts, sometimes, with the wrong emotions toward a situation, and she's over-sensitive like a 12 year-old brat that wants to please her father. She has a massive Oedipus complex with Wallace, she wants to be loved by him, she wants to please him, and she's very crystallised - in that she didn't evolve at all, so she's confused. I love it - I think the way that Sylvia [Hoeks] brought that complexity in the character is beautiful. You feel that she's a designed being. She's not a real being - her emotion patterns are not right. She's fragile.

DV: It's a very good question, but no - it's the idea that they heard the legend, they heard the stories and they wish it was them, from their own different levels.

When Lieutenant Joshi has a glass crushed into her hand, she barely reacts - is she a replicant?

DV: No, she's a real human. I never thought someone would ask that question. She's trying to keep her dignity, because she knows she's about to die and that's the strength of humanity, trying to keep your dignity until the end. But I'm happy about this, because the first Blade Runner, that movie is about paranoia, and you doubt the identity of everybody, so if you felt that, I'm very happy.

'Galatians Syndrome' is said to have killed Ana's fake sibling. What is it?

DV: I think it came from [screenwriter] Michael Green's very prolific and insane brain. I asked a thousand questions to Michael when I read the screenplay - a thousand. That one, I did research and discovered it didn't exist. It's a Michael fantasy. I'm positive, I tell you, that you should ask this question to Michael Green. I know there's a specific reason there - everything has a meaning with Michael. And there's things that I know there's a meaning that I cannot say. Like, K's number has a meaning. Everything is a precise thing in the movie.

Did the blackout happen worldwide, or just in North America?

DV: We had a lot of debates about that question. Personally, my answer would be that I think it's worldwide, because it needed to happen everywhere - or if not worldwide, then strong enough in enough places that it changed humans' relationship with the digital world and digital memory. It needed to be big enough, not just regional. Now it depends if you think that the Blade Runner universe is just LA. I always felt that for Michael, Los Angeles was like a bubble, and the Blade Runner universe was inside that bubble. Me? I relate more to Philip K. Dick's novel, where it's about the planet. The countries don't exist anymore, it's more that you have major megapolis that are like countries now. LA is one, New York, Moscow, maybe London, Singapore - you have a few major cities where people are crumbling around spaceports to go up [off-world]. The political system - there's no more relations, it's more like cultural influences are coming from those big urban centres. That's the way I see it - Michael I think is more focused on LA.

How did Wallace go blind?

DV: I think he was born like that.

Why didn't Luv kill K when she abducted Deckard?

DV: The thing is, for her, he isn't "left" there - she thinks he will die. The truth is, there was a scene that was cut out of the movie where it was obvious that she was killing him. She was doing something, but it was so violent that I said "alright, alright, I have to kill some darlings, I have to remove that, it was way too violent." But K's left for dead there. She could have finished him but that would have created problems for the rest of the story [laughs].

If the bees are the only living thing when K reaches Deckard's hideout, what are they living off of?

DV: If you look closely, there's like a bee-feeder science fiction gadget there that we see. The bees are going out of their hives, and they are feeding on a machine that I designed with [production designer] Dennis Gassner, which is like a bee-feeder. It is a machine designed to feed the bees, so the bees can produce honey and feed Deckard. I love the idea that Deckard is a beekeeper - but you cannot raise bees in the desert. The bees were not in the screenplay to be honest, it's an idea we were storyboarding, and I said "yeah, but how do bees live in the desert", and then I came up with the idea for the bee-feeders and Dennis Gassner designed those machines. For me, that's beautiful science-fiction, I must say that I love it - it's not about weapons, it's about a new way of farming.

Blade Runner 2049 is available on digital download on January 28 and on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray & DVD on February 5.

Joe Skrebels is IGN's UK News Editor, and Denis Villeneuve liking his questions made him feel real tingly. Follow him on Twitter.