"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.I suppose I watched Blade Runner two or three times before I finally came to view this very brief soliloquy by the replicant as one of the key thematic moments of the film.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain."
Hauer, director Ridley Scott, and screenwriter David Peoples asserted that Hauer wrote the "Tears in Rain" speech... In his autobiography, Hauer said he merely cut the original scripted speech by several lines, adding only "All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain" although the original script, displayed during the documentary, before Hauer's rewrite, does not mention "Tanhauser Gate"...Reposted from 2017 because today is Roy Batty's birthday ("incept date") - as documented by this screencap from an early scene in the movie:
Hauer said that these final lines showed that Batty wanted to "make his mark on existence... the robot in the final scene, by dying, shows Deckard what a real man is made of."
When Hauer performed the scene, the film crew applauded and some even cried. This was due to the power of the dying speech coming at the end of an exhausting shoot.
And reposted once more, because November 2019 is "Blade Runner month", as indicated by this frame from the movie's opening credits:
The proper term for the above is an "intertitle" (with a tip of the blogging cap to Miss C).
Reposted from 2019 in preparation for my pending re-watch of Blade Runner 2049.
Unless I'm going crazy, he doesn't actually say "Time to die" in the linked video.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_saUN4j7Gw&feature=related
Above is a link to almost the exact same clip except that he does say it. Perhaps the linked version isn't from the director's cut?
There are, I think, six or seven different versions of the movie. I decided to embed the full text even though it didn't match the version used for this video.
DeleteAfter thinking about it some more, I've decided to remove the "time to die" phrase as being only tangentially related to the message.
DeleteThanks for posting this. This is one of my favorite movies of all time. It seems a bit out of place that Roy Batty's incept date is 8Jan16 as we are no where close to living the type of existence represented in the movie. Still, interesting to consider what is means to "be alive."
DeleteIt's a good line, 'Time to die'. It echoes the line spoken by Leon, mentioned elsewhere in these comments. There's a difference though; Leon is a thug, and he says it right before killing Deckard - only prevented by Rachel.
DeleteWith Roy Batty, he's the thinker, the philosopher of the crew. When he says it, it's a token of regret. He doesn't want to leave this life, but it's... time to die.
"Time to die" uttered by Leon is a threat; it's *Deckard's* time to die.
DeleteUttered by Roy it's a farewell.
Yep, awesome
ReplyDeleteDialogue points: when Roy says "tears in rain" he is crying, while it is raining.
ReplyDelete"Time to die" is what the other replicant, Leon, says to Deckard, intending to kill him, moments before Rachel shoots Leon with Deckard's gun.
The fact that every replicant has a 'time to die' programmed in to him or her from the moment of inception, is one of the main themes of the film. "I want more life, fucker!" is what Roy says to Eldon Tyrell, the inventor of replicant technology. But in the end, he doesn't get any more life.
Thanks, anon. I've deleted Leon's words from the embedded text.
DeleteI love this scene, especially the dove the flies up after the "robot" dies. I have always taken that as a sort of hint that the replicants had spirits, and that life did not necessarily cease upon death.
ReplyDeleteThat's my take, anyway. :)
I agree it was not coincidental.
DeleteBrad, indeed, I think you are right. Just as there have been times in history where we thought--you name it, slaves, Native Americans, or whomever--did not have souls, using that as a justification to treat them differently, so, too, it seems the film is sending the message that, despite their temporary nature, the replicants had souls and were fully human in some way.
DeleteThis is my all time favorite movie. I've seen it dozens of times. There is a lot of spiritual imagery in this series of scenes in the film. The nail through his hand (Christ on the cross), his arms crossed over (similar to many Egyptian mummies), while holding the dove in the nailed hand. The dove (peace? Being at peace at last?) The bird flying away with his passing. Very powerful.
DeleteIndeed, one of the best scenes in sci-fi movie history, and no doubt adding to the reasons Blade Runner was recently voted - correct me if I'm wrong - by some group, somewhere, as the best sci-fi film of all time. Just remembering this sequence makes me want to see the whole film again, but WHICH version??!! I never knew there was more than one. Ridley Scott must hate it that he didn't have the final say because it was HIS film. Novelists or classical composers didn't have various versions of their creations, if you know what I mean. An official concert of Beethoven's fifth and someone put an organ part in it, or a saxophone solo by ...?
ReplyDeletethe making of called "dangerous days" is well worth a look
ReplyDeletealso, I thought that the replicants were essentially shown up as people, and the business was really just another slant on slavery. Born into slavery
I found the information on imDB -
Deletehttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt1080585/
- but it's not available in our library system, unfortunately.
I see that the point was already made: This was not about "making his mark," I don't think, but rather is showing the truth that somehow he is not "just' a replicant...but is as human as anyone, and can be touched with the noblest emotions of mankind, especially inasmuch as he does not kill the human.
ReplyDeleteOddly enough, I wonder if the nail in his hand is meant to symobolize some Christ-likeness or the such?
Wow, look at all the comments.
ReplyDeleteI only stopped and read the post because, you know 'no stone unturned', but I know nothing about the subject.
Seems I live more in the real world than the fantasy ones a good number of your readers, and yourself, live in.
I'll just leave this 'lol' here, so you know I write with my tongue in my cheek.
It's nice that you are satisfied living in the real world. I and "a good number of my readers" sometimes find it necessary to retreat from the reality of the evening news in order to reestablish a modicum of peace of mind. If you ever care to join us, may I suggest you start by browsing this category of posts:
Deletehttps://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/search/label/movies
"Seems I live more in the real world..."
DeleteAre you sure about that? You often give the impression that your little country is paradise on earth, never mentioning nor even acknowledging the myriad "real world" issues confronting many of the people who live there. Kind of a fantasy land, it seems. lol
Minnesotastan,
ReplyDeleteI had forgotten that I had made the comment above in 2019, but I was getting ready to post something similar. The point, it seems to me, is that, just like humans, all the wonderful memories and joys that we have in this life will pass away with us. No matter how beautiful it all was, it comes to an end.
Of course, I happen to believe there's something wonderful on the other side of death, but I think the sentiment remains the same. As my elderly (now-deceased) uncle used to say when we would go out through the sticks of Birchwood, Tennessee, where he was born, "Once I'm gone, no one will know these things."
I've tried to remember what I can, but as someone wise said, "Every time an old person dies, a small library burns down."
The importance, the power, and the transience of memories become focal points for the "2049" sequel. Rachel's replicant daughter designs memories for new replicants, and Ryan Gosling's replicant character spends the movie trying to determine how he can have a memory of childhood if he was created as an adult. The final scene of "2049" symbolically pairs Gosling in the falling snow with Rutger Hauer in the falling rain - backed by a variation of the Vangelis theme music that accompanied Hauer in the original.
Delete