“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. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.”
At the end of Ridley Scott‘s 1982 sci-fi cult classic Blade Runner, Replicant Roy Batty (portrayed by Rutger Hauer, who died last week at the age of 75) delivers the iconic monologue you see above just before he perishes. It is a profoundly moving moment, and an utterly cool moment for a movie that explored issues of sentience and what it truly means to be a human…and the razor thin line that can existence between man and machine. Hauer himself contributed to the speech by enhancing David People’s script with his own creative enhancements. The result? Cinematic poetry:
In a bit of fascinating synchronicity, both the character of Roy Batty and the actor who portrayed him both passed away in the year 2019. Unlike the “tears in the rain” of which he so famously spoke, Hauer’s films will never vanish from the pop culture landscape.
Each week our Sci-Fi Sunday posts celebrate the greatest moments from science fiction history.