Blade Runner is one of the most beloved and iconic sci-fi movies ever made, and the best moment in Ridley Scott’s masterpiece wasn’t even supposed to happen. While not a success when released in theaters, Blade Runner earned a reputation as a masterpiece as the years went on, considered the grandfather of cyberpunk films and one of the best sci-fi releases to incorporate a film noir design. Blade Runner also became known for its multiple releases, with a theatrical studio cut, a separate international cut, Scott’s Director’s Cut, and The Final Cut, which arrived in 2007.
Released in 1982, Blade Runner tells the story of a cop named Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) who hunts down cloned replicants and kills them when they go rogue. His target is Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer), and while he is a murderer and terrorist, he is also someone who fights with the belief that he is alive, just like any real human, and deserves to live as he desires. The final confrontation includes an intense and amazing speech on the rooftop, and the best lines in the speech weren’t even in the Blade Runner script.
Why Blade Runner’s “Lost Like Tears In Rain” Scene Is The Best Of Ridley Scott’s Sci-Fi Career
This Line Humanizes The Replicant Roy Batty
In the final confrontation, Rick Deckard kills Roy Batty’s associate Pris (another replicant played by Daryl Hannah) and chases Roy to the rooftops in the rain. Knowing that he is dying because of a replicant’s planned lifespan, Roy allows the chase, but knows when it is time to end the fight. Roy leaps across from one rooftop to another, and then Rick leaps after him. However, Rick doesn’t make the clearing and desperately grabs the ledge, hanging there precariously.
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Shockingly, Roy reaches down and takes Rick’s hand and helps him up, saving his life. As Rick lies on the ground, not knowing what to do next, Roy delivers a huge speech that changes everything Rick and the viewers knew about the replicant to that point. Roy then dies, leaving viewers with one of the best endings in science fiction movie history. Here is Roy’s speech to Rick in the Blade Runner ending:
“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.”
Roy Batty’s Speech Wasn’t Part Of The Plan
Rutger Hauer Made Changes To The Speech
There have been different stories about this speech, but they all say the same thing. This speech was not written as Rutger Hauer delivered it. In one story in the documentary Dangerous Days: Making Blade Runner, Hauer and Scott both say that the actor significantly modified the final speech. Hauer said in that documentary that he only made some additions, including the “like tears in rain” line.
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However, Ridley Scott also changed the story somewhat. In his second telling of this scene, while he and Michael Fassbender were promoting Alien: Covenant, Scott said that he went to get Rutger Hauer for the scene, and the actor told him he had written a speech he wanted to read to him. While Scott said he was worried about this, what resulted was this amazing monologue:
“He read it and it was great. I said, ‘You stole that.’ He said, ‘No, no. I just wrote it… I said, ‘That’s what we’re going to do… [Screenwriter] Hampton [Fancher’s] line, saying ‘Time to die’ was kind of nice. But, the leadup to it, ‘I’ve seen things you people have never seen’… You’d say it, like it’s a [Percy Bysshe] Shelley poem.”
Another 60 Seconds Is A Close Runner-Up
The Chestburster Scene
While that moment in Blade Runner remains the best in any Ridley Scott film, there is a close second when looking at his horror movie Alien. In this movie, it wasn’t a cast member who came up with an idea that delivered a great moment, but it was Scott himself. This happened during the memorable Chestburster scene. In this scene, all the actors knew something would come out of Kane’s (John Hurt) chest, but they weren’t told how it would happen.
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However, no one knew that Scott had bought real organs from a butcher shop to have in the fake chest. No one knew that he had a pump and spray device to splatter blood over all the cast members. He wanted the reaction to be genuine, so he had it burst out and spray blood everywhere, and what the film showed was the actual reaction of each actor, making it easily one of the most memorable scenes from any Alien movie, and a close second to Blade Runner for Scott’s career.
This story originally appeared on Screenrant
