Heroes, villains and tears in rain – @SPressfield #Writing
The replicant Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) gives the most powerful, most human speech…
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.
The words are mostly meaningless (C-beams? attack ships?) but the sound is eloquent. The delivery, the performance is so engaging.
As Steven says,
That’s not a villain speech, is it? It’s a hero speech. It tells us (though the filmmakers themselves may not have realized this at the time) that the villain in Blade Runner is not Roy or his fellow replicants … whose only aim is to survive the four-year life span they’ve been doomed to by their creators, but the idea of manufacturing human-like slaves in the first place. In other words, the villain is Mr. Eldon Tyrell of the Tyrell Corporation—and all those who went along with this concept.
It’s a great reminder that words alone are not enough. They need great delivery.
Here’s the scene:
