THIS may very well be the greatest sci-fi moment of all.
The film itself is a massively influential masterwork, but these few moments are just breathtaking as after raging so hard against the dying of the light, Roy Batty accepts his fate but decides to save another’s life, if he cannot save his own.
Hauer always brings a deceptive stillness to his best work and that is never more evident than in the measured delivery of his lines to Harrison Ford.
The best thing about the scene is the now-famous story about Ridley Scott struggling to end it, and Hauer coming up with the dialogue in his trailer in a few minutes.
Is it true? I don’t care, and I have no idea beyond my fevered imagination what attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion look like, or C-Beams glittering in the dark at the Tannhauser gate, yet coming from Hauer’s noble killing machine, they sound epic, dramatic, awe-inspiring.
The last line, about those moments being lost like tears in rain, still makes me shed a few myself every time I watch it. It is poetry – pure and simple.
He has had a fine career outside of Blade Runner – even if he did drop off the radar for a while – but it is for this Rutger Hauer will be remembered and rightly so.
i agree with the previous comment. its a beautiful, evocative, memorable speech. after googling it i cant believe its so short but it shows what power it has. one of rutgers finest moments & a very deep moment of the film. it was nice also as it was saying thats what lifes value amounts to – a series of special, intense, personal, undefinable moments……
IMHO, The most haunting moment in cinema. It's at once heart-breaking and terrible and the emotional conflict of watching this machine "die" while feeling as if an actual person was passing gives the scene a transcendent power. I watch it often and marvel at how Hauer didn't overplay or underplay. For him it's that once-a-career moment when everything is just…perfect.