He's infuriated, but also heartbroken at the Oedipal act of violence he's compelled to carry out.Īs a replicant, he's been born into slavery, with too brief a candle to burn to make a lasting legacy. Hauer's face at that moment is a tapestry of existential torment, all gritted teeth and wild eyes. You might lash out as Roy does - he kills Tyrell in the most intimate of ways, crushing his eyes and skull after planting a loving, familial kiss on his lips. That they designed you to exist only for a short time. In that frame of mind, you'll do just about anything to survive, to live longer.īatty's frustration with his maker echoes our own frustration with ours - why, if life is so sweet, does it have to end? Imagine going to your creator, however you imagine them, and hearing from them that you, too, have to die. That fight-or-flight response, the heavy breathing, the need to get up and walk around or distract yourself, it's all reflected in Batty's single-minded agenda to eke just one more moment of time on this earth by any means necessary. If you've ever woken up with a start at 1 in the morning, your brain having just reminded you that you're going to die one day, you've been in Batty's shoes. Now, having stolen himself away to Earth, he sees the chance to meet his creator and get, as he growls to Elden Tyrell, "more life, f***er." (In some versions, this is overdubbed to "father" each appeal respectively carries the anger and fear that accompanies such existential dread.)Ĭredit: Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Imagesīatty's battle against death is one that we've all been through as mortal beings, we're constantly in the grip of a crippling fear of our imminent demise. A replicant, an artificial being created to perform heavy labor and only given four years of life, Batty has been sentenced to a life of anguish and servitude offworld. Now, given a closer look, Batty gives us a framework with which to deal with Hauer's own passing.Įven before his iconic "tears in rain" speech, Batty spends the entirety of the film raging against the dying of the light. It's for good reason it's not just one of the actor's most iconic moments as a performer, it's one of the most highly regarded monologues in film history.įor many science fiction fans, especially those (like me) who saw Blade Runner at a young age, Batty's entire character journey allowed us to process death in a way we never could before. Throw a stone at Facebook or Twitter in the ensuing hours since Hauer's death, and you'll hit half a dozen RIP posts quoting the above monologue, Batty's final words before his death on a rainy rooftop to Harrison Ford's wearied blade runner Rick Deckard. But no role ever illustrated the Byronesque romance of his acting work quite like Batty, a replicant desperate to squeeze more time out of his existence in Ridley Scott's dreamlike cyberpunk fantasy Blade Runner. He was Buffy the Vampire Slayer's first real villain in the original 1992 film and leaned hard into his cult bona fides with the grindhouse homage Hobo With a Shotgun. Star of stage and screen, Hauer made a name for himself as baroque, intense figures in genre films like Ladyhawke, Blind Fury, and The Hitcher. It feels like terrifying serendipity that the great Dutch character actor Rutger Hauer died the same year as his most famous character, Roy Batty. All those moments will be lost in time, like. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe … attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
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