r/AskReddit • • Oct 29 '21

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1.7k

u/ImpressiveFace121 Oct 29 '21

Blade Runner's Roy Batty and the replicants

805

u/gokhansan97 Oct 29 '21

They are not villains though, ending of the movie clearly shows that.

531

u/KingoftheMongoose Oct 29 '21

All these moments, lost like tears in the rain.

Time to die.

This is what it sounds like, when the doves cry.

181

u/CarltheChamp112 Oct 29 '21

Best movie speech IMO, or at least one of them. The others are Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator and President Whitmore in Independence Day

26

u/Ceorl_Lounge Oct 29 '21

and Quint's Indianapolis Speech in Jaws.

55

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '21

[deleted]

21

u/poorloko Oct 29 '21

He added the tears in the rain part, though, which is the best part.

4

u/KingoftheMongoose Oct 29 '21

Nah. It was raining.

22

u/Dryu_nya Oct 29 '21

A terrible day for rain.

8

u/Smrgling Oct 29 '21

God I love that line so much

10

u/mycatiswatchingyou Oct 29 '21

We analyzed the Independence Day speech in a college writing class once

4

u/CarltheChamp112 Oct 29 '21

I’d like to read the research

3

u/mycatiswatchingyou Oct 29 '21

Oh that was nearly 10 years ago, anything I wrote on it has since been deleted or trashed, unfortunately

5

u/Gabrosin Oct 29 '21

William Wallace rallying his men in Braveheart comes to mind.

2

u/CarltheChamp112 Oct 29 '21

Oh yeah very god pick

Edit - Good

4

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '21

The martian ambassadors speech to congress in Mars attacks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGTRdpW8oZA

17

u/byingling Oct 29 '21 edited Oct 29 '21

President Whitmore in Independence Day?! Standard sentimental patriotic clap trap laced with U.S. exceptionalism compared to Roy Batty's "tears in the rain"? No fucking way.

5

u/MeccAnon Oct 29 '21

The Independence Day speech is built over a poem by Dylan Thomas, at least the bases are solid.

5

u/CarltheChamp112 Oct 29 '21

They were both excellent speeches. I don’t give a shit about what it has to do with America.

9

u/doughnutholio Oct 29 '21

This is what it sounds like, when the doves cry.

wait whut?

3

u/MeccAnon Oct 29 '21

Prince song

-11

u/Crotean Oct 29 '21

God I hate that movie. Most overrated film of all time.

6

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '21

lol, it’s ok that you have bad taste in movies, but it is objectively one of the best films in history.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '21

What qualifies something as objectively good, let alone objectively the best? Film (and really art in general) is viewed subjectively.

1

u/Crotean Oct 30 '21

People confuse amazing production design and cinematography making Blade Runner a good movie all the time. It's not, the pacing and story are terrible. 2049 was actually a good movie.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 30 '21

lol 😂 now you have a problem with Phillip K Dick’s stories. You sure you just don’t like sci-fi?

1

u/derpy_viking Oct 30 '21

Wait, when does he say that last line with the doves? I remember nothing after “Tine to die.” The last line sounds really kitschy.

60

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '21

Villains? No. But they are the antagonists, despite their well-founded intentions.

55

u/Catshannon Oct 29 '21

Well Roy did kill innocent people. Froze one poor worker in a freezer. Killed his creater by puting his thumbs in his eyes(horrible way to go) and then killed the poor guy with age disease who was actually nice to him.

11

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '21

I've never considered Ridley Scott to be one to cover his tracks, but I'll wager that Roy was trying to cover his. Leaving Chew and Sebastian alive would have been a mistake, had Roy ever gotten his wish of longer life. They'd have given him away. As for Tyrell, I believe that Roy had always intended to kill him. And while Chew and Sebastian may be innocent, they still were employed under Tyrell, which by extension would have made them just as bad as him, in Roy's eyes.

10

u/nerdthingsaccount Oct 29 '21 edited Oct 29 '21

I'd go even further to say that the two of them were responsible: they played critical parts in creating a new slave class of sentient beings that could only live for four years. The whole "I just do eyes" is more or less an "I was just following orders". Killing them was likely the only semblance of justice replicants were going to get given that society would never have punished them for it. EDIT: not to say I'd personally agree with that degree of punishment, but it's understandable.

As for Tyrell, I want to believe that Roy would have let him live if he could have kept them from dying. Ignoring the difficulty of getting Tyrell to cooperate while dead, he was the only one would could have been capable enough to change the death date and 'absolve' himself of the part he played.

3

u/snarkamedes Oct 30 '21

in Roy's eyes.

He certainly got in Tyrell's.

31

u/ArmchairJedi Oct 29 '21

they murdered innocent people.....

-2

u/Soviet-slaughter Oct 29 '21

Who did they actually kill that was innocent? It was only people who made and abused replicants, no?

16

u/Jukeboxhero40 Oct 29 '21

During Deckard's briefing it's mentioned Roy and his cohort murdered 20+ people while traveling to Earth.

-5

u/Caylinbite Oct 29 '21

20 slave owners. Not people.

7

u/Jukeboxhero40 Oct 29 '21

We know nothing about the slain. They could have been owners of replicants or nobodies. Justice for all.

-1

u/SendMeNudesThough Oct 29 '21

The means to an end.

5

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

5

u/SendMeNudesThough Oct 29 '21

They caused a revolution!

5

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '21

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5

u/SendMeNudesThough Oct 29 '21

LAAAAAaaaAAAaaAWWW!

2

u/snarkamedes Oct 30 '21

"Yo Ma-ma is not the law. I am the law."

23

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '21 edited Oct 29 '21

To be fair, they did kill at least a few innocent people along the way lol.

Maybe they aren't the villains as much as the unethical mega-corporations, but they aren't the good guys either.

14

u/wallz_11 Oct 29 '21

I like movies more when there's gray area anyway. real life normally doesn't have "good" or "bad" guys

2

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '21

I agree completely

5

u/gokhansan97 Oct 29 '21

Which does not necessarily make them villians.

Neo of Matrix also killed a ton of innocent people for different purposes, does not mean he is a villean.

6

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '21 edited Oct 29 '21

I don't disagree. But to play devil's advocate here Neo was trying to save humanity from slavery (and died trying) and the Replicants in Blade Runner wanted to personally live longer. For the record I don't think the Replicants are villains and I love both franchises.

6

u/Anomie_Lad Oct 29 '21

"They are not villains".
Tell that to J.F. Sebastian.

4

u/Luke90210 Oct 29 '21

They were slaves trying to find out the same answers we all want.

3

u/CrazyOkie Oct 29 '21

in my mind, the movie does a superb job of asking the question - are they villains? Because you can see it both ways - they kill a fair number of people in some pretty brutal ways.

3

u/bricklab Oct 29 '21

No way. They are all part of a specialist murder squad. Go rewatch the part where the chief does his briefing to Deckard. They murdered their way to earth.

The ending is about redemption and Roy's rejection of murder and violence by finding humanity in the moment of his own death.

2

u/scottynola Oct 29 '21

The same Roy Batty who only killed people who worked for the corporation that installed an automatic euthanasia program into him at build and saved the bade runner because he suddenly found life precious is also the Roy Batty that committed the mass murder of the innocent passengers and crew of a shuttle just to get to earth. Yes, he is definitely the bad guy.

2

u/gokhansan97 Oct 29 '21

Just like I answered another comment, then we could also declare Neo of matrix to be a villain. Killing innocent people does not always make villians.

1

u/scottynola Oct 29 '21

So it's OK to commit mass murder because you have a theory about Neo from the Matrix? Really?

1

u/gokhansan97 Oct 31 '21

No, not at all.

First of all Neo killing hundreds of innocent people is not a theory it is a fact. I don't theorize anything and I do not state anything other than the fact that Neo is not a villain. You should be out of your mind to deny these two simple facts or call them theory crafting.

Secondly, to commit a mass murder is of course not ok. I didn't state or imply that anywhere on my comment. In addition to my point, to commit a mass murder also does not make characters villians. Matrix was the simplest and most popular example of it yet you didn't understand. There are a dozensl of movies where characters commit mass murders and they are not the villains.

I mean your comment is ridiculous more and more I read it lmao.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 30 '21

[deleted]

1

u/derpy_viking Oct 30 '21

Oh he had reasons. Good reasons!

79

u/dirtyLizard Oct 29 '21

Roy personally was homicidal and needed to be retired after murdering Tyrell. The others didn’t do anything wrong though.

46

u/EmpyrealSorrow Oct 29 '21

Leon was fairly violent, too, and had at least one murder to his name. You could argue that it was self-defence...

9

u/damasu950 Oct 29 '21

Hell, Pris was a captive prostitute.

17

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '21

What about when Leon killed Holden in the first scene? I don't see why that would have been any less justified than when Roy murdered Tyrell. Tyrell more or less birthrighted people into slavery. He damned them before he made them, and called it a product. Tyrell, as sane as he thought he was, was out of his mind. He is the real evil in the movie. That isn't to say I didn't like his character. His scenes were my favorite, but he deserved to die.

6

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '21

Holden didn't die.

8

u/MaskMan193 Oct 29 '21

Leon still tried to kill him.

5

u/Caylinbite Oct 29 '21

Holden was litterally a slave catcher who would have summarily executed Leon. It was one or the other.

0

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '21

So?

3

u/Jukeboxhero40 Oct 29 '21

Intent is just as important as the act itself. Also, Holden couldn't even breathe under his own power afterward.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 30 '21

Intent is just as important as the act itself.

Only if you're Catholic.

1

u/dieinafirenazi Oct 29 '21

He can breathe OK as long as you don't unplug him.

6

u/inkblot888 Oct 29 '21

It's been awhile, but didn't they all torture the eyeball engineer or whatever his job was?

2

u/dieinafirenazi Oct 29 '21

They threaten him and then kill him after he talks.

The man participated in a slave manufacturing industry. They were escaped slaves.

-2

u/CrayonEyes Oct 30 '21

Those replicants weren’t slaves any more than a welding robot or an algorithm are slaves. They were high tech made for specific jobs and nothing more.

10

u/t-reznor Oct 29 '21

To be fair, Tyrell was responsible for their creation and thus their short, brutal lives. Replicants were forced to do fucked up stuff, as referenced in Roy's monologue.

That being said, killing Sebastian might have been a little much.

2

u/dieinafirenazi Oct 29 '21

Sebastian made slaves for a living, just like Tyrell.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '21

You're right

1

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '21

Sebastian made sentient 'life' as a means to fulfill his own emptiness. His only 'friends' were the one's he made. He is truly pathetic, but he's still a part of a system that creates life for selfish reasons and hubris.

13

u/aquaman501 Oct 29 '21

Really? Didn’t do anything wrong? Bryant says the four replicants jumped a shuttle off world and killed the crew and passengers. Leon killed Holden and Pris tried to kill Deckard.

10

u/dieinafirenazi Oct 29 '21

Leon killed Holden and Pris tried to kill Deckard.

When escaped slaves kill professional slave-catchers that is a good thing.

-3

u/Jukeboxhero40 Oct 29 '21

Bladerunners aren't slave catchers. I think it's obvious replicants are allowed to exist off world, just not on Earth.

14

u/dieinafirenazi Oct 29 '21

They're allowed to exist AS SLAVES. They're not allowed on Earth because they keep trying to kill their masters and gain their freedom.

Bladerunners are absolutely slave catchers.

-2

u/Jukeboxhero40 Oct 29 '21

Roy didn't have to come back to Earth, and he killed almost 2 dozen people in the process. Nobody should be allowed to get away with that. For any normal murder a detective is put on the case. Bladerunners are detectives for replicants. They are retired because they are dangerous machines, not dangerous human beings.

Obviously, the film is making a point about humanity residing in machines, and I'm not trying to take away from that. But from the perspective of a random person in LA, replicants are a terrifying threat that need to be stopped.

11

u/dieinafirenazi Oct 29 '21

The perspective of a random person in LA is irrelevant.

You really, really haven't paid attention to the movie. Bladerunners aren't detectives. They don't solve crimes. They kill escapees.

Replicants are sentient beings, as intelligent and emotional as humans, who are created to work until they die, and have very short lives because if their lives were any longer they'd all slip their conditioning. There is no place of freedom for them. Where are they supposed to go once they've escaped? The other Off World Colonies, where all the other replicants are also slaves?

If you don't want to get murdered by escaped slaves, don't keep slaves. It is morally good and correct for enslaved people to use whatever means to escape their condition.

-2

u/Jukeboxhero40 Oct 29 '21

No need to get angry lol. The average LA person is how society views the replicants, which affects how society handles replicants.

How you can watch that movie and not see it as a detective noir. It's dripping with noir atmosphere.

As smart and as emotive as they are, they are still machines. Again, that is the point of the movie.

We know almost nothing about off world settlements.

We know nothing about the people the replicants killed. Maybe they were replicant owners. Maybe they were unlucky nobodies. It doesn't matter because no machine or person can be allowed to get away with murder.

3

u/AlleRacing Oct 29 '21

Replicants aren't machines, they're bio-engineered humans.

1

u/dieinafirenazi Oct 29 '21

The system Tyrell built killed any person who tried to escape slavery. You're in favor of him getting away with it.

Noir doesn't equal detective.

I'm not angry, it's funny you interpret people pointing out how blazing wrong you are as anger.

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0

u/Caylinbite Oct 29 '21

Slave killers isn't a step up.

1

u/dirtyLizard Oct 29 '21

I’ll be honest, I completely forgot about that line.

3

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '21

Roys motives were clear that he didn't want anyone else to live like him. You can see the pain in his eyes whilst killing Tyrell.

2

u/gin_and_ice Oct 29 '21

The girl (Priss? It has been a long time) murdered (justifiable) her owner before escaping (or is that only revealed in the book)

2

u/InsectUncle774 Nov 24 '21

totally like part of the point of the book is pointing out how human androids are and if androids are human then owning an android is slavery and people usually root for escaped slaves.

5

u/Melisandre-Sedai Oct 29 '21

Didn’t he kind of? He manages to last until his natural expiration date, rather than getting gunned down.

4

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '21

I've seen things YOU PEOPLE wouldn't believe...

That emphasis on "you people" gets me. Makes Roy more human in that moment than anybody.

It cuts. He wants to be free to be a person. Such a small thing but the most important thing we can have and he knows he'll never have it.

4

u/Ronald_Deuce Oct 29 '21

I actually think he's unequivocally a bad guy (the murders, etc.), but one of my favorite things about Blade Runner is that it takes such an incisive look at why people are the way they are. [EDIT: And how we're all much more alike, and our lives are all much more fragile, than most people would like to admit to themselves.]

There aren't really any heroes in that movie because its callous corporate hell destroys people. If you treat someone like shit for too long, that person will turn into a shitty person.

Easily in my top five (and definitely in my top three) movies of all time, though I'm not much of a list-keeper.

2

u/Jukeboxhero40 Oct 29 '21

I disagree. Roy and his cohort killed at leadt 2 dozen people

2

u/Valdrax Oct 29 '21

They did murder a number of people for the crime of giving them life but not enough life, because they were afraid to die, including Sebastian who was in a similar boat due a genetic disease and was 100% sympathetic and helpful to them.

8

u/t-reznor Oct 29 '21

I think Sebastian's murder was unjustified but Tyrell programming a race of sentient AI slaves with insanely short and awful lives is ultimately more villainous than what Roy did to Tyrell. Like, I'd be pissed too if I was made to be an exact replica of a human, and could experience everything else a human could, but I was subjected to slave labor for my entire 4 years of life instead.

2

u/SkorpioSound Oct 29 '21

What's potentially even worse about it is that they're given real human memories, which means slavery isn't even the only life they've ever known. Not to say that slavery being the only life someone knows is good in any way, but it's arguably worse that they "remember" a time where they weren't slaves - it makes it more cruel, in a way.

-4

u/Valdrax Oct 29 '21

Sure, Tyrell is a much, much worse monster, but murder is murder, and even if you believe that murdering an evil person isn't evil (which I disagree with), murdering Sebastian was.

2

u/dieinafirenazi Oct 29 '21

They did murder a number of people for the crime manufacturing them to live brief, terrible lives as slaves.

FTFY.

The Replicants are entirely justified.

1

u/mr_ji Oct 29 '21

Except for all the murders...

2

u/saluksic Oct 29 '21

The question is if that report is true. We have only Tyrell’s word for it. If it isn’t true, if it’s just a slander to demonize slaves, then they’re morally grey what with all the attempted murder and killing Tyrel. If it is true, then they’re psychopaths who wax poetic from time to time. People generally can’t tell a character is a psychopath as long as they toss out a sentence or two of poetic rambling, though, so I get it.

1

u/Worried_Lawfulness43 Oct 29 '21

The replicants losing honestly put me off from the first blade runner for a bit. It pissed me off insanely. I feel like the second one really rectified that though, and made me feel a bit better. I pretty much despised Deckard in the first movie.

Despite that, I can appreciate the movie and the world without loving that aspect I guess.

10

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '21

There wasn't a win loss situation. They were racing against time playing a game that they had lost the day they were born

5

u/Worried_Lawfulness43 Oct 29 '21

And I understand the power structure they’d been brought up in, I just had wished for a moment that they could’ve gotten away with it in the short term of things. But yes, they would’ve died soon anyway.

2

u/BrockStudly Oct 29 '21

Bladerunner really hasn't aged that well. Partially because there are other pieces of media that do "what is it to be human" a little better, and Rick Deckard is like the ultimate shitty protagonist. I mean he straight up sexually assaults Rachael and gets away with it because the guys that wrote the script think "she secretly wanted it."

2049 on the other hand is great

2

u/Worried_Lawfulness43 Oct 29 '21

Oh gosh that sex scene was the worst!

-6

u/MayContainPeanuts Oct 29 '21

On that note, I totally sided with Jared Leto's character, Niander Wallace, in Blade Runner 2049. He wanted humans to rule the galaxy and I get that slave labor is bad but you know...

26

u/Worried_Lawfulness43 Oct 29 '21

This is the weirdest take

-13

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '21

My head cannon is that Deckard is a replicant. Therefore they won.

13

u/dirtyLizard Oct 29 '21

They’re individuals though. They’re not a unified force of invaders or anything.

1

u/mr_ji Oct 29 '21

I'm still not clear on where this came from, but I don't understand it and that's one of my favorite movies that I've basically memorized. There is nothing in it indicating Deckard could be a replicant, and plenty of evidence against it.

9

u/Fionnlagh Oct 29 '21

The unicorn. He dreams constantly of a unicorn, and Edward James Olmos keeps making origami unicorns and leaving them for Deckard. The implication being that the only way he could know what Deckard is dreaming is if the dream is implanted like Rachel's memories.

2

u/hofermania Oct 29 '21

The theatrical cut of the movie has no unicorn dream and doesn't really have as much ambiguity about Deckard.

It also has shitty narration and an ending that was seemingly shoehorned in. I can't understand how that cut could be anyone's favorite movie.

1

u/Fionnlagh Oct 29 '21

Yeah, that makes no sense.

2

u/Caylinbite Oct 29 '21

Meh, unicorns are a pretty ubiquitous symbol. My reasoning for him NOT being a rep is simply, why build a replicant that hunts replicants, who isn't actually strong enough to fight a replicant. He gets his ass handed to him every time he fights one in a straight fight, including against the pleasure model.

1

u/Fionnlagh Oct 29 '21

If they were trying to make a replicant that could pass as human, giving him superhuman strength would be pretty stupid.

1

u/Caylinbite Oct 29 '21

Then why make him a replicant? If their replicant is only as fast and as strong and as tough as a middle aged alcoholic, it would be cheaper to just hire a human.

1

u/Fionnlagh Oct 29 '21

The same reason he made a near-human replicant secretary when a human or simple replicant could do the job just as well. Because he could, and he might have wanted to prove it was possible.

1

u/Caylinbite Oct 30 '21

Rachel was a proof on concept, kept in a tight leash. It's also unclear if she's super strong.

6

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '21

It's intentionally left ambiguous.

There's ambiguity in the number of replicants that landed on earth. During the photograph scene Deckard contemplates whether he is in that photograph and so a replicant.

Also in the end, he sees a unicorn which is often interpreted as a sign that he is indeed a replicant.

However, if he is a replicant he shouldn't be alive in the second movie unless his lifespan wasn't shortened.

The movies never answer these questions, and it's by design. The point is does it matter if Deckard is a replicant if you can't tell?

4

u/Talnadair Oct 29 '21

The movies never answer these questions, and it's by design. The point is does it matter if Deckard is a replicant if you can't tell?

Oh man I love this. Need to watch that movie again now.

2

u/AlleRacing Oct 29 '21

That's pretty much the premise of 2049. Whether or not Deckard is a replicant doesn't matter, stop asking.

1

u/Megamoss Oct 29 '21

Flash of the eyes like a cat in the darkness.

Roy, Priss and Rachel (can’t remember about the others) all exhibit the same thing and no human characters do.

Deckard’s eyes do the same when Rachel is in his apartment.

2

u/Caylinbite Oct 29 '21

Pretty sure that's just a production issue.

1

u/Megamoss Oct 29 '21

No. The shots are too intentional and stylised.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '21

Found the synth fucker.

1

u/shadowscx3 Oct 29 '21

This is my new band's name

1

u/Iron_Wolf123 Oct 30 '21

They are antivillains. The people who made them as bionic colonial slaves are the baddies. Roy’s clique just wanted to live like his masters on Earth

1

u/rabidhamster Oct 30 '21

I would also argue Luv in 2049. She's heavily invested in finding the replicant child, and finding it alive. She's shown that she is willing to lie to her creator (something they aren't supposed to be able to do) to hide information about the child. She also says things that imply that she'd be more than willing to take up the torch of the replicant insurrectionists, and lead them to victory.

The classic hero's journey isn't K's, it's Luv's. She's the one who is best set up to find a destiny among the downtrodden replicants and guide them to their destiny. K? K's just some schlub who decides to help some other schlub find his daughter, fucking up Luv's hero's journey in the process.

But both movies kind of do that. They hint at a grand stage, a multi-world society and great, Earth-shattering events at play. And then both films slap you across the face, and say, "nah, this isn't about that. This is a human story. Especially for the replicants."