Tears in Rain

One thing science fiction does not have many good examples of is the soliloquy. There's one notable exception:

"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 Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die."

The scene is so iconic that some people likely have it memorized. Kids who are too young to have scene the original Blade Runner? You should.

Yet, the tears in rain monologue was not in the script. Or rather it was, but not in its final form.

The original script had him say something much more technical, was a bit longer and, tellingly, left out the actual "tears in rain."

In fact, Hauer, without consulting the director at all, rewrote the speech the night before filming. His version was the one that was used, over the much more forgettable original.

Actors often make alterations to the script. From inhabiting the character, they come to know them better than the writer and director ever could.

But there are very few cases when an actor alters the script and the result becomes one of the treasures of the genre. Even people who have not seen the movie know about the replicant dying in the rain. It was (less effectively) reprised in Blade Runner 2, but most of us knew that somebody had to die in the rain.

And we owe it not to Philip K. Dick (Blade Runner being, in all honesty, one of the exceptions to the rule that the book is better), nor to the script writers Hampton Fancher and David Webb Peoples (who's names we don't really remember) but to Rutger Hauer.

It's telling that many of us remember Hauer most for Blade Runner, including those who were just slightly too young to watch it first time round (I don't remember when and where I first saw it, but I think it was on TV and I was a young teenager), despite his numerous roles since. Blind Fury, Lothos in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, he was even in a couple of episodes of Smallville, he was in Batman Begins and Sin City. He was known for his versatility as an actor and won a Golden Globe for Escape from Sobibor.

But even younger people remember that speech. And if you don't, here.

I'm with the people who think the words "Tears in rain" belong on Hauer's grave.

The actor died yesterday after a "very short illness." He was 75.

But tears will always fall in the rain.