"More human than human." That is the motto of the Tyrell Corporation when designing the android replicants featured in Ridley Scott's 1982 thriller, Blade Runner. At first it is hard to believe when we see Roy Batty and his compatriots ruthlessly slaughter many people trying to seek out their creator, but as the film progresses, the rapidly deteriorating Androids show that they may indeed be more human than human. Rutger Hauer shines in this film, giving the most searingly existential performance to grace the science fiction sphere in years. The confrontation between him and Harrison Ford's Rick Deckard could very easily have been written as a cliched chase sequence, but the devastating presence of Hauer pushes the sequence into a more genuine realm. His emotional problems are essentially very human problems on a macro scale - fear of death, existential uncertainty, faith in his creator. His final "tears in the rain" monologue, a terse yet eloquent line, is achingly human in its resonance, reminding Harrison Ford's Rick Deckard that everyone fears death, whether they are human or replicant. There has never been a more human android than Roy Batty in all of science fiction.
Self-evidently a man who writes for the Internet, Robert also writes films, plays, teleplays, and short stories when he's not working on a movie set somewhere. He lives somewhere behind the Hollywood sign.
