10 Iconic Sci-Fi Movie Moments That Were Totally Improvised

1. "Like Tears In Rain" - Blade Runner

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Ladd Company

In terms of quotable moments, on a scale from to “here’s Johnny” to “I did not kill her, I did not,” Rutger Hauer’s touching monologue at the climax of Blade Runner stands among the best.

This speech is poignant, philosophical, and deeply affecting to the nth degree and serves as a thematic home-run for the film. You can’t make this stuff up. That is, of course, unless you are Rutger Hauer who apparently spouts out poetic prose with greater ease than an English major after a couple of appletinis.

Hauer plays ‘replicant’ Roy Batty, an escaped android from an ‘off-world’ colony who is being hunted down by titular ‘Blade Runner’ Rick Deckard. As Batty searches for a way to extend his short lifespan, Deckard hunts down and ‘retires’ his fellow replicant companions.

Deckard soon finds Batty, who beats him nearly to death, but in the android's final moments, he shows compassion towards the Blade Runner. On a roof, in the rain, in the twilight moments of Batty’s life, he recounts the incredible things he’s seen, and laments how all those moments will soon be lost “like tears in rain.”

Wow.

Somebody give this guy a writing credit, because Hauer knocked it out of the park and into space with this unscripted speech. Movie critic Mark Rowland describes this moment best as being “perhaps the most moving death soliloquy in cinematic history.” Screenwriters, eat your hearts out.

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Contributor
Contributor

Dan is a writer and actor originally from South Australia who now lives in a constant state of anxiety... and Los Angeles. Whether writing about movies, watching movies, or binging the Great British Bake-off, Dan approaches any endeavour with a steely resolve which is rivalled only by his ability to lie about his strengths. For professional inquiries, call Melissa Cropley - Dan's mum; she wishes he would call more often and you'd really be doing him a favour.