The thing about great writing is that it can make you miss places you’ve never been and mourn people you’ve never met. The thing about great science fiction is that it can make you miss places and people who will never exist.
So I file this as a tribute to Roy Blatty and Rutger Hauer, who brought an android to life with words that go beyond the just-past-tomorrow world of cyberpunk to a future us Apollo kids have given up hope for:
“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.”
Hauer, of course, brought many characters to life, and those moments live on in celluloid. The rest of us won’t be so lucky. The world will forget us when we die.
That, I think, was the moral of the story of Blade Runner.
Ron Prichard's Fictions and Fables 