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I love the scene in Blade Runner where Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) is in his last conflagration with Deckard, and howls. Badly. Clumsily. Why? Because with his four year lifespan, Roy hasn't yet learned how to understand what emotions, other than hate, really are. When he howls, he's trying to link his animal nature with his undeveloped human emotions; pain for the death of Pris, frustration at the wrapping up of his four years (he places a nail through his hand, like Christ, to keep himself alive just a little longer), and his hatred of those who made and hunt him, and that's what comes out. It is by far, the most powerfully emotional scene in the film, if one has taken the intellectual effort to know why... All of the love scenes, all of the rest of the violence pales in comparison to that sound.

Hoooooowwwwwwwwwwww....owwwwwwwww....oooooooohowwwwww

Doc

"Hatred" is a strong word. Too general. I'd use a more descriptive word, and more specific.

When I think of that scene... I get the impression that Roy is "tuning" into himself, and with "nature". It is also a tactic used to "psyche-out" your opponent and yourself, before the battle.

That whole scene is very emotional. Counting down the seconds, mourning Pris, then the howl.

Where am I going with this? (I dunno) lol.... It seems we agree on all points here except with the word "hatred". Although Roy is a "child" in the emotional sense, and "hatred" is a basic emotion, this is the turning point where Roy begins to "develop". Of hatred spawns the antagonism which Roy clearly displayed.

Perhaps it was, then, a combination of "basic" emotions. Certainly frustration, and grief. With grief, there are stages. Roy sped right through them, denial, anger, bargaining, (didn't really see depression...although it may have been expressed off stage ) Then acceptance, at the end.


Over analyzing aren't I?. Sorry about that.

Carry on.

I think what made me write the original post is having heard people laugh in the theater when Roy howls.

What went through my head hearing them was something like, "You dumbshit yahoos. If you thought this was funny, no matter how long you live or no matter what you experience, you'll never be anyone I'd sure as hell ever want to know."

Egotistical, 'eh?

Doc

There is also the moment when Deck realizes the sleeping Rachael is in fact sleeping and not dead. His relief and the emotion is palpable in that scene.

I can see how that could connect...

The barrier for me is that Ford has gone to great lengths not to emote during the entire film. The love scene seems like a rape, for example. Even Deckard's ex-wife called him cold fish. When he encounters sleeping Rachel, I caught a sense of surprise on his part, but not concern. The strongest scene is where Leon is preparing to kill him, and even there, he uses hard boiled private eye wise cracks-- there's never genuine fear.

For me-- and this is always subjective-- it could have turned if the Hampton Fancher screenplay had been used. As Rachel's request, he kills her, both knowing she will never cease to be hunted, and in one scene in his car as he drives away, he cries.

For some reason it bothers me when people draw Christ parallels with Batty.
The nail is simply a means to shock his system towards living longer, gets the adrenaline flowing again.

Roy isn't persecuted for just being a Replicant. He's killed people, he regrets it. It's those people he killed that drove him to fight back and yet he still has regrets for it. I think if Ridley and the Roy Batty character wanted a more defined Christ metaphor, Batty might have simply let Deckard shoot him at some point during the final chase so he could be more of a martyr to his fellow Replicants.

"I think what made me write the original post is having heard people laugh in the theater when Roy howls. "

People laughed at that?

I'm clearly missing the humor...

Unbelievable.....it's such a deeply moving moment, so rich with human emotions of loss and pain, I can't imagine laughing.