Today is the inception date of one of the world's all time most compelling screen characters. It's Replicant, Roy Batty (of Blade Runner fame). Oh the places he'll go...
Or, rather the things he'll see in his short life: Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion; C-beams glittering in the darkness at Tannhäuser Gate.
We speak of course of Replicant N6MAA10816 Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) of Blade Runner fame. Who will be incepted at some point... today (gulp). Given how prescient so much of Blade Runner was, particularly in its inarguably genius production design (which hilariously lost the Oscar to Gandhi - okay, Hollywood *rotflmao* you do you!), this shouldn't surprise us.
With Alicia Vikander's gloriously sly Ex Machina performance winning recent honors (BAFTA & Globe nominations) for a brand new potentially classic synthetic antagonist, this is a perfect time for us to honor Rutger Hauer's greatest performance yet again. Hauer's work as Roy Batty has long since become a personal symbol of what heights actors who are in tune with their film's message, their auteur's vision, and their genre's style can soar to... even if awards bodies have historically always had trouble understanding the level of difficulty and the mad genius that shapes the best genre acting, nearly always to their detriment since these performances often become classics examples of great screen acting nearly the very second people are done cordoning of the movies that house them as "sci-fi" or "horror" or "comedy" and have started thinking of them as simply "a classic."
After the jump a slight reworking of a tribute written by yours truly in 2007 on the occasion of his film's then 25th birthday...
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