Just light, or perhaps lasers in the visible spectum (I opine). The entire speech is metaphorically poetic (“I’ve seen attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.”) It’s interesting that Roy Batty is such an intellectual character; since he hasn’t been “gifted” memories, and presumably wasn’t trained in literature or philosophy while being prepared as a soldier, he must have acquired his erudation during his short life.
And Deckard is clearly a human, regardless of what Ridley Scott says. To have him as a replicant betrays the underlying theme of replicants being just as human as “real” humans.
It’s definitely earned a place of honor in the Great List of Barely Remembered SF Quotes.
“I say we do something, and then do something else from somewhere… It’s the only way to be sure.”
“That guy never told you what happened to your father, did he?”
“He told me enough! He told me something happened!”
“No! Something ELSE happened!”
“Nooooo!”
“I shall leave you as you left me; as you left her… Marooned for a span of time in the center of somewhere or other… In some condition; in some condition.”
“Someplace… the final frontier. These are the things of that thing, the big one, you know the one I’m talking about? Anyway… Her mission: to explore the Galaxy, or something or other, and various other extraordinary things that are space-related. To boldly go somewhere, out there, in that general direction!”
It’s not up to Ridley Scott, or you or me; it’s up to Hampton Francher and David Peoples, who wrote the screenplay. Thematically, I would also prefer him to be human, but unable to connect to other humans.
Some period or another ago, in a celestial grouping an indeterminate distance away . . . .
There’s some war going on. The good guys, striking from somewhere have done something good against the bad guys. The good guys managed to steal the super secret plans to the bad guys’ big scary weapon, which can do some really hard core stuff.
Chased by bad guys, some chick runs back home with the stolen plans that can help the good guys do really good things and kick the bad guys’ asses . . . .
In the book Roy Baty did not have a drawn out death with a special speech. Deckard killed Irmgard (Roy’s ‘wife’) and then killed Roy.
C-beam isn’t in the book either, but that is exactly the kind of name that Dick would have given to a weapon. Naming drugs and weapons were two things that Dick often did in his writings.
Terrifel included a few other funny barely-remembered quotes above… Can someone tell me what this one is from:
It’s a little hard to search Google for “some condition” quotations. Not being able to place it is irking me so much I registered just to find out what it’s from…
