# Blade Runner: question about Roy Batty's soliloquy **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 4, 2011, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437 "2011-03-04T01:54:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2011, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/21 "2011-03-04T12:04:25Z")
> [@AClockworkMelon](#): > > Rachael’s memories allowed her to resist the Voight-Kampff test administered by Deckard. But at the beginning of the film Leon is shown reacting to the test after the first couple of questions. So he didn’t have artificial memories to help him resist such testing and I don’t think Roy has them, either. Rachael was a unique creation- it’s almost likely that she was created specifically to test this new technology, especially considering her memories were taken from the head honcho’s very own niece. > > Another thing you have to remember is that the runaways had limited lifespans (that’s why they were on Earth- to find a way to increase them) to prevent them from developing emotions and personalities. Giving them false memories would be completely counterintuitive to that goal. Leon MUST have had artificial memories at one point- remember how important those old “family” photos were to him? Sure, NOW he knows those photos weren’t really family members, but he once thought they were, and those memories still mean the world to him (so much so that he risks his life to get them back), even though he knows now they weren’t real. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2011, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/22 "2011-03-04T12:40:07Z")
I just bought that movie, I’m going to have it delivered today. I am very much looking forward to watching it tonight. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2011, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/23 "2011-03-04T12:59:42Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Leon MUST have had artificial memories at one point- remember how important those old “family” photos were to him? > > Sure, NOW he knows those photos weren’t really family members, but he once thought they were, and those memories still mean the world to him (so much so that he risks his life to get them back), even though he knows now they weren’t real. I see Leon’s photos as a child-like attempt to create a past for himself. Sort of like he’s fantasizing a story for each photo. Leon is the “Dumb” laborer model and it’s not surprising to see him try to create a past for himself like a child would create an imaginary friend. He knows the photos are not of his past. But it’s comforting to pretend. Roy’s memories have to be real to be meaningful. He’s showing what amazing things he’s done and seen in his four years. He’s saying, “Look! I’m a real person too. When I die, all my wondrous experiences will die with me.” Makes me wonder what he might have accomplished in ten years rather than four. ---
**Author:** ![Private\_Bin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c0e974/32.png) [@Private\_Bin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Private_Bin)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2011, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/24 "2011-03-04T13:07:18Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Leon MUST have had artificial memories at one point- remember how important those old “family” photos were to him? > > Sure, NOW he knows those photos weren’t really family members, but he once thought they were, and those memories still mean the world to him (so much so that he risks his life to get them back), even though he knows now they weren’t real. I’m pretty sure the precious photos were of the other replicants, so they were most likely ones that he had taken himself. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2011, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/25 "2011-03-04T13:31:46Z")
I go with real memories, Deckard being human and the symmetry suggested by Mr. Mortiss. As an aside, for a 30 year old movie this still looks particularly stunning. I saw an HD broadcast a few months ago and it continues to look fabulous. The little set piece with Rachel in the board room looks beautiful. As sparse and cold as the outside is wet and dirty. Some effects are slightly dated but overall it has aged well. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Vorlon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@The\_Vorlon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Vorlon)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2011, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/26 "2011-03-04T15:40:33Z")
Remember, there was no GCI when Bladerunner was made. Watch the extras and prepare for your head to explode. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2011, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/27 "2011-03-04T15:45:08Z")
> [@Private\_Bin](#): > > I’m pretty sure the precious photos were of the other replicants, so they were most likely ones that he had taken himself. One photo was of the replicants. It stood out from the others which were of random people and places. It was the one Deckard analyzed on his machine. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2011, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/28 "2011-03-04T15:55:53Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > …As an aside, for a 30 year old movie this still looks particularly stunning…Some effects are slightly dated but overall it has aged well. What do you mean “dated”? ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2011, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/29 "2011-03-04T15:55:57Z")
The most dated thing about it is the advertisements. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2011, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/30 "2011-03-04T16:05:24Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > “Attack Ships on Fire off the Shoulder of Orion” isn’t a reference to interstellar travel, it’s a spatial reference to Orion in the night sky with flaming ships sillhoueeted against it - similar to “just left of that cloud” or “coming in out of the sun”. At least, that makes more sense to me. Besides, “Attack Ships on Fire off Betelgeuse” would just have sounded silly. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2011, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/31 "2011-03-04T16:32:39Z")
> [@BMalion](#): > > What do you mean “dated”? Sebastiens “toys”, the hovercar flights, some of the screen graphics. But that is about it. I’m really not criticising, those are about the only things that would date it from the early 80’s. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2011, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/32 "2011-03-04T17:23:25Z")
Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2011, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/33 "2011-03-04T17:38:22Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > Similarly, we really have no idea what Roy means by “off the shoulder of Orion.” But if it’s a reference to the constellation, that would mean a visual region of the sky, not an actual place in space one could travel to. The shoulder of orion is the star Betelgeuse, about 650 light years away. I think it makes more sense that Roy was actually at Betelgeuse, rather than looking at a patch of sky. Once he moved slightly, relative to the “burning attack ships”, they would appear in a different constellation. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2011, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/34 "2011-03-04T17:40:45Z")
> [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](#): > > “Is Deckard a replicant” can only be answered in the case of a single-author situation, like a novel. In a complex creation like a movie, where you have actors, producers, writers, studio heads, and the director, each with a differing vision, there can not be a clear cut answer. It must be left for each audience member to come to their own conclusion. That appears to be the case here. > > Personally, I like the idea that Deckard is a human, who is losing his humanity due to his job. While at the same time, the replicants are gaining their humanity. They symmetry is delicious. I agree, except that Deckard was a replicant. We’ve been over all the reasons why he is/isn’t before. To me, the weight of evidence points towards him being artificial. His being notably weaker physically than Roy et. al. was by design in order to keep others (and Deckard himself) from catching on to his true nature. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2011, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/35 "2011-03-04T17:54:17Z")
Why would you deliberately design a machine to catch replicants that was weaker than replicants? For that matter, why would you let your purpose-build replicant-hunting machine quit, as Deckard did? And for THAT matter, why would your purpose-built replicant-hunting machine (which by all accounts was as advanced as Rachel, herself an advanced version of the Nexus-6) not know anything about the Nexus-6, requiring an expository briefing from Bryant? There’s no good way to make Deckard a replicant without having to discard some other plot element, nor any good reason why we should. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2011, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/36 "2011-03-04T17:59:31Z")
Those memories were real. His point was that he is a unique individual and everything he contributed to the universe would be lost only because he was made that way. I also believe he meant the shoulder of Orion literally. The movie established they have interstellar space flight and colonies. What they are vague on is exactly who is at war. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2011, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/37 "2011-03-04T18:04:57Z")
We’ve been over this before, maybe even you and me specifically. We’re not going to convince each other, I daresay. ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2011, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/38 "2011-03-04T18:23:31Z")
Going back to the OP, I see no reason why Roy’s memories would be implanted. As other posters have said, Rachel is a later experiment designed to find a make a more stable replicant. Her ability at dealing with the Voight-Kampff test is a side effect of that. As to whether Deckard is a replicant, for me the most satisfying explanation is not that he _is_ (it seems somewhat unlikely), but that he _could be_. ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2011, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/39 "2011-03-04T18:25:20Z")
My guess is that Roy Batty’s memories are real and he was relating his account of a hostile encounter near Betelgeuse space. As far as I recall, this ‘world’ is set in a future where we have established interstellar colonies. [WARNING SERIOUS DERAIL] (Note: all references below are from The Astronomical Journal, 135:1430–1440, 2008 April – A NEW VLA–HIPPARCOS DISTANCE TO BETELGEUSE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS Graham M. Harper, Alexander Brown, and Edward F. Guinan) I wondered what the distance to Beleguese is (to give me some sense of the expanse of the Blade Runner universe’s influence) and I got this rather interesting quote: “The distance to the M supergiant Betelgeuse is poorly known, with the Hipparcos parallax having a significant uncertainty.” After further reading, I discovered that the distance to this star apparently appears to be difficult to pin down with an estimated distance of 197 ± 45 pc (643 ± 146 ly). It seems that this star has a large relative velocity as measured by the average of its general region. “We find that the most likely star-formation scenario for Betelgeuse is that it is a runaway star from the Ori OB1 association and was originally a member of a high-mass multiple system within Ori OB1a.” This surprised me. Is this interesting to anyone else? [/WARNING SERIOUS DERAIL] ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2011, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437/40 "2011-03-04T18:35:45Z")
> [@Alka\_Seltzer](#): > > The shoulder of orion is the star Betelgeuse, about 650 light years away. I think it makes more sense that Roy was actually at Betelgeuse, rather than looking at a patch of sky. I think it is absurd to assume that people are traveling hundreds of light years inside four-year lifespans solely on the evidence of this one line. Do you have anything else? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-question-about-roy-battys-soliloquy/573437.md?page=3)