“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 Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.”

Perhaps one of the most famous quotes in sci-fi film, Roy’s soliloquy reveals the interiority of the artificial beings. A robot may be capable of achieving great feats, but what would differentiate it from human beings is not only that humans can feel emotions but also that they can identify themselves with memories and endow meaning to those memories. Until this part of the film, there are only indirect indications of how Nexuses are human-like. This soliloquy is the climax of the protagonist identifying with the Nexuses, the protagonist is also but a mortal being with limited time and only one truthful collective set of memories. The soliloquy shows that Nexuses are able to endow meaning to their personal memories, and that they recognize their mortal destiny. At the end of the day, the blade runner is left with a realization that human beings are no different from the Nexuses, not because they are born differently, but because both entities are bound to have similar perspectives in treating life. On another note, the phrase “tears in rain” does seem to indicate the mortality of dying beings but induces an especially sorrowful emotion, since their (and our) emotions associated with memories will also perish altogether. This expression is especially significant since the style and content make a congruence.