One of my alltime favorite movie scenes comes at the end of “Blade Runner,” when replicant Roy Batty, played by Rutger Hauer, makes this speech just before dying:

“I’ve… seen things you people wouldn’t believe… [laughs] 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 [coughs] tears… in… rain. Time… to die.”

The night before filming, Hauer rewrote the scripted speech and added the “tears in rain” part. Here’s what it was before he took a knife to it:

“I’ve known adventures, seen places you people will never see, I’ve been Offworld and back… frontiers! I’ve stood on the back deck of a blinker bound for the Plutition Camps with sweat in my eyes watching the stars fight on the shoulder of Orion…I’ve felt wind in my hair, riding test boats off the black galaxies and seen an attack fleet burn like a match and disappear. I’ve seen it, felt it…!”

Hauer described this as “opera talk” and “hi-tech speech.” While I actually kind of like the original speech, it’s unquestionable that Hauer’s more concise version–coupled with his amazing interpretation of it–is far better.