Script To Screen: “Blade Runner”

Batty and Deckard’s final struggle from the movie Blade Runner [screenplay by Hampton Fancher and David Webb Peoples, based on a novel by Philip K. Dick].

Set-Up: All of his kin are dead and Batty goes after Deckard.

Batty looks down at Deckard.Batty grins and takes a seat only a couple of feet
from Deckard.Deckard's bad hand lets go. He's hanging by one hand.The street looms way below.Deckard looks desperately into Batty's cold eyes.Batty grins and shakes his head at the absurdity of it.Deckard looks into that awful smile and sees no hope
there.Batty glances down at his own hand. Spasms again.Deckard's hand is going. He knows it's over now, he
bites the bullet of his anger. He glares at Batty as
his grip gives way.DECKARD
Asshole!Batty meets Deckard's angry eyes.Deckard's hand continues to slip.Batty is still looking at Deckard's rage. It moves the
warrior in him, you can see Batty change his opinion.Too late! Deckard's hand goes.Batty's hand is like lightning. He catches Deckard's
hand and holds Deckard.Deckard is suspended above the awesome drop, not sure
why he's not falling. He opens his tightly closed eyes
and looks up.He looks up into the stern warrior face of Batty, the
cold eyes!Deckard hangs there and for a moment he has to consider
whether this is the continuation of a cruel game.The Batty is hauling him up one-handed and with that
scary strength he has.Deckard is pulled onto the roof where he lies on his
stomach gasping for breath, not moving, just feeling
something solid under him.Batty looks at the man gasping next to him with the
cold eyes of a man looking at a fish. It is as though
Deckard is some species far below Batty on the evolu-
tionary scale.Batty's hand cramps again.Batty looks at it, almost with curiosity.JUMP CUT TO:EXT. THE SECOND ROOF (LATER)Deckard is looking at Batty.Batty is partly crumpled, frozen in an unnatural posi-
tion as though he had been writhing and stopped mid-
writhe. He looks back at Deckard with eyes full of
life and intensity.They stare at each other for a long time in silence,
communicating something with their eyes... without
expression. Finally Batty breaks the silence.BATTY
I've seen things...
(long pause)
seen things you little people
wouldn't believe... Attack ships
on fire off the shoulder of Orion
bright as magnesium... I rode on
the back decks of a blinker and
watched c-beams glitter in the dark
near the Tanhauser Gate.
(pause)
all those moments... they'll be gone.Batty holds Deckard's eyes like a hypnotist.CUT TO:EXT. THE SECOND ROOF (A LITTLE LATER)Batty is crumpled in a different position. It's light-
er now and Batty's eyes are staring into infinity...
almost lifelessly. A pigeon flutters down and perches
on his shoulder. Batty doesn't stir.Deckard is watching motionless.The pigeon flies off.Batty doesn't move. Alive or dead?

Here is the scene in the movie:

Check this out: An earlier version of the final struggle between Batty and Deckard:

INT. TENTH FLOOR APARTMENT #2 - NIGHT Provocation accomplished. Batty smiles and walks lei-
surely towards the door. Deckard's terrified scream
and the SOUND of GLASS CRASHING stop him. Batty speeds
up and moves into the room. The window pane is splattered, curtains sucked out,
bellowing in the wind. BATTY
Crap. He walks up to the window. Deckard comes away from the
wall, inching up behind him, laser in both hands, aimed
at the base of Batty's skull. Batty starts to lean
over, but even before his eyes see the pavement, he
knows. He spins... Deckard FIRES again. This one goes home. Batty falls
like he was poleaxed, hits the floor dead weight. Deckard starts to tremble. His arms go limp as his
head tilts back and he closes his eyes. He can breathe
again.
On the floor, Batty's hand is crawling toward Deckard's
ankle. With the unsuspected abruptness of a man slipping on a
banana peel, Deckard comes down. Face knotted in hor-
ror, he EMPTIES THE LASER in Batty's body -- but the
hand holds on. With a screech of frustration he drops
the laser and like an animal claws at Batty's dead
fingers -- but the fingers are welded shut. Deckard starts to crawl, pulling Batty behind him. He
struggled through the door and stumbles to his feet. INT. TENTH FLOOR HALL - NIGHT Deckard plunges down the corridor dragging Batty along.
He falls, gets to one foot, falls again and crawls the
last couple feet to the stairwell. INT. TENTH FLOOR STAIRWELL - NIGHT Groaning, he tugs and pulls, hauls and heaves Batty's
body to the edge of the landing. He pauses for breath,
then lays back, wedging his feet against Batty's shoul-
ders and pushes. Inch by inch the body goes over the
edge. Then all at once it drops. But the hand holds
and the weight of the body takes Deckard with it. As
Deckard slides over the edge, he grabs hold of the
railing. Deckard's hanging three hundred feet over the basement
floor, supporting himself and Batty's corpse -- almost
four hundred pounds of stress on his fingers.
With his free foot he chops away at Batty's hand, try-
ing to break it loose. But it's not working. Deckard's
fingers are starting to slip. His face is a mask of agony as he wedges his heel over
Batty's thumb. With the help of gravity and everything
he's got in his right leg to push with, he pushes. The
thumb breaks loose. Batty falls. The SOUND OF HIS BODY HITTING BELOW sounds good, but
Deckard doesn't notice. He's in an awkward position.
He must reverse the way he's facing to pull himself up.
He lets go with his right hand and crosses it over the
left. Then turns the left around so he's got an over-
hand grip. Like a man doing his last pull-up... the one that can't
be done, Deckard pulls himself up, throws a foot over
the edge and grapples and heaves and wiggled himself
onto the cold solid steel of the stairwell landing. And lies there, body jerking spasmodically, slowly
clenching and unclenching his cramped hand, but it's
his burning cheek against the cool metal he's most aware
of. Dizzy, hot, lungs on fire, he stands -- and putting one
foot in front of the other, Deckard descends the stairs.

A huge difference between the two endings.

I’ll see you in comments for a discussion of this scene from Blade Runner.

One of the single best things you can do to learn the craft of screenwriting is to read the script while watching the movie. After all a screenplay is a blueprint to make a movie and it’s that magic of what happens between printed page and final print that can inform how you approach writing scenes. That is the purpose of Script to Screen, a series on GITS where we analyze a memorable movie scene and the script pages that inspired it.

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