As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
"All those moments will be lost... in time... like tears in rain. Time... to die."
The Tear Jerker page for Blade Runner 2049 can be found here.- The cruel way Deckard completely undresses Rachael's humanity, recalling memories no one else could have known had she been a real human. The way she throws away her treasured photo of herself and her mother is heartbreaking.
- Rachael already suspected the truth, especially after Tyrell wouldn't see her after the Voight-Kampff test. She went to Deckard for reassurance, and got smacked in the face with a harsh truth.
- Zhora's retirement. It emotionally sets up Roy's reprieve of Deckard. The song played during this scene, "Blade Runner Blues", also helps give the scene its mood.
- In particular, the fact that she's established as having been designed for combat and killing. When she actually fights Deckard, she gets him two solid hits and then spends the rest of the scene running or hiding as Deckard doggedly pursues her, leading to her drawn-out death as she continues to try to flee despite her wounds.
- The narration in the theatrical cut has Deckard stating the fact she was an android didn't make him feeling any better for shooting a woman in the back. Even without the narration, Deckard looking disgusted with himself.
- Then there's a shocked and dismayed Leon looking from afar.
- The way Roy reacts to brutally killing Tyrell is very human and has overtones of sadness and reluctance. Couple this with Sebastian's reaction at seeing his supposed ally kill his boss and close friend, Roy's subsequent apology ("I'm sorry, Sebastian"), and lone elevator ride down where he processes these new emotions of sadness, regret, rage, and fear. You've got a very powerful emotional moment.
- The moment preceding it, where Tyrell informs him that extending his lifespan is impossible. The dawning look of horror, despair and rage on his face as he realizes that his whole quest has been for nothing, that he is doomed and that he will be unable to save either himself or Pris is truly heartwrenching. It's no wonder he snaps and kills his creator.
- Batty's very literal Villainous Breakdown towards the end, when it's implied his body starts shutting down. He strips down to his underwear and pierces his own hand with a nail, likely in a desperate attempt to retain his fleeting sensations by giving himself cold and pain, and later starts laughing and howling like a wolf in his Sanity Slippage.
- Although the action itself is a Heartwarming Moment, Roy saving Deckard from falling off the roof is an act of empathy ultimately originated in sadness. It's only after discovering his quest was all for nothing and he is condemned to die in minutes that Roy acknowledges Deckard's situation as just like his own when he sees him hanging off the balustrade: a man desperately struggling to keep grasp of his life, yet slowly and hopelessly sliding down towards the inevitable death.
- Roy Batty's famous soliloquy at the end is very poignant.Roy: 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...
- Vangelis' mournful "Tears in Rain" in the background only adds up to the beauty of the scene. It does not help to keep one's tears at bay either.
- Rutger Hauer tweaked Batty's soliloquy after finding Batty's original dying words in the screenplay to be unsatisfactory. It is said that his performance of the scene was so genuinely powerful and moving that nobody complained, and in fact, several crew members applauded and some actually started weeping, making this a Real Life Tear Jerker as well.
- Roy tearing up over Pris' corpse and giving her one final kiss after Deckard shoots her dead.
- There's a certain element of Alas, Poor Villain for Pris, even though she was a Dark Action Girl. It's likely she doesn't really know how to fight given she was made as a sex-bot, and it shows in the amateur mistakes she makes when fighting Deckard in the finale, including letting him go when she has him trapped and focusing on strange acrobatic stunts that only give him an opening to shoot her. When she is shot in the gut, she careens into a wall and begins thrashing around like a mixture of a malfunctioning toy and a child who just lost a game, which hit harder knowing she likely had no childhood or environmental conditioning either. He fires a second round which only makes her thrash harder and scream louder, and the third time's the charm, the bullet that finally does her in. And in the end, like her boyfriend, all she wanted was to live a bit longer.
- When Gaff confronts Deckard on the roof. It really drove home the point (in the Director's Cut, anyway) that Deckard may be a replicant and what that means for him and Rachael.Gaff: It's too bad she won't live! But then again, who does?
- The poor replicants had just discovered love when they (somehow) found out that they'd been constructed with a four year life expectancy.Leon: Painful to live in fear, isn't it?
- Leon sums up the Replicant condition in only five words.Leon: Wake up! Time to die!