In the film Blade Runner, Rutger Hauer, who plays the replicant Roy Batty, famously ad libbed one of the most memorable deathbed speeches in film history:
“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.”
The original version (that was in the script) was nowhere near as good:
“I have 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!”
Stylistically the script version is a bit more like a section from the the classic Charlene song from the 1970s, ‘I’ve Never Been To Me’.
“Ooh I’ve been to Georgia and California, and, anywhere I could run
Took the hand of a preacherman and we made love in the sun
But I ran out of places and friendly faces because I had to be free
I’ve been to paradise, but I’ve never been to me.”
It’s worth remembering that the gap between brilliance and an absolute stinker is pretty small sometimes.