The Tannhauser Gate is a location originally referred to in dialogue in the 1982 film Blade Runner, and again in the 1998 film Soldier.
Appearances
Blade Runner
In the 1982 film Blade Runner, the replicant Roy Batty (played by Rutger Hauer) refers to the gate while recounting his experiences as an off-world commando:
- "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe: attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I've watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those... moments... will be lost... in time, like... tears... in rain."
The Tannhauser Gate has never been described in any detail, but fans have often assumed that it is a warp station of some kind.
Hunter Prey
A possible view of the Battle of Tannhauser Gate (from a deleted scene from Soldier).
2010 sci-fi film directed by Sandy Collora.
The crew of the Aurora says it that it has just cleared the Tannhäuser Gate before it arrives at the planet.
Origin
The Gate's name comes from a poetic piece written by Rutger Hauer, prior to the filming of his famous monologue in Blade Runner. Segments of this were then used in the scene.
Out-of-universe references
- Perhaps in a reference to Blade Runner, or through an independent resource, the Japanese animation series Gunbuster created by Gainax makes several references to space travel through a Tannhauser Gate.
- The Heavy Gear series of games and fiction make use of the term to describe "a fault in the space-time continuum where two normally distant points of space touch one another."
- In the computer game Homeworld, the player must save the Bentusi from Taiidan forces at a place called Tenhauser Gate.
- Tannhauser Gate is the name of a Poland-based games design and development studio.[1]
- Tannhauser Gate is the title of a song by The Electric Hellfire Club on the album Electronomicon, and the title of a song by Fightstar on the album "One Day Son, This Will All Be Yours".
- Tannhauser Gate is the title of a Demoscene demo by the group Cubicle, which features a few Blade Runner inspired 3D scenes
- Tannhauser Gate is the name of a book the main character is reading in the last panel of Chapter 10 of the online comic Gunnerkrigg Court http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=180
- The space trading and combat game Elite Dangerous, some of whose design aesthetics are inspired by the Blade Runner movie, features a starport by the name of Tannhauser Gate
- The web comic "The Whiteboard" made a reference to a new Paintball marker manufacturer called Tannhauser Gate in the last panel of the strip posted on July 8th 2015.
- "The Shoulder of Orion", a short story in Nature magazine, describes a space-ship travelling through a "Tannhauser Gate," which is described as a "jumpgate".
See also
- Tannhäuser is the name of a mythical German knight, and the title of an opera by Richard Wagner.
- List of fictional battles
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