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Roy Batty's incept date was 8 January 2016. Here's the proof:

enter image description here

So if he has a 4-year lifespan, then why does he die in 2019, when the movie is taking place?

Is this a plot-hole? Or does the movie unknowingly slip into 2020?

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    Don't knew it exactly, but I'd just assume the four years are simply rounded and not strictly 4 times 365 days plus 1.
    – Mario
    Commented Oct 14, 2017 at 6:05
  • The average human lifespan is 83 years, but that doesn't mean humans just fall over on their 83rd birthdays. The 4 years stated in the movie might be just an average not a promise of a minimum lifespan.
    – RichS
    Commented Oct 14, 2017 at 17:08

2 Answers 2

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It appears as though the leading cause of death in replicants is a form of cellular death, akin to 'old age' in humans.

Remember that in the first movie, Tyrell admits that the short lifespan was not by design, but was the only way they could create them in the first place when he says:

“You were made as well as we could make you.”

Much like humans, anything can reduce this life-span; not to mention the lack of accuracy in any lifespan. They are not robots, remember, they are still 'organic', despite their synthetic nature. As humans have a natural lifespan of 80 yrs (+/-20), it would appear Replicants are 4 years (+/-1).

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    I never noticed before that Tyrell's words about not being able to lengthen the lifespan contradict Deckard's boss/coworker describing the lifespan as a built-in "failsafe".
    – Todd Wilcox
    Commented Oct 14, 2017 at 12:30
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    they could both be correct; they could have been instructed to keep the lifespan short, and 3-4 years was the best they could manage with a genetically built in cellular atrophy...
    – John Smith Optional
    Commented Oct 14, 2017 at 12:49
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    Tying that into @JakeGould's answer, it's not even +/-1 year. It's more like +/- 1 month.
    – Rapid Readers
    Commented Oct 14, 2017 at 17:43
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    I assume 100% of what Tyrell says to Roy is a lie. Tyrell is an excellent strategist, as evidenced by his chess prowess in the same scene. He immediately recognizes the danger when Roy appears as JF's uninvited guest, and tries to pacify this military super-bot whose team has murdered its way across space to Tyrell's bedroom. It's impossible to be sure whether the genetics discussion is supposed to be true or false since genetic engineering at that level is still fiction, but it stands to reason he would resist a killer robot's attempts to circumvent it's own (badly-needed) security features.
    – Tom
    Commented Feb 21, 2022 at 8:34
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    @Tom Tyrell's priority is to survive rather than to not extend Roy's life. (I'm ignoring here the alternative script where Tyrell is a clone.) Tyrell recognizes the danger, so if he had somehting to offer to Roy, he'd have offered it instead of just refusing to help and thus risking to get killed. I think that he's telling the truth that he has no way of extending Roy's life at this point. On the other hand, I think that "as well as we could make you" is a lie because Bryant says that the designers built in the four-year lifespan.
    – user66063
    Commented Nov 14, 2023 at 17:42
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As the text card at the very beginning of the film clearly states, the events in the movie take place starting in November 2019.

So one can assume that a replicant “born” on January 8, 2016 would start to slowly fall apart during the timespan from November 2019 to the beginning of January 2020.

Date and location at the beginning of “Blade Runner.”

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