Tannhauser Gate

The Tannhäuser Gate is a fictitious location originally referred to in dialogue in the 1982 film Blade Runner, and again in the 1998 film Soldier, as well as in allusions in other places referring back to Blade Runner.

The Tannhäuser Gate does not have its source in science fiction, however, but in ancient German legend. The Tannhäuser Gate is a reference to the German tale of Tannhäuser, the knight that spent a year worshipping Venus in her impossibly well-hidden lair deep beneath the earth.

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 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."

In the Channel 4 documentary On the Edge of Blade Runner, Hauer, director Ridley Scott, and screenwriter David Peoples all assert that Hauer himself wrote the speech that includes this line, although the basics of the speech already existed in Peoples' various drafts. In his 2007 autobiography All Those Moments, Hauer confirms that he merely cut the original scripted speech by several lines, and only added the line, "All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain."

Soldier
In the 1998 film Soldier, the soldier character Sgt. Todd (played by Kurt Russell) is a veteran of the battle at Tannhäuser Gate. This fact is based on the text displayed momentarily on a computer screen near the beginning of the film. The screen displays a list of battles that the character has fought in, and the awards that he has earned in these battles. Tannhäuser Gate is also tattooed on Todd's arm, along with the other battles of which he is a veteran. Later on in the film, when Sandra notices the names tattooed on his arm and mentions it to Mace, it is explained by Mace that "Tannhäuser Gate was a battle."

The original script was to have the film actually depict the battle. However, this idea was eventually cut for budgetary concerns. The original script even gave a detailed description of the gate. It described it as "a huge wall of metal; an impregnable fortress bristling with futuristic weapons." Some of this scene was completed, and can be briefly viewed in the film's theatrical trailer.

References in popular culture
Due to the influence of Blade Runner, a number of popular culture sources have made references to Tannhäuser Gate.

The Japanese animation series Gunbuster also makes several references to space travel through a Tannhäuser Gate. The show offers an explanation of the Tannhäuser Gate during one of the many "science lesson" scenes. There, the Gate is described as the point between two relatively close black hole event horizons. The massive gravitational pull would accelerate a traveler linearly, allowing them to approach the speed of light. The Heavy Gear series also makes 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 Heavy Gear universe, Tannhauser Gates can be "opened" by bombardment with a precisely modulated stream of anti-matter, and are used as a method for achieving faster-than-light travel (between specific star systems).

In the computer game Homeworld, the player must save the Bentusi from enemy forces at a place called Tenhauser Gate. The anime Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny features two weapons known as "Tannhäuser" and "Lohengrin," which are used as the main guns of the Minerva and Archangel, respectively.

In the movie Drillbit Taylor, the title character (played by Owen Wilson) quotes the Tannhauser Gate line from Blade Runner when asked "What have you seen?" during his interview for the position of bodyguard to three bullied freshmen.

Tannhäuser Gate is the title of the tenth track off Fightstar's second full length album, One Day Son, This Will All Be Yours.