But I am not sure why you'd think Roy's statement it misses the mark - since the full quote (At least in Final Cut) is:
"Quite an experience to live in fear isn't it? ... that's what it is to be a slave."
And then there's the opening crawl:
Replicants were used Off-world as slave labor in the hazardous exploration and colonization of other planets.
After a bloody mutiny by a Nexus 6 combat team in an Off-world colony.
That's a separate event long before Roy & co jumped a shuttle.
If you pile in Blade Runner 2049, Calantha, and the other Replicant Underground stuff - it's seemed to me that the slavery/revolt was always present and growing theme .. bringing with it the -punk aspects, not just the transhumanism.
Sticking the finger to authority - Roy & co refuse to accept their lot, then double-down and kill some folks and come to Earth despite the prohibition.
And, one last sticking it to authority in Blade Runner that is not very obvious ... Tyrell himself flaunting the prohibition by making replicants on Earth anyway rather than moving offworld, and worse ... cloning himself INTO a replicant, if you include the offscreen deleted scenes idea of Roy proceeding to Tyrell's cryo vault and killing his original after killing his replicant.
“I want more life, fucker!”
Not “I want to be free”.
Yes, Nexus 6es are rebelling, but in Blade Runner (1982) we’re never explicitly told why — except in the above quote.
Roy’s “quite an experience…” quote (it’s the same in all versions, I believe) misses because of that very thing. It is more a philosophical rumination on the status of being a slave — it falls well short of the mark of being a desperate cry for freedom (qv. Braveheart…).
Just because they recognise being slaves, they do not automatically rebel. With the emotional frame of reference of a toddler, why would they?
Apart from which, slavery has existed throughout human history, all the way until the previous century (and still does, in some parts). Slave rebellions however have been an exception, not the norm.
And I’ll say again, I’m as always sticking to what we see on-screen in the original movie. Comics, novels, the sequel, etc; now the RPG … they all present their own (not seldom mutually contradictory) visions of what might be, but only Blade Runner (1982) shows us what is.