Let me just start by saying I cannot fucking believe that Vin Diesel got to make another flick about Riddick. Not that I don’t want to see it or not want him to get that chance, I just can’t believe it. I liked Pitch Black but Chronicles of Riddick was way off base. Good for him though. Anyways, he’s got me thinking about science fiction movie’s best badasses.
10. Riddick – Riddick series
So yeah lets start it off with Vin Diesel’s perpetual convict imprisoned for reasons I don’t remember ever being covered in the movies. I mean, he is clearly a skilled predator. He is fast and stealthy especially for a man of his size with the strength and pain threshold to back up almost any attack. He probably almost definitely killed some people. While in prison he got what he calls a “shine-job” on his eyeballs making them very sensitive to light but also able to see in the dark. He is a man of few words but is plenty sarcastic with a well-timed smirk. He prefers bladed weapons for the up close kill.
9. Trinity – The Matrix series
Neo was at first naive (charmingly so), while the rest of the sequels his icy demeanor seemed more like sleepwalking. Trinity, on the other hand, had the icy demeanor down pat. There is a lot going on behind those eyes. Fear. Love. Anger. And she is repressing them all to be intimidating while she kicks ass. She’ll make you crap your pants with a stare. No need to wait for her slow motion jump kick to the face.
8. Jonathan E. – Rollerball
After the corporations took over the country, they created a violent roller derby game called Rollerball. It is one part bread and circus distraction, one part warfare substitute. it is also meant to show the masses the futility of the individual effort making sure everyone remains cogs in the big wheel. Obviously these suits don’t know anything about sports. The best athletes always reach celebrity status making them iconic in their own right. Just like James Caan’s Jonathan E. My favorite moment being some old crusty tycoon trying to tell Jonathan he doesn’t have any power. Jon just turns up the volume on his radio revealing the crowd at his last match chanting his name.
7. Mal Reynolds – Serenity
There might not be any cows in space but there ARE space cowboys. Disillusioned war vet (and war hero depending on who you talk to), Mal Reynolds skips across the galaxy in his ship with his ragtag crew pulling oddjobs (some legal, some not so much) and occasionally pulling an A-Team and saving the day. He slums it on the fringes because he can’t stand living in the constraints constructed by the dictator-like Alliance. He is like a survivalist living and “Live Free of Die” New Hampshire who just want to be left alone but can’t help making trouble.
6. Alex Murphy – Robocop
Before he was shot to smithereens, Alex Murphy was a likable guy. He then had almost all of his humanity stripped from him when a company turned him into the first of what would be a long line of obedient and soulless police officers. That alone, being a cyborged superman who walks into danger with absolutely no fear, makes him pretty badass, but it is actor Peter Weller who injects a nice amount of sadness and tenderness to the character that makes his fearless behavior more badass than just simple programming.
5. Snake Plissken – Escape from NY and LA
We don’t know anything about Snake. All we know is he doesn’t like to talk and he doesn’t like to help people. But he is just so goddamn good at killing, surviving, and going up against the biggest bads of all big bads that the US government will continue to leverage his expertise whenever the shit hits the fan.
4. Sarah Connor – Terminator 2
Once a nice single woman of the ’80s, her whole world turned upside down when a time traveler told her she would give birth to humanity’s last hope in a future run by machines and that one of those machines traveled back in time and is running around trying to kill her. The next time we see her, she is WAY different. She is yoked for a skinny girl. She had hooked up with a paramilitary group that trained her to be soldier. Even though she was locked up and drugged up due to her delusions of the future, when the going gets tough, she is as capable a killer as any soldier. Beware a mother with a child to protect.
3. Max – Mad Max series
Max Rockatansky (played by an Aussie Mel Gibson) is a steely cop and expert driver who seeks vengeance on the gang that killed his wife and daughter. Fueled by anger and sadness in the sequel, he becomes a knight errant figure in a post-apocalypse Australia where most of the oil has dried up, and it has become life-or-death just to get your hands on some. His anti-heroic ways earn him legendary status as the “Road Warrior,” who would later play gladiator for Tina Turner’s amusement and eventually chosen one to a gang of orphans.
2. Han Solo – Star Wars series
Like I said earlier, there’s no cows in space, but there are cowboys. In one of Harrison Fords most Ford-y roles, silver tongued gun-slinger Han Solo smuggles whatever you need around the cosmos pissing off half the gangsters in space and giving the Empire a run for its money. Happy go-lucky to be a troublemaker, he keeps his personal relationships to a minimum, his Sasquatch-like alien co-pilot, Chewbacca, being his only real friend. Han knows his loyalty is his Achilles heel but when Luke and Leia (the Jedi and princess protagonists of the Star Wars series) earn his trust, he uses his cowboy roguishness to give them an edge in there revolution.
1. Ellen Ripley – Alien series
Sigourney Weaver has completely subverted the usual female stereotypes into one of the best, most badass action heroes that cinema has ever seen. In the first Alien her nubile, rookie Ripley was transformed into the over-her-head protagonist who reaches down within herself to beat the unbeatable. In its sequel, she transforms the nurturing maternal figure into a guardian angel kicking and screaming and clawing her way to victory no matter how hard it gets. A woman constantly finding herself in a man’s world Ripley ends up being the only chance a penal colony and a band of a-hole mercenaries have in the later (and less good) installments of the series.