Then it might not be a good idea to turn into the trees and tear a
hole through the woods as you get back to the one you want. Claudia
and I saw the new Riddick movie last week, and in the first few
minutes they addressed a rather large pachyderm that was standing in
the corner. The movie has our hero on his own again, without the
female sidekick/love interest that Riddick never showed any love for
because that would compromise his machismo.
(I'm not being sarcastic on that last point. If it's believable, not
showing romantic feelings can be a really powerful component of
characterization.)
But also absent from any contribution to the action are the million
or so followers that our hero had acquired in the last film. That,
as James Perfoy once said, is where the onion is.
They show us a quick flashback where our hero is trying to find his
home planet, and the treacherous SOB from the previous film tricks
him into going down to a desolate world and arranges an ambush.
Riddick survives, but is not pursued because his attackers think he's
dead. Now we can get on with the story we wanted to tell. Does it
work?
Well, maybe. According to everything my psychic powers and the
mighty internet tell me, there was a consensus that Riddick needed to
be on his own for this new sequel. There's a reason my wife calls
the Riddick movies 'Conan in space.' The similarities are many and
obvious, and both heroes share the same type of appeal. They are
inhumanly strong, deceptively cunning, and always do more good than
they do harm. Both are incarnations of the same archetype, and a
heavy component of that archetype is independence. Who does
Conan/Riddick need? No one. Period. They'll spend some time with
people that they can tolerate, and are quick to form alliances of
necessity with good guys and bad guys. But at the end of the story,
they're on their way to the next planet or town, and we already know
that if they can't find some fresh trouble, they'll make some. Note
that Riddick is a bit darker than our favorite Cimmerian. We never
see him carousing in a bar, buying beer for his fellows and singing
obscene ballads, and he doesn't hesitate to scare someone, male or
female, if he thinks they deserve it. This may be due to the fact
that Riddick is a more modern character, needing to build on R. E.
Howard's legacy instead of just copying it.
Which might be exactly where the onion is. Howard only wrote a few
tales in which Conan had won himself a crown, and if memory serves,
most of them involve him needing to leave the palace either to defend
his kingdom or because it's been stolen from him. Someone out on
their own making their own place in the world has more appeal to us
than a guy in a huge castle with swords, gold, and women at his
disposal. So yes, a change of address for Mr. Diesel's character was
in order.
But doing it all at once, taking the whole mass of people, firepower,
and ships out of the equation in one big Whoosh, stretches disbelief.
Was there no ally among them at all? How about some self-serving
toady who knows that if this particular treacherous SOB takes over,
he's going to get a one-way trip out the nearest airlock? Some
blindly loyal, new member of the guard? No one?
So in a perfect world, it would still happen, but not exactly as we
see it. Maybe a revolt, that our hero may or may not have seen
coming. If he didn't really trust them, it would have a nice way of
disorganizing them.
By the way, if I haven't said so before or recently enough, these
little critiques aren't my way of shooting down other people's works.
I write, and the point of looking at movies, books, and stories that
are out in the world is to see what people watch and read, so that I
get a sense of what has already been done, so I can write my own
stories instead of copying others'. When I point out what I see as
flaws, it's so I don't write something, let it sit while I go around
thinking I've got the next Stoker award sewn up, then go back and
read it and scream, “Oh hell, what did I do here?”
It's so I can write the absolute best stories that I am capable of.
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