Reader Top Ten Greatest Science Fiction Film Characters: Ampersand

Reader Ampersand returns for our first Reader Top Ten List of Saturday.

Ampersand writes:

“Wow. This was an even bigger challenge than picking 10 films. I finally got a handle on it when I decided to limit my list to science fiction characters, as distinct from characters from science fiction films. So, good-bye Captain Kirk, Malcolm Reynolds, and R.J. MacReady, who are all great characters, but are essentially ordinary men facing extraordinary circumstances. And hello to:

1.      Mr. Spock. Still the face of filmed sci-fi to many, he's followed a (*ahem*) fascinating arc from TOS through the original movies through TNG and finally into the reboots. Truly alien, yet genuinely human.

       

2.      King Kong (1933 version). I'm a sucker for tragic monsters, and Kong beats even Frankenstein's creation in this department. Plus, it's still possible to watch this 80-year-old (!) flick and forget that Kong is a special effect (something which I'm sad to say can't be said about the Peter Jackson version.)

(The rest of the list is presented in chronological order.)

Maria the robot, Metropolis. Created less than 7 years after the word "robot" was coined, but in many ways the template for so many "mechanical men" that followed (I'm looking at you, C-3P0). And Brigitte Helm is the very embodiment of Norma Desmond's "We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!"

HAL 9000, 2001. Another tragic monster, and maybe the most human character in the movie.

Billy Pilgrim, Slaughterhouse-Five.  Simultaneously naif and sage. "Hello, farewell. Hello, farewell."

Ellen Ripley, Alien franchise. Interestingly, if she'd only been in the first two (best) movies, I would have had to disqualify her as per my above criteria (though she still would have been a favourite character). But her story in the 3rd and 4th movies push her squarely into sci-fi territory (and is the best aspect of those films).

Rick Deckard, Blade Runner. Of course he was a replicant ...

Dr. Brian O'Blivion, Videodrome. A good representative of much of David Cronenberg's early work, and eerily prescient for 1983: "The television screen is the retina of the mind's eye."

Sam Bell, Moon. Sure, there have been plenty of other explorations of the nature of identity. But I don't think many of them have brought as much humanity to them as Sam Rockwell.

Joe, Looper. Nitpick about the plot holes if you must, but how often do you get to see one character play anti-hero, hero, and villain in the same movie,and remain sympathetic in each role?

Once again, ask me again tomorrow and my list might change. And, once again, thanks to you, John, for letting us speak our piece (and incidentally, allow me to give a few shout-outs to movies that didn't make my last top ten list).

Ampersand, I am thrilled to see that King Kong made the list as a great film character.  The cinema has returned to him in two remakes, a Japanese incarnation, and even a sequel (King Kong Lives).  The noble beast, the champion of Skull Island, certainly deserves a nod.

I’m also excited to see the cinema’s earliest robot, Maria, make your tally.  There’s something to be said for “influence” when compiling these sort of lists, and no one can argue that Metropolis didn’t help to shape nearly a century of genre films.