Reader Top Ten Greatest Science Fiction Film Characters: Terri Wilson of In the Comfy Chair

Terri Wilson, writer and blogger extraordinaire at In the Comfy Chair, provides our next list for this month’s reader top ten:

Terri writes:

“In deference to Mr. Letterman, from the home office in Amarillo, Texas here is my Ten Greatest Science Fiction Film Characters of All Time.

10. Snake Plissken (Escape from New York, Escape from L.A.) - I’m not a follower of the Escape movies, but Snake was legend back in the day.

9. Mad Max (Mad Max, Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome) - This was my first post-apocalyptic movie. I still compare most movies of that genre to Mad Max.

8. Mr. Smith (The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions) - Smith redefined "villain" for me.

7. Wolverine (X-Men, X2, X-Men: The Last Stand, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, X-Men: First Class) - A true standout from the X-Men franchise. He generates enough interest to create TWO solo movies.

6. Marty McFly (Back to the Future, Back to the Future Part II, Back to the Future Part III) - We were ALL Marty McFly. He was my generation's Everyman.

5. Sarah Connor (The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgment Day) - The only reason she is one rank behind Ellen Ripley is because she took so much longer to find the hero in herself.

4. Ellen Ripley (Alien, Aliens, Alien3, Alien Resurrection) - For all of the same reasons that John cited.

3. HAL 9000 (2001: A Space Odyssey, 2010: The Year We Make Contact) - Who does NOT think of HAL whenever a computer borks up?

2. Darth Vader (Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi) - I could do a top ten of characters just from Star Wars alone! So I'm forcing myself to pick one. And that one is Vader. Recognizable to people who haven't even seen the movies. (I hear such people exist.)

1. John Connor (Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Terminator Salvation) - "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them." John Connor is all three at the same time. He is a legend from the very first movie, and he's not even IN it. Watching his destiny unfold is one of the many draws for this franchise, even the installments that aren't so good.

Terri does a great job contextualizing these selections, and I love that John Connor landed in the top slot.  Terri is right that the first Terminator is all about that character, and yet he doesn't even appear.  The character has been played by several different actors, and yet still we all have an image or idea of "John Connor," the man who saves the human race from oblivion.

I also like that Mad Max and Snake Plissken made the list: two iconic post-apocalyptic anti-heroes, in some ways transplanted from the Western genre, and yet so important to the development of the science fiction cinema, especially at the beginning of the 1980s.

Marty McFly is another great choice, and as Terri says, an every man -- an audience surrogate in some sense.  He helps ground us in all those temporal back-and-forths of the Back to the Future trilogy.

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