Giant Freakin Robot

Science fiction plays host to some of the toughest characters in all of fiction, so we’ve set out to put together a team of the toughest of that tough bunch.  Think of it like the Avengers, except with more bullets and a heavier focus on fighting aliens.

If you’ve got a job dismantling angry robots or shooting at things in outer space, or you need someone to travel back in time and kill your creepy Uncle before he’s born, we’ve got the ultimate team to do it.

These are the most unstoppable, gritty, hard-as-nails characters in all of science fiction. On their own each is fully capable of saving the universe. Together we suspect they’d literally be able to do anything.

Sarah Connor

When you first met Sarah Connor, she was a meek, mild-mannered waitress just sort of floating aimlessly through her life. Encounters with a vicious, single-minded cyborg from the future, sent back to hunt you down so your son is never born, have a way of changing that. Over the course of the first two movies in the Terminator movies, Sarah transforms into a serious action star, teaching herself all manner of combat and survival skills, actively seeking out any and all knowledge that might help her in her one-woman war against Cyberdyne Systems and a future ruled by human-hunting machines. Basically, she’s a perfect addition to your team of mercs, and will always be working to improve her already ample skill set and add to the team.

Anytime the Academy Awards rolls around, there’s usually an outcry from fans that not enough genre films are recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Luckily, this year the movie that has the most nominations is Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity, but even if the Academy doesn’t give science fiction the respect it deserves, there are several long-standing and prestigious awards focused specifically on honoring genre material. Last night we posted the Nebula Award nominations, and now the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films has announced its nominees for the 40th annual Saturn Awards.

Unsurprisingly, Gravity is a front-runner for the Saturns as well, earning eight nominations including Best Science Fiction Film, Best Actress for Sandra Bullock, Best Supporting Actor for George Clooney, and Best Director for Alfonso Cuarón. Gravity is tied with The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug for the most nominations. Some of the other nominees for Best Science Fiction Film are Ender’s Game, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Pacific Rim, Riddick, and Star Trek Into Darkness.

Vin Diesel is an amazing human animal. Not only is he a huge nerd—the man is a long-time Dungeons & Dragons player—who makes ridiculous action films, but he’s totally down with his fans, using social media to drop bits of news about his various projects. Of all the famous people out there, he looks like he’s enjoying it as much as anyone. Because he is a strange man, when Universal decided that they’re going to develop another Riddick movie, he just had to dance. And he filmed himself. And posted it on the Internet. And in the middle he stopped to announce the news to his Facebook followers. And then danced some more. The whole video goes on for seven-and-a-half minutes.

It’s a well known fact how much Diesel loves playing the space badass. Last summer’s Riddick, the third in the so-called “Furyan Chronicles,” was a labor of love that almost didn’t happen. After the second film, the bloated Chronicles of Riddick, tanked in epic fashion, it looked like we wouldn’t get any more. Diesel and director David Twohy, however, weren’t deterred by failure. They got funding, lost funding, found more, Diesel put up his own house as collateral at one point, and somehow, someway, they cobbled together a movie almost ten years after the previous entry.

Today’s a day of victory for science fiction fans. Why, you might ask? Why because Riddick, a third installment of a franchise that’s only become a franchise thanks to the passion of the fans and the sheer determination of director David Twohy and actor Vin Diesel, arrives on home video today. And frankly, that should put a smile on your face even if you couldn’t care less about Riddick. It’s always a good thing when an original project, something not based on any preexisting property, manages to find enough eyeballs to survive in the cutthroat, risk-averse wilds of Hollywood. Riddick should make you happy for all the reasons the Battleship movie made us cringe. It’s the victory of a unique world and vision, as opposed to just another thing whose chief selling point is its name recognition.

2013 was actually a pretty good year for original science fiction films, from the modest to the ambitious. Sure, there were duds along the way, but any year that gave us Upstream Color, Pacific Rim, Europa Report, Elysium, The World’s End, Gravity, and Riddick has to be considered largely full of win. Let’s hope the next few years can continue to see more original sci-fi films in among the parade of sequels and spinoffs.

After the bloated, overwrought mess that is The Chronicles of Riddick, this past summer’s long-gestating follow up, simply titled Riddick, was a welcome sight for fans. The Vin Diesel/David Twohy joint went back to the spare, stripped down style of the first film in the family, Pitch Black, and got away from attempts to cram in every little detail of their fictional universe. World building is great, and a vital part of science fiction, but Chronicles tried to stuff a franchise’s worth of information into a single film, and the result was jumbled and overwhelming. Riddick hits Blu-ray and DVD next Tuesday, January 14, so you can judge for yourself if this was a good move, but before that, you can now watch a free preview of the first ten-minutes.

It took nearly a decade for Diesel and Twohy to get Riddick made. There were tons of starts, stops, and delays. They’d get funding, lose funding, and eventually Diesel put up his own house as collateral and the two pumped a ton of their own capital into their passion project. Moving into the film, many of us wondered how the third installment was going to handle the events of part two. At the end of Chronicles, Riddick kills the Lord Marshal (Colm Feore) and becomes the leader of the Necromongers. This issue is dealt with in short order, just after the introduction you see here.

There’s a very good reason why it took almost a decade for Riddick to finally get into movie theaters, and why no studios wanted to bankroll the film. And that reason is that Chronicles of Riddick, the second in the so-called “Furyan Chronicles,” isn’t a very good movie. In fact, it’s a jumbled mess, full of inconsistencies, vague plot points, and attempts to expand the sparse mythology and universe of the first film, Pitch Black, way beyond any logical boundaries. Now you can all of these problems, and more, pointed out in one convenient video. We also have your first look at a new Riddick mobile game, Riddick: The Merc Files.

There is seriously so much wrong with this movie. This video points out plot holes, physical impossibilities, and some questionable choices in nearly every aspect of the film. Like they conveniently have the story narrated by multiple people. I get it, Judi Dench has an awesome voice, but you’ve already established that Riddick (Vin Diesel), you know, the hero of your franchise, is the one who should do most of the talking.