Riddick

Why don't we already have a real forum topic for this series? I think here should be good for any topic related to the Riddick movies.

Is it just me or does the new movie look an awful lot like Pitch Black? I mean, I know so far all we have is ads, but the monsters in this one look similar to the Pitch Black monsters. Did he go back to the planet from that one?

And I wonder what happened to his forces from the end of Chronicles. He DID kill their leader and inherit them. Was that covered in a comic or game?

Well, Riddick as the supreme ruler of the Necromongers (who were curbstomping the rest of the universe in the last film) kinda makes it impossible to do an action film with any tension. I suppose there could have drama/comedy about a loner like Riddick adjusting to that position of leadership, but that would be too wild a tone shift.

Our trope page for the movie just says he was "betrayed by the Necromongers", which makes sense. That second-in-command guy had been angling to become supreme ruler himself, so I bet he's the one that usurped Riddick.

This fills in some details:

Also I managed to watch both Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick in a week.

So i'm looking forward to this a bit. This whole series feels like a unique bit of Sci-Fi and Vin Diesel is awesome simply for his dedication to this franchise.

And no this isn't the same planet as Pitch Black's, those are clearly different creatures.

It's a little different in that he's teaming up with people he hates, rather than people he doesn't give a shit about. Hopefully that means the plot will develop a very differently and surprise us.

edited 16th Aug '13 10:57:49 PM by Gvzbgul

I figured. It just felt a little samey after Pitch Black because of the fear the dark stuff and monsters roaming the night. Hopefully this one's just as good as the others without being the same as Pitch Black.

So why is Riddick evil again?

His Motive Rant is on this site somewhere. No it isn't, it's on IMDB:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0134847/quotes

"Riddick: Think someone could spend half their life in a slam with a horse bit in their mouth and not believe? Think he could start out in some liquor store trash bin with an umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and not believe? Got it all wrong, holy man. I absolutely believe in God... And I absolutely hate the fucker."

Given that, can you blame the guy?

Yeah but still how is he evil? Granted I have only seen the films and not played the games but I've never seen Riddick do anything evil other than fight people who are trying to kill him, have killed his friends, are trying to throw him into prison forever and steal his goggles and weird people out whenever they aren't in immediate danger.

For all I know his original crime was littering or jaywalking and all he's been doing since then is defending himself from the overzealous bounty hunters who have been chasing him for years.

Riddick is basically evil because the universe won't leave him alone. He tries finding a place where he can be in peace, only for some kind of force to fuck that up for him and make him fight back.

Of course, being a Furyan probably doesn't help matters.

edited 17th Aug '13 11:13:06 AM by nomuru2d

That's not evil that's antisocial.

Then again maybe the Moral Guardians who enforced The Complainer Is Always Wrong in cartoons back in the 80s are writing laws in the future.

edited 17th Aug '13 11:12:59 AM by Canid117

Riddick is evil because he is (was) a serial killer. The problem is that the Hollywood did not have the balls to actually show him being a serial killer when they decided to make a whole movie dedicated to him, so he just became an antisocial Troubled, but Cute loner with a little sister who joined mercenaries (how sweet). His evilness became an Informed Attribute.

I will leave it at that, more would probably upset people.

Like who? David Twohy? The producers?

Him and all the budding young film directors who think sanitization will get them mass market appeal.

Sure it will.

It most likely will. Most people don't actually want their heroes to be shown doing terrible things.

Then again, do they say that he killed a whole bunch of innocents, or just that he was a mass murderer. It would be a technically correct spin on him killing a shit ton of people who were after him for other things.

edited 18th Aug '13 11:52:58 AM by Journeyman

The Wikipedia page for Riddick doesn't say, just that he was a self-admitted murderer and dangerous convict. Is there a better source for information?

No idea, and self-admitted murderer could be as simple as him accepting what he'd had to do, and moving on. Do we have a real source that pins him as a cold blooded killer without a solid defense?

Could just be that Riddick was a criminal before Pitch Black, but over the course of Pitch Black he underwent character development. So he's dialed back the evil since then... but he still hasn't technically done time for his backstory crimes (or for the crime of escaping from prison) hence why bounty hunters keep coming after him.

Yeah, there's that. His reaction to that one woman's death at the end (not to mention his decision to save the other people) suggests that either he's not as "evil" as he's cracked up to be or he changed as a result of the events of Pitch Black.

Isn't there a dedicated Riddick wiki out there on that there interwebz thing?

Yes

You have to ask?

Of course there is.

(Only partly ninja'd. )

edited 19th Aug '13 4:49:38 PM by Nohbody

I kind of want to see this. Chronicles was my introduction to the series, though, which apparantly disqualifies me from being human.

Personally, I think Chronicles would have worked better as a separate film from Pitch Black. I still think they're both good films, but... yeah, the Genre Shift was kind of jarring.

So, my verdict on this film: better than Chronicles, worse than Pitch Black. Better than I was expecting, worse than I hoped.

The plot hews a little too closely to that of Pitch Black, in my opinion: dangerous creatures that exploit an environmental change, uneasy co-operation between Riddick and mercenaries and even a hunt for spaceship fuel cells. The characters are rather flat and definitely lack the diversity and nuance of the characters in the first film, which I felt was one of Pitch Black's strengths.

Still, it's a fun film that definitely satisfies my inner SF action fan. Worth a watch.

I must confess I don't really see the point of this film. I loved Chronicles of Riddick, and couldn't even finish watching Pitch Black so that also disqualifies me as human.

Riddick being boss of the Necromongers at the end of Chronicles was the perfect ending as far as I am concerned, given all the shit he had to go through, and all the friends he had to lose, to get there.