The Chronicles of Riddick
Way back in 2000, director David Twohy brought together actors Vin Diesel, Radha Mitchell, Cole Hauser, Keith David and several others, and told us the far-future tale of a crew of civilians whose freighter was damaged in a freak meteor storm above a white-hot, desolate moon lit by three suns. Now trapped on a desolate planet where the sole indigenous species is downright murderous, the surviving crew, consisting of policeman Johns, docking pilot Fry, holy man Imam, tough kid Jack and blue-blooded wastrel Paris, realize one of them, a murderous criminal, has broken his bonds…
Pitch Black began the saga of Richard B. Riddick; we weren’t expecting it to, but it turned out that there was a lot more to tell about the hardened criminal who, somewhere deep within, had a heart of gold. He’s abrasive and unlikable at first, but there’s just something so awesome about the guy; he definitely does his part to protect the crew, who aren’t all grateful, against the ravenous creatures that hunt the night, aided by his night vision…
But that wasn’t the beginning of Riddick’s tale. It begins in the first-person-shooter game, Escape from Butcher Bay, when the mercenary who thinks he’s a policeman, Johns (Cole Hauser) delivers him to the eponymous triple-max-security prison run by the corrupt warden Hoxie (Dwight Schultz) and head guard Abbott (Xzibit). Riddick takes it upon himself to escape, but must pass through all three levels of the prison to do so: the surface facility, lorded over by the sadistic Abbott; the mines, presided over by the much more genial but sickly Jagger Valance; and cryogenic imprisonment, which would seem impossible to escape…
But Riddick does escape, only to find himself captured together with his nemesis Johns by Captain Revas (Michelle Forbes) of the Dark Athena. Riddick must now sneak and fight his way through the ship, contending with drones, basically humanoid gun turrets controlled remotely, until he can control them himself, and taking down the crew of Athena one by one. Of course, his (small) altruistic side also compels him to find and rescue Johns as well as a little girl whose family was also captured by the crew…
After Butcher Bay, Dark Athena and Pitch Black came Dark Fury, an animated movie which chronicles the adventures of Riddick, Jack, and Imam aboard a mercenary ship, whose captain freezes the bodies of her targets – criminals, bounty hunters and the like – considering them art. Riddick and his allies barely escape after Jack discovers her violent side, which is surprisingly concerning to Riddick; is he starting to care about people?
The last installment of the Chronicles of Riddick so far is the movie of the same name; in which, arriving on New Mecca after thwarting more bounty hunters sent after him, Riddick discovers who sent them – the prophetess Aereon (Judi Dench!) who foresees a malevolent faction of humanity taking over her world as well as the galaxy at large: the Necromongers, a cult of death led by the Lord Marshal (Colm Feore). These warriors thrive on pain and death; able to stand against anything except a mortal injury, they seek the Underverse, where death thrives as plentifully as life here in our ‘verse.
As these installments have shown, and the arc words of the series confirm (paraphrased), in most battles for the safety of the galaxy, it’s been good versus evil; but sometimes, evil must be fought with a different kind of evil. Riddick is shown to be an anti-hero at best, and a villain protagonist at worst; he’s amoral and uncaring at times, murderous and vicious at others. Still, we root for him in the end, as he’s often the only person standing in the way of the deaths of those he’s chosen to care for, which is a rare thing for a person like him and is humanizing at the very least, endearing at most.