What no...
Biggus Dickus.
Indiana Jones whips Bond in greatest movie character poll
Reg reader movie buffs will doubtless have an opinion on the news that Indiana Jones has been voted "greatest movie character of all time". The whip-cracking archaeologist beat James Bond into second spot in a public poll conducted by Empire. Han Solo rolled in third, meaning two podium appearences for George Lucas and …
-
-
-
-
Wednesday 24th June 2015 16:20 GMT phil dude
Re: What no...
Micheal Dobbs is listed as an Executive producer on the Netflix product, so that may explain the consistency in the initial stories. The end of season one on the DC Metro (in the BBC original it was from a building), was brilliantly surprising!
I too grew up with Francis. Spacey has had time to really gives the character some depth.
The brilliant placement of Frank Underwood as a congressman who went to a military academy in the Deep South...very cleverly done!
P.
-
-
-
Wednesday 24th June 2015 12:31 GMT GreggS
Indiana Jones? He doesn't even need to be in the first film;
from The Big Bang Theory
Sheldon Cooper: [theme from 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' is playing] So, what do you think?
Amy Farrah Fowler: It was good.
Sheldon Cooper: That's it? Good?
Amy Farrah Fowler: I enjoyed it. When you told me I was going to be "losing my virginity" I didn't think you meant showing me 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' for the first time.
Sheldon Cooper: My apologies; I chose my words poorly. I should have said you were about to have your world rocked on my couch. Anyway, thank you for watching it. It's one of my all-time favorites.
Sheldon Cooper: It was very entertaining, despite the glaring story problem.
Sheldon Cooper: Story problem? Oh, Amy! What a dewy-eyed moon-calf you are. 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' is the lovechild of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, two of the most gifted filmmakers of our generation. I've watched it thirty-six times, except for the snake scene and the face-melting scene which I can only watch when it's still light out, but. I defy you to find a story problem. Here's my jaw; drop it.
Amy Farrah Fowler: All right. Indiana Jones plays no role in the outcome of the story. If he weren't in the film, it would turn out exactly the same.
Sheldon Cooper: Oh, I see your confusion. You don't understand; Indiana Jones was the one in the hat with the whip.
Amy Farrah Fowler: No, I do. And if he weren't in the movie the Nazis would have still found the ark, taken it to the island, opened it up, and all died. Just like they did. Let me close that for you.
[gently pushes his chin up to close his mouth]
-
Wednesday 24th June 2015 14:33 GMT Spleen
Funny, but inaccurate and, more fundamentally, missing the point of storytelling. Inaccurate because without Jones' intervention, after the Nazis have opened the Ark, it would presumably be retrieved by other Nazis, instead of the Americans. Who would then be able to study it until they figured out how to use it without face-melting.
More fundamentally, Raiders is hardly the only story where the baddies are the cause of their own downfall, rather than the hero. A story is as much about the protagonist's "journey" as what he actually achieves. If Jones isn't in Raiders of the Lost Ark then Jones doesn't get to travel around the world and get his leg over. So of course it matters whether Jones is in it or not - it matters to him.
-
Wednesday 24th June 2015 23:32 GMT handsolo
Ms. Fowler Was Wrong. Indy Did Make A Difference.
Ms. Fowler missed one important part when making her comments to Sheldon about the film. The Nazis would not still have found the Ark without Indy. They were digging in the wrong the spot, because they only had the information from one side of the medallion that Marion Ravenwood had. It was Indy that found the right location using both sides of the medallion, which he kept the Nazis from getting a hold of, due to his intervention at Marion's bar in Nepal.
-
-
Thursday 25th June 2015 09:29 GMT Jedit
Re: Ms. Fowler Was Wrong. Indy Did Make A Difference.
Which is another reason why Indy is important in the movie.
On the other hand, it hardly needed a huge long discussion to determine that The Big Bang Theory is unfunny moronic shit that grossly misrepresents every aspect of the subject and people it depicts. For that it gets the nuclear blast icon, from which it shall not receive even the dubious protection of Dr Jones' refrigerator.
-
Thursday 25th June 2015 11:54 GMT Eponymous Cowherd
Re: Ms. Fowler Was Wrong. Indy Did Make A Difference.
" On the other hand, it hardly needed a huge long discussion to determine that The Big Bang Theory is unfunny moronic shit that grossly misrepresents every aspect of the subject and people it depicts. For that it gets the nuclear blast icon, from which it shall not receive even the dubious protection of Dr Jones' refrigerator."
Errrm, please suggest a comedy that doesn't "grossly misrepresent" its subjects.
Oh, you want a "comedy" that accurately portrays the lives of physicists, IT techs (IT Crowd), hotel managers (Fawlty Towers), market traders (Only fools), A bunch of people in a pub (Friends, Coupling, etc), the Home Guard (Dad's Army), Irish matriarchs (Mrs Brown's boys), Space accident survivors (Red Dwarf), etc, etc, etc?
Wow. what a barrel of laughs those would be.
-
-
-
-
-
Wednesday 24th June 2015 12:37 GMT Anonymous Coward
Limited
10.The Dude - The Big Lebowski
Never heard of him. I suspect a result of the self-selection inherent in readers of a magazine voting.
As the
self pufferynews item says " Earlier this year, Empire readers were asked a very difficult question: " so not really representative of the 'public'.-
Wednesday 24th June 2015 12:58 GMT Kubla Cant
Re: Limited
10.The Dude - The Big Lebowski
Never heard of him.
He's the only one in the top ten whose primary activilty isn't fighting and killing people. The reason I rarely watch films is that these days they seem to be targetted at people with the taste and discrimination of ten-year-olds.
-
Wednesday 24th June 2015 23:42 GMT John Brown (no body)
Re: Limited
"The reason I rarely watch films is that these days they seem to be targetted at people with the taste and discrimination of ten-year-olds."
...and considering the rich tapestry of films and TV going back a century (for films anyway), all the the "best" characters listed, both film and TV, are from outings in the last decade only. (yes, some characters such as Bond and Jones have a longer history, but I'd bet they won based on mainly US teens voting. I mean, FFS, neither Dave Lister nor Zaphod Beeblebrox even got a look in!
-
-
-
-
-
Thursday 25th June 2015 16:03 GMT Michael Wojcik
Re: From TV
I'd go for Dexter, fomr the show of the same name.
Nah, the better version of the character is in Dexter's Laboratory.
More seriously: While Dexter was entertaining, and Michael C Hall played the eponymous character with a nicely understated intensity (little gnawing of the scenery), I can't say I found the character terribly complex, personally. There are any number of characters in a similar vein that I'd call both deeper and more consistent over their run. Tim Olyphant's Raylan Givens in Justified, for example (and that show had a deeper bench of strong supporting characters too; Dexter really just had Deb and a revolving group of well-acted but pretty simple supporters). Or Jason Momoa's Phillip Kopus from The Red Road.
-
-
Wednesday 24th June 2015 14:59 GMT Eddy Ito
Re: Winkle-heavy list
It seems rather easy, do a quick head count of each gender of the characters in most movies. Typically there are few females who play the romantic interest of select male characters. Hell even when the lead character is female (Tomb Raider, Alien, Snow White) there aren't many females in the movie. No, extras like 'waitress number 2' don't count.
-
-
-
Wednesday 24th June 2015 18:26 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: What about No. 6?
I recommend the Bob Peck version of Edge of Darkness to you.
There is no other version of Edge of Darkness. And don't you go spreading rumours to the contrary!
In a superb piece of BBC competence in the early 90s, they re-released it on video. But you couldn't have it one tape, oh no. Or in one box set. They issued the first 3 episodes in April, and the tape of the second 3 in May. Except sometime in April they changed their release schedule. So the second half didn't appear. Leaving me with a copy of half the series. I don't think they got themselves sorted out until December/January. I'm sure it was all part of a CIA conspiracy.
And I never got my 2nd free bar of plutonium either. How am I supposed to impress conference audiences now...
-
-
-
-
-
Wednesday 24th June 2015 14:42 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Something to do with....
Not so much memory as exposure. The readers of the magazine have probably never heard of Arthur Daley, the previously mentioned Norman Stanley Fletcher, nor Reggie Perrin, Corporal Jones, BSM Williams or Beryl and Sandra all of whom provided hours of entertaiment for those of us of more mature years. The only two to span time so to speak are Doctor Who and Sherlock Holmes. My DW and SH will not be the same as those who completed the survey.
-
-
-
-
Thursday 25th June 2015 16:10 GMT Michael Wojcik
Re: We're doomed....
I'm happy with that pick. The character of Buffy Summers saw extensive development and refinement over the seven seasons of that show. Among the ten "greatest" characters ever shown on television? With no set rubric, the term "greatest" is pretty much meaningless, so it's a subjective popularity contest. But Buffy's a more complex and interesting character than some of the others on the list, and certainly than some of the others that people have suggested here.
Of course you can deplore the choice for whatever subjective reasons you may want. Without articulating a critical argument, though, it's just empty whinging.
-
Biting the hand that feeds IT
