The Chronicles of Riddick (film)/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


The Franchise as a whole:

  • Complete Monster: Jaylor, Revas, and Spinner from Assault on Dark Athena. Aside from maybe some Butcher Bay inmates (Rust in particular) in Escape from Butcher Bay, none of the other villains quite approach this level. The Lord Marshall and Vaako believe in a twisted version of Utopia Justifies the Means, Dame Vaako is a power-hungry Lady McBeth, the monsters in Pitch Black are mindless predators, Johns is a self-serving bastard but not a monster (although he does cross the Moral Event Horizon on two occasions), Toombs is in it only for the money, and Junner, Hoxie, and Abbot seem to be consumate professionals, even if their line of work is inhumane to the core (more a result of the Riddick universe being a Crapsack World than any fault of their own). Chillingsworth is a good contender, however.
  • Crowning Moment of Awesome: Whenever Riddick kicks ass. The Furyan Purifier on Crematoria also gets one.
  • Cult Classic: Both the films and games.
  • Evil Is Sexy: Riddick and sexy are synonymous with each other, but the evil part depends on the viewer.
  • First Installment Wins/Sequelitis: The Chronicles of Riddick was not very well received by critics or many fans of Pitch Black. The Genre Shift might have something to do with that, and the Disney-fication compared to the original. Which was more for the PG-13 rating instead of the shift.
  • High Octane Nightmare Fuel: Riddick himself. Something about a remorseless killer that can see in the dark and says things like "Don't worry about what I do for you, worry about what I'll do to you." scares people. Not sure why.
    • The Ghost Drones from Dark Athena are arguably this, as well.
    • How about the Necromongers? Join them, and you experience unimaginable amounts of pain. Refuse them and die. Escape them, and they'll destroy your planet (Which they were just going to do anyway).
  • Memetic Badass: Riddick is almost all of those types of characters rolled into one.

The movie:

  • Narm: Count how many times Riddick takes his goggles off in dramatic moments in Chronicles. It's nearly impossible not to start giggling after a while.
    • The odd part is, in Pitch Black, it's revealed that his night vision makes his eyes sensitive to light so he needs the goggles. In the sequel, this weakness is apparently gone since he whips them off every other scene, including one in which he gazes at explosions.
  • What the Hell, Casting Agency?: Dame Judi Dench? Really? More details rescued from that page: The Chronicles of Riddick made some fans wonder "What the hell is Judi Dench doing in this film?" Vin Diesel wanted her so much, he sent a humongous number of flowers and bouquets along with the scripts to convince her. She complied after they met and bonded over Dungeons & Dragons (they both play).
    • Justified as the role was designed specifically for her by Vin Diesel and David Twohy. Word of God on either the DVD commentary or the "extras" subtitle track.
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