Riddick

Richard B. Riddick (played by Vin Diesel), more commonly known simply as Riddick, is the fictional Furyan protagonist of a number of films in the Riddick series, including "Pitch Black", "The Chronicles of Riddick", and '. He is also the star of two video games based on the series; ' and the upcoming "".

Riddick stands around 6 feet tall. He has a very muscular frame, and is extremely cunning. His eyes glow due to his "eyeshine". Riddick usually wears welding goggles during the day because of his augmented vision. His attire usually consists of a black shirt, dark-colored cargo pants, a utility belt, and combat boots. He usually keeps knives or improvised shivs on his person. He also has a deep baritone voice.

Riddick was once in the military, as stated in the special features on "The Chronicles of Riddick" DVD; this also explains how he is an experienced pilot. His fighting style is a more aggressive, brutal variation of the martial art of Kali [ [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0296572/trivia IMDB.com] ] .

Powers and abilities

Eyeshine

According to Riddick, while in Butcher Bay he received an eye surgery, or a "surgical shine job," as he calls it, from a doctor that gave him superlative night vision in exhange for "20 menthol KOOLs", but, in turn, made his eyes more sensitive to light. This is the reason he wears tinted welding goggles to protect his eyes. His eyes seem to be less sensitive to light in "The Chronicles of Riddick" than they were in "Pitch Black", although it should be noted that when he appears without his goggles in "Chronicles" he is always indoors and the light was brighter in "Pitch Black" than anything he was exposed to in "Chronicles". However, in "The Chronicles of Riddick", it is implied that the story may have been made up, as at one point in the film, Kyra (or Jack, as credited in "Pitch Black", now with a more mature, feminine appearance) says, after recounting the many prisons she's been to, "...only there wasn't any doctor here who could shine my eyes, not even for twenty menthol Kools. Was there anything you said that was true?"

In the flash movie on the Pitchblack.com website, Riddick gets the eyeshine to avoid disadvantage following an encounter with humanoids called "shiners" (who refer to Riddick as darkeye) who already have the same operation to see in the dark bowels of the Ursa Luna prison where the guards do not tend to go. The eyeshine surgical procedure is performed by a bovine veterinarian onboard a prison facility at which Riddick arrived only a few hours before and which he is already in the process of escaping. Riddick elects to have no anaesthetic despite the procedure involving cutting the cornea and drilling through the eye to inject a reflective substance behind the retina. The cost quoted to Riddick is 1000 creds. Having no cash, Riddick offers downpayment of a pack of Kool cigarettes which he earlier took from a guard. He also takes welders goggles from the facility. Riddick escapes the facility, including time for the operation, in, "exactly 11 hours 22 minutes." The movie closes with Johns being given the job to hunt Riddick and take him straight to Hubble Bay. As the movie is called a classified "re-enactment of events" of Riddick's escape from the Ursa Luna Slamcity Facility (indicating this is an official record with a medical procedure known to the prison authorities and not a story told by Riddick) and as the credits to the flash movie list David Twohy (director and co-writer of "Pitch Black") as the writer it is likely that this version was intended to be canonical.

The video game (which serves as a prequel to "Pitch Black"), clarifies that Riddick's eyeshine is more than just something he picked up in a prison. After helping a character called "Pope Joe" retrieve his "blessed voice box," a radio that picks up religious programming, Riddick goes into a den to get stitches for an injury. After he is finished receiving stitches, Joe tells him how to escape, and, perhaps coincidentally, warns Riddick not to "trust his eyes"; at that moment, a ghostly voice informs him that Riddick has "been blind for far too long...so I'm going to give you a gift ..." It is at this moment that Riddick receives his eyeshine.

The mysterious voice belongs to a character named "Shirah", who serves as a sort-of "spiritual" guide to Riddick. She is featured in the video game and in the director's cut of "The Chronicles of Riddick", helping Riddick to awaken the Furyan abilities that lie dormant within him.

In a sequence from "The Chronicles of Riddick", there is a scene sequence which features scaly canine creatures, called Hell Hounds, with shiny silvery eyes surprisingly similar to Riddick's. The creatures are released into the Crematoria penitentiary at "feeding time," during which they attack inmates indiscriminately. Riddick is found by one whilst hiding behind a waterfall and confronts the creature with a stare. Incredibly, the creature is seemingly tamed by Riddick to which he offered the explanation, "It's an animal thing." The similarities between the Hell Hounds' corneas and Riddick's eyeshine is unexplained. In the flash movie of the escape from Ursa Luna, Riddick encounters a trained German Shepherd guard dog called Max which he similarly stares down and befriends. He later successfully commands Max to attack the guard who is presumably Max's handler.

Wrath of the Furyans

Aside from helping Riddick unlock his eyeshine, the character Shirah also allows Riddick to unleash a sort of energy blast. It is shown in the director's cut of "The Chronicles of Riddick" after she lays her hand on Riddick's chest, leaving a glowing blue hand print that never disappears, and says, "this mark carries the anger of an entire race... but it's going to hurt." Immediately, a large blast of blue energy explodes out of Riddick's body, sending the group of surrounding Necromongers out in every direction. This ability is also displayed off screen in "", although it appears he did this on his own, as opposed to Shirah "unlocking" it as she did in the director's cut of the movie. It is therefore debatable if the director's cut scene can be considered canonical; that is, it cannot be determined if the incident in Butcher Bay is the first time he does this or if the creators intended the director's cut scene to be the first time it is done.

Physical abilities

Aside from his more supernatural skills, Riddick is still an exceptional fighter without his eyes. Whether as a result of his Furyan heritage or simple training, Riddick is portrayed in both films as being stronger, faster, tougher, more resistant to damage and injury, possess acute senses, immense stamina, and a quicker recovery than most humans from injuries; he is shown on more than one occasion dislocating his limbs for brief moments with only slight signs of discomfort. Riddick's abilities at hand-to-hand combat are particularly formidable, confronting one of the night-creatures of "Pitch Black" with only his bare hands and breaking its neck, as well as defeating one of the Lord Marshall's best Necromonger warriors in a matter of seconds in "Chronicles". Most likely due to Riddick's faster-than-normal healing speed, he seems to age at a much slower rate, looking much the same, even after a ten year period, as he did in the past.

Mental Abilities

Despite his harsh upbringing and brutal nature, Riddick has been shown to have a certain deductive streak, rapidly concluding what had happened to the original inhabitants of the mining base that he and the other crash survivors were staying at in "Pitch Black" and swiftly deducing what had caused the firefight between the wardens and Toombs' men in "Chronicles". He has also been described as having 'a knack for escape', surviving not only the Lord Marshall's insane purge of the Furyans when he was an infant but subsequently escaping from various prisons over the course of his life. His only weakness (other than light sensitivity), as stated in the "Pitch Black" DVD, is his soft spot for children and anyone who really grows on him (those people become his friends), which resulted in his capture by the bounty hunter Johns (Cole Hauser).

Will

One major characteristic of Riddick is his indomitable will. Despite finding himself in situations where the odds of survival and/or escape would seem insurmountable Riddick always pushes forward and never gives up. Faced with several creatures far more powerful than himself, or any other human for that matter, he has shown himself to be capable of evading, killing, or even taming them. He has escaped out of prisons when most prisoners would resign themselves to captivity. When Riddick was mentally probed by the Quasi-Dead of the Necromongers, he not only resisted them, but also retaliated. Given the Necromongers apparent faith in the Quasi-Dead, this is a very impressive feat. Perhaps even greater was his ability to resist the Lord Marshall's attempt to steal his soul.

Other appearances

Riddick's first appearance outside Pitch Black was a guest appearance and potential recruit in Fallout Tactics. He appears in the game during a random special encounter, aptly titled Pitch Black. Like his movie origin, Riddick is a stealth focused melee fighter with advanced hand-to-hand fighting skills and the ability to see in the dark.

Riddick has appeared as a playable character in the cult Xbox game Deathrow. Appropriately he is one of the final players available on the Convicts team and has the highest amount of strength and aggression of all recruitable Convict players.

External links

* [http://riddick.wikia.com/wiki/Richard_B._Riddick Richard B. Riddick] at [http://riddick.wikia.com/wiki/Riddick_Wiki Riddick Wiki]

References