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10 Best Mainstream
Characters in Geeky Movies - 20081103
By Matt Blum
1. Dr. Leonard McCoy from the
first six Star Trek movies - He uses the technology, just
like everyone else in the main cast, but he grumbles about
it—especially about the transporter, which, really, has
to be pretty close to warp drive on the usefulness scale.
If he ever came out with one of Trek's trademark technobabble
lines, I don't remember it, and I honestly can't think of
another major character that could be said about.
2. Jayne Cobb from Serenity - He'd sooner
shoot you than talk with you about anything intellectual,
and that's not hyperbole. He doesn't care what anyone thinks
about him, doesn't take crap from anyone, and would rather
solve any problem by hitting it, shooting it, or blowing it
up.
3. Bill Lumbergh from Office Space - "So,
Peter, what's happening?" He's a complete dork, but not
a geek. He's just too deadly dull to be a real geek. And no
geek could tell a group of coworkers about next Friday being
Hawaiian Shirt Day.
4. Fezzik from The Princess Bride - As he
himself says, it's not his fault he's a giant. He's a great
friend to Inigo, a genuinely friendly guy who doesn't want
to hurt anyone, and only does because Vizzini threatens him
with abandonment. This is not to say that a geek can't also
be a nice person, of course, but Fezzik is a very simple person,
not used to thinking for himself.
5. Prof. Jerry Hathaway from Real Genius -
Yes, he's a scientist. Yes, he's the one in charge of the
whole group of geeks. And yes, he's a college professor. But,
in my opinion, nobody who hates popcorn can be considered
a geek, so he makes the list. Besides, he's a great villain
and, really, there's no other character in the movie who could
be considered mainstream at all, and how could this movie
not be on the list?
6. Boromir from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship
of the Ring - He's basically a jock who doesn't really understand
the power of the ring. Even so, he is an integral part of the
fellowship until he falls under the ring's spell and tries to
take it from Frodo. He dies heroically saving the hobbits, still
not really understanding what it is he's dying for.
7. Winston Zeddmore from Ghostbusters - He
only takes the job as a Ghostbuster because he needs the paycheck.
He's more a man of faith than of science, unlike the other
three members of the team. And of course he has one of the
best lines of the film: "Ray, when someone asks you if
you're a god, you say 'YES!'"...not that that's really
relevant to the discussion, but I had to mention it.
8. Carter Burke from Aliens - The company
man who seems to care about Ripley until it serves his own
selfish interests better to betray her. He clearly has never
seen a single science fiction movie, because otherwise he
would've realized that the aliens were going to get him, so
how much of a geek could he be?
9. Buffy Summers from Buffy the Vampire Slayer
- In the TV show, she (pretty much) embraces the role of Slayer,
so she's pretty much lost her mainstream status. But she starts
the movie as your basic cheerleader character, and only later
accepts that she's the only hope for winning the fight against
the vampires, and even then she does it in her own way.
10. Sam Lowry from Brazil - He's a low-level
bureaucrat caught in a system that doesn't care at all for
him, escaping only through fantasies imagining himself as
a romantic hero. In this unsubtle satire, Lowry doesn't even
realize he has any option but conformity until his dream girl
enters the picture. This is probably the only geek movie in
which, really, none of the characters is a geek—the society
they live in simply wouldn't allow it.
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