Riddick
Encyclopedia
Richard B. Riddick more commonly known simply as Riddick, is the antihero of three films in the Riddick series
, namely Pitch Black, The Chronicles of Riddick
, and the animated movie The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury
; as well as the two video games The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay
and The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena
.
Within the canon of the series, he is shown to be a highly skilled individual - he is extremely mobile especially for someone of his size, has a vast knowledge of how to kill almost any humanoid in a variety of ways, is a survivalist, and is extremely hard to contain, he is also a dangerous convict, and murderer - yet despite this, he is sometimes shown to perform moral or even atypically heroic actions, usually against his better judgement.
Riddick is one of the last of his kind. One his most defining features are his eyes which have been "shined", this allows him to see in the dark with no difficulty at all.
Riddick was once a mercenary and then later part of a security force and is an experienced pilot.
In later life, Riddick repressed all of his memories of Furya, including the massacre, and came to believe that when he was born, his mother attempted to kill him by strangling him with his umbilical cord and dumping him in a trash bin. Despite this, he periodically received visions and messages from a Furyan survivor named Shirah, which he believed to be signs of mental instability.
Little is known about Riddick's childhood, save that he had no formal education, claiming to have been "educated" in the penal system.
Riddick is being financed independently.
The plot of Riddick will find the titular criminal once more on the run from mercenaries who want the hefty reward his hide will bring who once again ends up on a planet teeming with unfriendly alien beasts. The beginning of the story will likely tie into the ending of Chronicles and feature cameos from characters who have appeared in the previous films.
, or a "surgical shine job", as he calls it, from a doctor that gave him permanent night vision
in exchange for "20 menthol
KOOL
s". This surgery made his eyes more sensitive to light, requiring him to wear welding goggles to protect them from bright light. However, this has since been retconned.
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 seems to be performed by a bovine veterinarian on board a prison facility at which Riddick arrived only a few hours before and from which he is already in the process of escaping. Riddick elects to have no anesthetic 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 down payment of a pack of Kool cigarettes which he earlier took from a guard. He also takes welders goggles from the facility. However, this story has since been retconned.
The video game, The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay
(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 (including Necromonger programming of some kind), 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 Riddick that he has "been blind for far too long..." and that he is to receive a gift. It is at this moment that Riddick receives his eyeshine.
The mysterious voice belongs to a character named "Shirah", who appears to serve as a sort of spiritual guide to Riddick, helping him awaken the Furyan abilities that lie dormant within him.
Light amplification surgery, somewhat similar in effect to Riddick's eyeshine, has been patented in real life.
.
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 a shiv
he had made, killing it with relative ease, as well as defeating one of the Lord Marshall's best Necromonger warriors in a matter of seconds in Chronicles. Also, he was able to hold off the Lord Marshall and even injure him which the Lord Marshall admitted hadn't happened in a long time. While Riddick was no match for him in speed, he was able to hold off the Lord Marshall for several minutes.
, leaving him in pain when in daylight without his goggles), 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
). While he may be a ruthless killer when necessary, Riddick has been known to help people in need only if they don't slow him down or make him vulnerable. The only exception to this was when, in Pitch Black, he returned with Carolyn to help the others, after she pleaded with him. He also mentions on board the Dark Athena that people he helps often end up dead. He also possesses an aptitude for math, able to calculate the distance he traveled down the entrance to Crematoria from the surface as 29.4 kilometers simply from visually measuring the distance between lights on the ceiling, and multiplying by the number counted, while he was strapped down.
In addition to raw analytical power, Riddick is generally an astute judge of character, especially in the dark side of human nature. A killer himself and resident of almost one hundred maximum security facilities , he is often able to predict an individual's negative impulses before they act on them. He has been known to be surprised on occasion, such as when Carolyn Fry in Pitch Black altruistically gave up a fast escape to save Jack and Imam from the alien creatures. Riddick was also surprised when he underestimated Jack's (Kyra's) affection toward him between Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick, only learning of it after she had become a mercenary and resident of a maximum security prison in order to see him once again. Otherwise, he correctly predicted which of the group in Pitch Black would turn on each other (in particular that Johns would try to double-cross Fry), and that the mercs and guards on Crematoria would turn on each other prior to his escape attempt.
.
This is not to say that Riddick can't or won't use anything else. On the contrary he has been known to use anything from necromonger gravity rifles to teacups, and anything in between. It should also be noted that Riddick can kill efficiently without using a weapon.
Riddick has appeared as a playable character in the Xbox
game Deathrow
. 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, although he has the equal-lowest teamplay rating in the game.
Behind the scenes Richard B. Riddick first appeared in Pitch Black: Slam City, a Shockwave prequel comic on the official Pitch Black website, one month before the release of the movie. In the film, and in all subsequent appearances the character has been portrayed by Vin Diesel.
In Jim and Ken Wheat's original script for Pitch Black the Riddick character was a woman named Taras Krieg.
The Chronicles of Riddick (series)
The Chronicles of Riddick is a science fiction action/horror media franchise, spanning two live-action feature films and their novelizations, a direct-to-DVD animated film, numerous animated shorts, two video games, an Internet-based video game, figurines and hundreds of instances of fan fiction....
, namely Pitch Black, The Chronicles of Riddick
The Chronicles of Riddick
The Chronicles of Riddick is a 2004 American science fiction film which follows the adventures of Richard B. Riddick, as he attempts to elude capture after the events depicted in the 2000 film Pitch Black, and details his meeting with Jack and Imam, his escape from the prison planet Crematoria, and...
, and the animated movie The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury
The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury
The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury is a 2004 made-for-DVD animated movie. It was directed by the Korean-American animator Peter Chung, and features Vin Diesel reprising his role of Richard B. Riddick.-Plot:...
; as well as the two video games The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay
The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay
The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay is a first-person action/stealth video game developed by Starbreeze Studios and published by Vivendi Games. Released for the Xbox and Windows in 2004, the game is a tie-in prequel to the futuristic science fiction film The Chronicles of Riddick...
and The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena
The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena
The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena is a science fiction first-person action game for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Mac OS X. The game is a sequel to The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, which has been remade and has been included along with the Assault...
.
Within the canon of the series, he is shown to be a highly skilled individual - he is extremely mobile especially for someone of his size, has a vast knowledge of how to kill almost any humanoid in a variety of ways, is a survivalist, and is extremely hard to contain, he is also a dangerous convict, and murderer - yet despite this, he is sometimes shown to perform moral or even atypically heroic actions, usually against his better judgement.
Riddick is one of the last of his kind. One his most defining features are his eyes which have been "shined", this allows him to see in the dark with no difficulty at all.
Riddick was once a mercenary and then later part of a security force and is an experienced pilot.
Early life
Riddick was born on Furya. Before Riddick's birth, a Necromonger officer named Zhylaw consulted an Elemental seer, who told him that a Furyan male would be born that would kill him in the future. In retaliation, Zhylaw attacked Furya in an attempt to massacre all male children, going so far as to personally strangle newborn infants with their own umbilical cords. He strangled Riddick with his umbilical cord and believed him dead, but Riddick actually survived.In later life, Riddick repressed all of his memories of Furya, including the massacre, and came to believe that when he was born, his mother attempted to kill him by strangling him with his umbilical cord and dumping him in a trash bin. Despite this, he periodically received visions and messages from a Furyan survivor named Shirah, which he believed to be signs of mental instability.
Little is known about Riddick's childhood, save that he had no formal education, claiming to have been "educated" in the penal system.
Riddick
A third Riddick movie is in development titled, simply, Riddick. As of August 10th, 2011 they had begun casting.Riddick is being financed independently.
The plot of Riddick will find the titular criminal once more on the run from mercenaries who want the hefty reward his hide will bring who once again ends up on a planet teeming with unfriendly alien beasts. The beginning of the story will likely tie into the ending of Chronicles and feature cameos from characters who have appeared in the previous films.
Eyeshine
According to Riddick, while in Butcher Bay he received eye surgeryEye surgery
Eye surgery, also known as orogolomistician surgery or ocular surgery, is surgery performed on the eye or its adnexa, typically by an ophthalmologist.-Preparation and precautions:...
, or a "surgical shine job", as he calls it, from a doctor that gave him permanent night vision
Night vision
Night vision is the ability to see in low light conditions. Whether by biological or technological means, night vision is made possible by a combination of two approaches: sufficient spectral range, and sufficient intensity range...
in exchange for "20 menthol
Menthol
Menthol is an organic compound made synthetically or obtained from peppermint or other mint oils. It is a waxy, crystalline substance, clear or white in color, which is solid at room temperature and melts slightly above. The main form of menthol occurring in nature is -menthol, which is assigned...
KOOL
KOOL (cigarette)
KOOL is a brand of menthol cigarette currently produced by the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, introduced in 1933, that has marketed itself towards the "sophisticated man". Originally introduced as an unfiltered "regular" size cigarette, filtered 85 mm king-size versions were later added to...
s". This surgery made his eyes more sensitive to light, requiring him to wear welding goggles to protect them from bright light. However, this has since been retconned.
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 seems to be performed by a bovine veterinarian on board a prison facility at which Riddick arrived only a few hours before and from which he is already in the process of escaping. Riddick elects to have no anesthetic 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 down payment of a pack of Kool cigarettes which he earlier took from a guard. He also takes welders goggles from the facility. However, this story has since been retconned.
The video game, The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay
The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay
The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay is a first-person action/stealth video game developed by Starbreeze Studios and published by Vivendi Games. Released for the Xbox and Windows in 2004, the game is a tie-in prequel to the futuristic science fiction film The Chronicles of Riddick...
(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 (including Necromonger programming of some kind), 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 Riddick that he has "been blind for far too long..." and that he is to receive a gift. It is at this moment that Riddick receives his eyeshine.
The mysterious voice belongs to a character named "Shirah", who appears to serve as a sort of spiritual guide to Riddick, helping him awaken the Furyan abilities that lie dormant within him.
Light amplification surgery, somewhat similar in effect to Riddick's eyeshine, has been patented in real life.
Wrath of the Furyans
Aside from helping Riddick unlock his eyeshine, the character Shirah also either allows or helps Riddick discover his ability to unleash a sort of energy wave. 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, and says, "this mark carries the anger of an entire race... but it's going to hurt". After either receiving a shot from Vaako's energy handgun or a fraction of a second before the discharge of said weapon, she immediately emits a large blast of blue energy from Riddick (or Riddick himself does so with her guidance), leaving the group of surrounding Necromongers dead. This ability is also displayed off screen in Escape from Butcher BayThe Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay
The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay is a first-person action/stealth video game developed by Starbreeze Studios and published by Vivendi Games. Released for the Xbox and Windows in 2004, the game is a tie-in prequel to the futuristic science fiction film The Chronicles of Riddick...
.
Physical abilities
Aside from his more supernatural skills, Riddick is in excellent physical condition and is an exceptional fighter with or without the use of his eyes. Whether as a result of his Furyan heritage or simple training, Riddick is stronger, faster, more agile, tougher, more resistant to damage and injury, possessing more acute senses, immense stamina, and superior healing when compared to most humans; he is shown on more than one occasion dislocating his limbs for brief moments with only slight signs of discomfort. In general, Riddick possesses an abnormally high pain threshold and psychologically channels what pain he does feel into anger.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 a shiv
Shiv (weapon)
A shiv is a slang term for any sharp or pointed implement used as a knife-like weapon. However, the word in practical usage is frequently used when referring to an improvised bladed weapon. Shivs are commonly made by inmates in prisons across the world...
he had made, killing it with relative ease, as well as defeating one of the Lord Marshall's best Necromonger warriors in a matter of seconds in Chronicles. Also, he was able to hold off the Lord Marshall and even injure him which the Lord Marshall admitted hadn't happened in a long time. While Riddick was no match for him in speed, he was able to hold off the Lord Marshall for several minutes.
Intelligence
Despite his harsh upbringing and violent attitude, Riddick has been shown to have a certain knack for deduction, rapidly deducing what had happened to the original inhabitants of the mining base where he and the other crash survivors had been staying, as well as finding the creature's blind spot 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 purge of the Furyans when he was an infant but subsequently escaping from various prisons over the course of his life. He is also able to quickly judge the quality of, and find even seemingly minor flaws in most weaponry, down to very specific details. In one case, Riddick concluded that the prized dagger of a Necromonger was "a half gram too heavy on the back end" after an inspection lasting all of a couple of seconds. His only weakness (other than light sensitivityLight sensitivity
Light sensitivity or photosensitivity is an increase in the reactivity of the skin to sunlight. Apart from vision, human beings have many physiological and psychological responses to light. In rare individuals an atypical response may result in serious discomfort, disease, or injury. Some drugs...
, leaving him in pain when in daylight without his goggles), as stated in the Pitch Black
Pitch Black
Pitch Black is a 2000 science fiction thriller film directed by David Twohy and starring Vin Diesel. The film costars Radha Mitchell, Cole Hauser and Keith David....
DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
, 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
Bounty hunter
A bounty hunter captures fugitives for a monetary reward . Other names, mainly used in the United States, include bail enforcement agent and fugitive recovery agent.-Laws in the U.S.:...
Johns (Cole Hauser
Cole Hauser
Cole Kenneth Hauser is an American film and television actor.-Family background:Hauser was born in Santa Barbara, California, son of Cass Warner, who founded the film production company Warner Sisters, and actor Wings Hauser. His paternal grandfather was Academy Award-winning screenwriter Dwight...
). While he may be a ruthless killer when necessary, Riddick has been known to help people in need only if they don't slow him down or make him vulnerable. The only exception to this was when, in Pitch Black, he returned with Carolyn to help the others, after she pleaded with him. He also mentions on board the Dark Athena that people he helps often end up dead. He also possesses an aptitude for math, able to calculate the distance he traveled down the entrance to Crematoria from the surface as 29.4 kilometers simply from visually measuring the distance between lights on the ceiling, and multiplying by the number counted, while he was strapped down.
In addition to raw analytical power, Riddick is generally an astute judge of character, especially in the dark side of human nature. A killer himself and resident of almost one hundred maximum security facilities , he is often able to predict an individual's negative impulses before they act on them. He has been known to be surprised on occasion, such as when Carolyn Fry in Pitch Black altruistically gave up a fast escape to save Jack and Imam from the alien creatures. Riddick was also surprised when he underestimated Jack's (Kyra's) affection toward him between Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick, only learning of it after she had become a mercenary and resident of a maximum security prison in order to see him once again. Otherwise, he correctly predicted which of the group in Pitch Black would turn on each other (in particular that Johns would try to double-cross Fry), and that the mercs and guards on Crematoria would turn on each other prior to his escape attempt.
Willpower
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, the Quasi-Dead's containers actually exploding from the strain of trying to process Riddick. Given the Necromongers' apparent faith in and respect for the power of 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. The one time his will seemed to waver was when Kyra was killed, sacrificing herself to save him and help him defeat the Lord Marshal, and even then he channeled his loss into new strength.Weapons
Riddick is well trained with any kind of weapon that he can get his hands on, but his weapon of choice is undoubtedly a knife. Silent, quick, and deadly, in Riddick's hands the knife is a weapon that is a swift ender of lives. However, Riddick's most famous weapons are surely the pairs of Ulak blades that he is seen using during his escape from Crematoria and in The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark AthenaThe Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena
The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena is a science fiction first-person action game for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Mac OS X. The game is a sequel to The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, which has been remade and has been included along with the Assault...
.
This is not to say that Riddick can't or won't use anything else. On the contrary he has been known to use anything from necromonger gravity rifles to teacups, and anything in between. It should also be noted that Riddick can kill efficiently without using a weapon.
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 Xbox
Xbox
The Xbox is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Microsoft. It was released on November 15, 2001 in North America, February 22, 2002 in Japan, and March 14, 2002 in Australia and Europe and is the predecessor to the Xbox 360. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console...
game Deathrow
Deathrow (game)
Deathrow is a sports video game for the Xbox that was released on October 22, 2002, about 1 year after the release of the Xbox. The game was developed by Swedish developer SouthEnd Interactive and produced by Ubisoft Entertainment. Although the game’s sales were unspectacular, it won awards and...
. 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, although he has the equal-lowest teamplay rating in the game.
Behind the scenes Richard B. Riddick first appeared in Pitch Black: Slam City, a Shockwave prequel comic on the official Pitch Black website, one month before the release of the movie. In the film, and in all subsequent appearances the character has been portrayed by Vin Diesel.
In Jim and Ken Wheat's original script for Pitch Black the Riddick character was a woman named Taras Krieg.
Appearances
- The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher BayThe Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher BayThe Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay is a first-person action/stealth video game developed by Starbreeze Studios and published by Vivendi Games. Released for the Xbox and Windows in 2004, the game is a tie-in prequel to the futuristic science fiction film The Chronicles of Riddick...
- The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark AthenaThe Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark AthenaThe Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena is a science fiction first-person action game for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Mac OS X. The game is a sequel to The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, which has been remade and has been included along with the Assault...
- Pitch Black & novelization
- The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark FuryThe Chronicles of Riddick: Dark FuryThe Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury is a 2004 made-for-DVD animated movie. It was directed by the Korean-American animator Peter Chung, and features Vin Diesel reprising his role of Richard B. Riddick.-Plot:...
- Into Pitch Black
- The Chronicles of Riddick: The Hunt For Riddick
- The Chronicles of RiddickThe Chronicles of RiddickThe Chronicles of Riddick is a 2004 American science fiction film which follows the adventures of Richard B. Riddick, as he attempts to elude capture after the events depicted in the 2000 film Pitch Black, and details his meeting with Jack and Imam, his escape from the prison planet Crematoria, and...
& novelization