In another time they may have sailed with Blackbeard or Captain Kidd but these anachronistic swashbucklers live in a future of droids, Daleks, and mutants. They are heroes who laugh in the face of death, live to do battle against impossible chances, and know when to toss that one-line quip that sends proceedings up with a wink. Quite often they are hesitant protagonists who seem more prone to shady dealings than noble pursuits, but when the chips are down they rise to the occasion and balance the odds.
Without further ado, here are seven science-fiction heroes with swashbuckling swagger!
Han Solo from Star Wars—portrayed by Harrison Ford
Take a bunch of Han Solo quotes and that’s enough to make this list and arguably land him on top: “Look, I ain’t in this for your revolution, and I’m not in it for you, princess. I expect to be well paid. I’m in it for the money,” “Never tell me the odds!” or “Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.” The iconic scene that seals his cavalier status is in Star Wars: A New Hope (1977) when bounty hunter Greedo threatens his life and from under the cantina’s table Han coldly draws his weapon and blasts the little twerp away, walks to the bar’s counter, and apologizes for the mess. George Lucas would later reedit this to show Solo defending himself, but, sorry George, I was in the theater back in ‘77 when the captain of the Millennium Falcon killed in cold blood. It will be interesting to see, in 2015’s Episode VII if time has mellowed the “scruffy looking nerf herder.” I hope not.
Trivia: Other actors who tried out for the role included Kurt Russell, Perry King, and Nick Nolte.
James T. Kirk from Star Trek—portrayed by William Shatner and Chris Pine
Captain Kirk—later promoted to Admiral—seems to have had one helluva time bending the rules, kicking alien butt, and romancing gorgeous green women along the way, all while boldly going where no human has gone before. Kirk was still in Starfleet Academy when he became the youngest officer ever to helm a starship. He reprogrammed the Kobayashi Maru training test because he didn’t believe in a “no-win scenario” and ended up being rewarded with a commendation for original thinking. When Kirk blows up the Enterprise in The Search for Spock, he laments, “My God, Bones, what have I done?” McCoy reassures, “What you had to do, what you always do. Turned death into a fighting chance to live.”
The new Kirk, Chris Pine, brilliantly captures the same chivalrous and cocky mantle while stamping the role with his own distinctive charm. In Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) when Spock (Zachary Quinto) chides, “You violated the Prime Directive.” Kirk snaps, “Oh, come on, Spock. They saw us, big deal.” You just gotta love the chutzpa of this guy!
Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica—portrayed by Dirk Benedict and Katee Sackhoff
Lieutenant Starbuck is a cigar-chomping, devil-may-care Viper pilot who is loyal to his buddies and the cause of finding Earth but he never allows that to interfere with enjoying life to the fullest by card gambling and having lots and lots of sex. Dirk Benedict so nailed (pardon the pun) the role in the original 1970s television series that it was hard for me to imagine anyone but him in the role. And I had my doubts that the creators of the reimagined show could pull off a gender switch. Shame on me! Not only did actress Katee Sackhoff pay homage to the iconic character’s cavalier lifestyle, but took the colonial warrior in a valiant new direction as she becomes pivotal in the Galactica reaching its destination. Part of her success comes from bucking the system at every turn. When Starbuck (full name Kara Thrace) inquires, “Can I make a suggestion that you won’t like?” Captain Apollo (Jamie Bamber) naturally replies, “Do you make any other kind?”
Trivia: According to Wikipedia the name of the character Starbuck is derived from Herman Melville’s Great American novel, Moby Dick.
Snake Plissken from Escape from New York—portrayed by Kurt Russell
“Snake”—“I heard you were dead”— Plissken (Kurt Russell) is a former Special Forces soldier turned hardened criminal who is serving a life sentence. He is recruited to rescue The President of the United States (Donald Pleasence) whose plane has crashed into the island of Manhattan, which is now a federal penitentiary, circa 1997. (Sidebar: For those too young to remember, the 1990s were a hellish time in our history with the lawlessness embodied in Escape and the rise of Khan Noonien Singh’s Eugenics Wars from Trek) Snake is given extra incentive to complete the mission after he is shot full of infinitesimal explosives that will kill him unless an antidote is delivered to his system within 24 hours. This is a film packed with one amusing scene after the next. When NY Police Commissioner Hauk (Lee Van Cleef), who initially sent him on the likely one-way assignment, inquires, “You going to kill me, Snake?” Plissken replies, “Not now, I’m too tired.” A slight pause, “Maybe later.” The lackluster sequel, Escape from L.A., should be avoided but the original endures as one of the greatest cult films ever made.
Trivia: Director John Carpenter has candidly admitted, “It’s a Western in every essence.”
Captain Mal Reynolds from Firefly and Serenity—portrayed by Nathan Fillion
Joss Whedon (Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Marvel’s The Avengers) created the definitive Space Western with the short lived Firefly TV series (2002) about an eclectic group of nine people in the year 2517 surviving on the fringe of a galaxy ruled by The Alliance. These drifters are led by Captain Mal Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) who grew up as a farm boy and later joined the resistance, gaining the rank of sergeant. Now more concerned with living a happy-go-lucky life, he commits petty robberies and smuggles various cargoes in his ship’s hull without asking too many questions. Like Han Solo, he follows his own personal code of ethics and is very loyal to his crew. During the Battle of Serenity Valley Mal confidently tells a fellow soldier, “We’re not gonna die. We can’t die, Bendis. You know why? Because we are so… very… pretty. We are just too pretty for God to let us die. Huh? Look at that chiseled jaw!” Oh, how I wish Firefly had lasted even half as long as Fillion’s current series, Castle. A follow-up film called Serenity was released in 2005.
Lando Calrissian from The Empire Strikes Back and The Return of the Jedi—portrayed by Billy Dee Williams
From the first moment we see him unnerving Han Solo—“Why, you slimy, double-crossing, no-good swindler”—to his decisive Millennium Falcon led attack on the second Death Star in 1983’s Return of the Jedi— “Yes, I said closer! Move as close as you can, and engage those Star Destroyers at point blank range!”—Lando (Billy Dee Williams) is one-hundred percent swashbuckling greatness. In The Empire Strikes Back (1980) as the administrator of Cloud City, Lando (like any self-respecting pirate) sells out his friends, only to develop a conscience and later help rescue them. Perhaps the most gentlemanly of the endearing rogues on this list, Lando tells Princess Leia, “You look absolutely beautiful. You truly belong here with us among the clouds”—Han rolling his eyes the whole time. In this Wired video, Billy Dee Williams explains why Lando did (or maybe didn’t) betray Han Solo.
Backstory: In a series of tie-in books of the expanded Star Wars universe—that take place prior to the events in the movies—the relationship between Han, Lando, and Chewbacca is further explored and how he lost the Falcon.
Captain Jack Harkness from Doctor Who and Torchwood—portrayed by John Barrowman
A former Time Agent from the 51st century, Jack encounters The Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) and Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) in 2005’s “The Empty Child.” The handsome, affable, trench coat-wearing rogue ends up heading the super-secret Torchwood—an organization that is Earth’s first line of defense against all hostile alien life forms. Jack is unable to die (he’s shot right in the forehead in the Torchwood series opener) and feels naturally indestructible, which may account for a lot of his cavalier approach. When he’s warned about going up against a pterodactyl he smirks, “Dinosaurs? Had ’em for breakfast. Had to. Only source of pre-cooked food protein after the asteroid crashed. Long story.” And Harkness has the distinction of being the only hero on this list to fight, a la Beowulf, in the nude. When an android asks him where he was hiding a gun he responds, “You really don’t want to know.”
In a longer list I would add Jason from Ice Pirates, Riddick, John Carter, Buck Rogers, and Flash Gordon. Who would you add or subtract?
David Cranmer is the publisher of the BEAT to a PULP webzine and books and editor of the recent collections The Lizard’s Ardent Uniform and Other Stories and Carnosaur Weekend.
What no Roj Blake or Kerr Avon from Blake’s 7 ?
Possibly Phinneas Bogg (as played by the late Jon-Erik Hexum) from Voyagers! back in the day (showing my age there).
Pretty much all rogues except for Starbuck; that’s interesting.
That’s a little harsh on Escape from LA, I think. I definitely liked NY more, but the sequel/remake was still packed with ridiculous action that was so over-the-top grim that it became impossible to take seriously. It even had a lot of the same plot beats, including finding an honest, caring survivor who immediately dies in a ridiculously entertaining way. It was like playing connect the dots with a re-done version of the first film, and Kurt Russell was as sublime as ever.
The Oblig Firefly shoehorning ruins an otherwise good article. You’ve already got Han Solo, no need to include the off-brand version.
While I do very much like Lando, I do not remember much of the buckling of swashes on his part from the movies. Great piloting in RotJ, yes, but I don’t remember him even firing a shot on Cloud City.
For whatever reason, the first person that popped in my head after Han Solo is Duo Maxwell, from one of the Gundam Wing iterations (I know there are a lot of them; I am hardly an expert on the topic, but I was kind of obsessed with this particular version of the show when I was in high school along with a friend of mine)…I haven’t thought about the show in years, but I have a particularly fond memory of an episode where he ends up in a near-death situation and can only say, ‘What a lame way to die, this is so NOT cool’. Plus, Deathscythe kicked ass.
@random22 – Off brand version though he may be, Mal give us something of Han that we don’t see on-screen: The Reformed Scoundrel before he reforms. From virtually the moment we see Han, he is more the Reluctant Hero or the Good-Guy-With-A-Checkered-Past than a true scoundrel.
Mal is still the criminal/smuggler/scoundrel that Han is hinted to have been (in the movies) and is shown to have been in the books. I think that actually earns him his place on this list.
Really, you need Ace Rimmer from Red Dwarf on this list. So over the top swashbuckling space cowboy (and hilarious as well).
If we are delving into the realm of Anime, I’ll nominate Gene Starwind from Outlaw Star and the ever popular Spike Spiegle from Cowboy Bebop.
There are two Kirks. The hero played by William Shatner, and the frat boy played by Chris Pine. Pine’s Kirk doesn’t belong on this list. He does, however, belong on the faces-who-should-get-punched-repeatedly list.
Pham Nuwen
Led by *Mac* Reynolds… Really?
Space captain Joshua Calvert from The Night’s Dawn trilogy.
@14 – Aw yeah, how could we forget Joshua “Lagrange” Calvert. Good call.
And, with his own inimitable style of swagger, how about Miles Vorkosigan in his persona of Miles Naismith, dashing leader of the Dendarii Mercenaries?
#6
Lando gave Leia cover fire while she got aboard the Falcon.
“Smoke me a kipper, skipper. I’ll be home for breakfast.” –Ace Rimmer
Although it was billed as a Western, the TV series WILD, WILD WEST was steampunk before the term was invented so I nominate Jim West with his Sixties sexist swagger and the “knock the battery off my shoulder” short guy arrogance.
The (Late) Great Bird of the Galaxy pitched Star Trek as a Wagon Train to the Stars. It didn’t have the same Western trappings as Firefly, but it was a space western.
@3. Capt. Kirk was no rogue, except in spirit.
@17. Good call on WWW. I used to watch it all the time. Pity about the movie.
Duck Dodgers of the 24th and a half Century.
I would say there are 2 kirks, the one from TOS, and the one from the movies. The one from the show was much less…er…swashbuckling, and much more duty bound. It’s only in the movies, particularly in Khan and after, that the swaggering Kirk comes about.
Dr. Marc “Blackie” DuQuesne (Skylark). Rogue physicist. Need I say more?
@15 – agree strongly re Miles.
@19 – +1
Pretty much every main character written by Zelazny and (assuming one treats the books as sci-fi rather than fantasy, and it’s on the border) Vlad Taltos by Steven Brust.
Great list. Love Kirk and Snake!
What, no Jack O’Neil (Stargate SG-1) or John Sheppard (Stargate Atlantis)?!?
Ace Rimmer?
What a guy!
Here’s an obscure one for you: Beka Rosselin-Metadi, from the Mageworld series. Dad’s admiral of a space navy, Mom’s an (assasinated) head of state. What does the dutiful daughter do? Take Dad’s old spaceship and go off hunting for her mom’s killer.
All I have to say is you had me at “(Sidebar: For those too young to remember, the 1990s were a hellish time in our history with the lawlessness embodied in Escape and the rise of Khan Noonien Singh’s Eugenics Wars from Trek)”
Too many TV and movie characters, and not enough book characters on that original list. Let me help balance that out.
Those of you who have not yet encountered Captain Sir Dominic Flandry, Agent of Imperial Terra, need to go out and rectify that problem as soon as you possibly can.
How is Ellen Ripley not on this list?
Add the Doctor, in particular 3, 4, 9, 10, 11 – but not the War Doctor
No John Crichton? Farscape’s Crichton became a swaggering swashbuckling galactic hero, and Firefly’s Castle made this list?
I’m assuming that you meant to use his full name and title Captain Malcom Reynolds, not call him “Captain Mac Reynolds” …. because at no point in the series does he ever get called “Mac” it’s always Captain, Sir, Mal, or some other variation depending on the crew member, alli or criminal that is being dealt with.
@32: “Mac” typo fixed–happily, the character is referred to as “Mal” in the rest of the article.
Roy Batty!
@2 I used to love watching Voyagers as a kid!