"The Chronicles of Riddick" - Fun with Necromongers

SPOILERS ahead.

Next month my article for Riddick will run as part of Midwest Film Journal’s “All We Do Is Vin” series of articles, so I’m preparing by revisiting the first two film’s in the series. Last month, I wrote about Pitch Black, so now I’m moving on to my favorite film in the series, The Chronicles of Riddick. As a sci-fi fan, Chronicles was right up my alley. I wasn’t thrilled with the PG-13 rating for the theatrical release, but I knew they just needed to make as much money as possible (they released the far superior unrated cut on DVD, anyway). I loved how writer/director David Twohy just fucking went for it, going from the very small scale Pitch Black to the planet-hopping, world-building Chronicles. Some of the mythology is murky or needs more explanation, but overall Chronicles is a satisfying action/sci-fi film that unfortunately bombed at the box office, which led to the much smaller in scale Riddick later on. Hopefully, they can dive back into the mythology created in this film when they make Furya.

Despite the extreme focus on death, Chronicles is a very fun movie.

I love when a writer/director gets to go all in on a sci-fi film as David Twohy has done with Chronicles, but what makes this a special movie for me is the tone. There is some super serious shit going on here (main characters die, the entire universe is at stake, etc.), but the film never dwells on that. Instead, it plays to the strengths of the Riddick character: looking cool and being a smartass to mercs.

Chronicles features much more ambitious action sequences. And while there is plenty of CGI being used (I’m not a fan of the CG hellhounds, but they’re not awful), it still feels real. Most of Riddick’s hand-to-hand fights are compelling, and his big moments look awesome. The standout for me was when he saved Kyra from the mountain on Crematoria. Not only does it look great, but Riddick emerging afterward with steam rolling off of him is a straight-up hero shot. 

The action is not the main reason I love this film, though. I like the Riddick franchise for his interactions with mercs. Riddick’s back and forth with Johns in Pitch Black was great, and his rivalry with Toombs in Chronicles is even better, but that might just be because Nick Chinlund is perfect for the character of Toombs. I like seeing Riddick talk shit to the Necromonger zealots, but his scenes with Toombs are what make the movie. Obviously Twohy and Diesel think so as well since Riddick is mainly just him and a bunch of mercs for the majority of the movie.

All the stuff with the mercs is just meant to make Vin Diesel/Riddick look like a badass, but it works. I could watch him talk shit to Toombs the entire movie. Even his unspoken moments are funny. Possibly my favorite moment in the film is when Riddick kills the merc while they’re on the sled into Crematoria. Toombs looks back to see what happened, and Riddick gives a “what the fuck did you expect?” shrug. And Toombs laughs. I just like the cynical nature of a bounty hunter/convict relationship.

The character of Riddick is why this franchise exists. The action and sci-fi stuff is all fine, but people like this anti-hero. For me, it’s the fact that this character is very similar to Dom from the Fast franchise, but there’s a reason why he’s superhuman. We’re just supposed to accept that Dom has become a superhero in Fast at this point. But with Riddick, at least we’re given a backstory to explain it. I’m okay with Vin Diesel playing a superhuman badass, but let’s keep this shit semi-logical. Speaking of that backstory...

So they have liquor stores on Furya?

In Pitch Black, Twohy and Vin Diesel didn’t think they had a franchise on their hands until they were making the film (hell, in the original script Riddick was a female character with a different name). So at the time, Riddick’s backstory of getting his eyes done as a shine job for “twenty menthol KOOLs” and being left in a dumpster of a liquor store as a baby were just elements of a convict who didn’t give a fuck. They weren’t thinking of him as a prophetic warrior from the planet Furya who would one day take over the Necromonger empire. 

So when Chronicles (especially the director’s cut) revealed that Riddick was one of the last surviving members of a warrior race from a planet called Furya, it meant an explanation was needed. With the eyes, it was simple enough: Riddick was just making up some bullshit, although the full explanation was offered in the videogame Escape from Butcher Bay (Shirah, the Furyan from his visions in Chronicles, gave him his eyeshine) and other properties, eventually explaining that Riddick was an Alpha Furyan, which is why he special powers. I assumed the story of his birth must’ve been at least partially made up, as well. 

We don’t get to see Furya aside from a field of gravestones in a vision, but I just assumed it wasn’t a regular world, you know, with liquor stores and shit. But apparently it is. I guess alcohol is a universal substance, so why wouldn’t Furya have liquor stores? Still, even that story is retconned a bit by explaining that Riddick was left for dead (strangled with his own umbilical cord...godDAMN) because the Lord Marshal received a prophecy claiming a male Furyan would cause his downfall. Naturally, he went to Furya and killed almost the entire planet. There’s still plenty of questions about all of this, such as: how did Riddick know he was left like this as a baby? Who got him out of the dumpster? How many Furyans are left? Is the planet really just a mass graveyard now? Who dug all the graves? Perhaps there are more explanations in comics and whatnot, but overall I think the holes in the story are because a one-off character suddenly needed a grander backstory for a franchise. Hopefully, since the next film is currently titled Furya, a lot of this is covered in more detail.

Thanks to DVD sales, David Twohy was able to go all out.

The home video market is much more about streaming these days, but for a while DVD sales played a factor in getting movies made. Without DVD sales, the Austin Powers franchise would be a single film. Universal saw how well Pitch Black did on DVD, and that, coupled with Twohy and Diesel’s enthusiasm for the franchise, convinced them to gamble big on this sequel. Since it only ended up making back its production budget (though DVD sales were very strong), plans to continue on with the franchise stalled after Chronicles. But because of DVDs, we got to see what Twohy would do with a shitload of money, and I’m thankful for that.

David Twohy and Vin Diesel decided to expand the series on an exponential level. The film hops from planet to planet, the action is much more prominent, a prison planet escape subplot takes place, and an entire evil empire of Necromongers is added to the story. 

I don’t want to be dismissive of this film and simply call it ambitious. Calling something ambitious is also saying it failed, in a way. Despite the negative critical response to this film, I think Twohy and Diesel are very successful in creating a vast mythology. They, along with the set and production designers, had a very clear plan for this film and future films. There are still plenty of questions that I personally have about the Necromongers (I’ll get to that in the next two sections), but I feel like if I had the chance to ask Diesel or Twohy any question they would have an answer. The problem is that a lot of answers aren’t on the screen. Many of them can be found in other properties a la Star Wars, but it would be better if everything was clear from the movie alone.

Despite my questions about the Necromonger mythology, Chronicles is a very straightforward movie. The terminology and some of the dialogue may make it seem a bit convoluted (the quasideads, Elementals, Furyans, the UnderVerse, etc.), but the plot is pretty simple: Riddick reluctantly joins the fight against the Necromongers to save people he cares about, specifically Kyra (Jack from Pitch Black). The film may hop from planet to planet, but it’s never hard to understand where the story is at and why the characters are doing what they’re doing.

And it looks cool, and it’s a fun movie. Chronicles could’ve easily drowned in its own mythology-building and been a very dry, serious film. Instead, Riddick is still a smartass despite the threat of the universe coming to an end. And all the new worlds and technology make for a much more visually interesting film than Pitch Black. The assault on Helion Prime looks amazing, as does the escape from Crematoria, to name a couple. This was an expensive movie, but every dollar is on the screen.

It’s just a shame that this film wasn’t successful enough for the franchise to stay on the path that Chronicles started. I partly blame the studio for demanding a PG-13 version. The director’s cut, which added a lot of the Furyan stuff, is much better and is more tonally in sync with Pitch Black. I’m probably wrong, though. An R-rating may have made this film even less successful. I just don’t think this is the type of franchise that can be profitable if over $100 million is spent making one movie. I’m just glad we got one big movie out of this franchise. Maybe they can find some middle ground with Furya: not as small in scale as Pitch Black and Riddick, but more focused than Chronicles.

Necromongers: the militant death cult.

The role of religion in Pitch Black surprised me when I rewatched it. It was interesting that they used an existing religion in the film rather than making one up. This time around, they did make up a new religion with the Necromongers, but it’s still a unique choice because it clashes with existing religion. The Necromongers basically show up to new worlds and tell everyone that their religion is wrong, and they must join up or die. 

Religion was on the fringes of the plot of Pitch Black, but it’s the driving force of Chronicles. The Necromongers are basically the Roman Empire in space, but instead of expanding their land, they are interested in gathering recruits to take to their holy land, the UnderVerse. The Roman Empire influence makes them one of the more interesting sci-fi empires, visually speaking. Their ships look like temples when they land, and there are statues honoring past Lord Marshals all around. 

As for their religion, it’s quite dark, if a little confusing. The Purifier explains during his recruitment pitch that life is a mistake to be corrected. These people are obsessed with death. Their ultimate goal, the UnderVerse, is only reached through death, but you must die at the right time, apparently. It gets a little confusing, but religions typically are complex and contradictory, even (“turn the other cheek” and “eye for an eye” don’t exactly jive). But certainly the focus on what happens after you die is in line with actual religions.

There are even Biblical parallels with their mythology, as well. The current Lord Marshal, upon learning of a prophecy about a Furyan that would one day kill him, went to Furya and pretty much wiped out the planet, which is how Riddick ended up in a dumpster with his umbilical cord around his neck. This is a page out of King Herod’s book as he ordered all males two years and under killed when he heard a prophecy about a new king of the Jews being born. These are some serious fanatics.

The dangers of religious fanaticism is the underlying theme of Chronicles. When one group decides to impose their views on the entire universe, life as we know it hangs in the balance. Of course, this has as much to do with power as it does religion, but that’s in keeping with history, as well. Typically, religion has been used by empires as a means to increase their power. That’s certainly the case with the Necromongers. It makes for a surprisingly heavy element in an otherwise fun movie.

What the fuck is the UnderVerse?

The inclusion of the Necromongers definitely adds a deep mthology to the franchise, but it also created a lot of questions, too. There are plenty of things that are kind of glossed over that I can deal with: the quasi-deads that read minds, the seeker things that don’t have noses, the neck torture that turns people into Necromongers (but not exactly slaves, since Vaako, Dame Vaako, the Purifier, and Kyra seem to maintain their independence), the Lord Marshal being half-dead after traveling to the UnderVerse...actually, never mind. I don’t get how most of this shit works.

To be clear, I don’t mind that much, and I still love this movie. But I do feel obligated to bring up some of the more confusing parts of the Necromonger faith, mainly the UnderVerse. I’m sure the quasi-deads and all that other shit are explained somewhere in some DVD special feature or something. And I’m okay with that. Sure, the quasi-deads are barely alive, and that, coupled with the black goo the Necromongers use, makes them telepathic. Fine. But what the fuck is the UnderVerse exactly?

The Elemental describes it as a constellation of new dark stars, which makes it a physical place to travel to. This is reinforced by the fact that the Lord Marshal has been there personally, which is why his soul can travel outside of his body and whatnot. 

But later on, the Elemental tells the Lord Marshal that he will reach the UnderVerse soon, making it sound like a threat of his imminent death. So simply dying takes you there? And Dame Vaako tells Vaako that he’ll never see the UnderVerse because the Lord Marshal will kill them “before our due time.” So if you die when you’re supposed to you will go to the UnderVerse? Then how did the Lord Marshal go there and come back?

Perhaps dying in their “due time” just means when they make it to the physical location of the UnderVerse. I guess I need to stop thinking of it like a Heaven or Hell and think of it more like Hades from Greek mythology. It’s a place where did people end up, but it can also be traveled to by the living. I still want to know so much more about how it all works. 

And I want to know what’s keeping the Necromongers from just going there and leaving everyone else the fuck alone. I get that the Lord Marshal wants to take as many people as possible with him to the UnderVerse, but why? I suppose this can chalked up to religious history, as well. Typically religions want as many converts as possible, and plenty of wars make it clear that people are willing to kill those who don’t believe the same thing they do.

What frustrates me the most about all this UnderVerse stuff is that it was going to be explored further in the sequel. Vin Diesel said in a press conferenceLINK that this was the first of a planned trilogy, and that the second film would have been Riddick traveling to the UnderVerse. He also referenced Lord of the Rings saying that Pitch Black was like The Hobbitt, and this proposed trilogy would be the real story. The director’s cut of Riddick does address a bit of this, but that film overall feels more like a speed bump on the way to the main story, especially since it ends with Riddick staring at what I assume is the entrance to the UnderVerse and the revelation that Vaako is now half-dead like the previous Lord Marshal. Hopefully, Furya picks up right where Riddick left off and they combine the second and third proposed sequels into one: Riddick travels to the UnderVerse to confront Vaako (and find Kyra) and goes to Furya from there. I think Vin Diesel has built up enough box office financial security with the Fast franchise to get to go big with Riddick one more time.

Why Do I Own This?

I love the Riddick movies, this one most of all. As a fan of sci-fi, I love it when a director gets the budget to go all out with his vision, as Twohy has done here. Sure, it’s messy and the mythology is confusing, but you have to respect the ambition. And they truly did a great job with the set design and world building, not to mention the action.

Random Thoughts

I hate that Dench implies that Riddick is evil in the voiceover before the main title. He can be an asshole, and he's definitely a smart ass, but what has he done that makes him evil? I know he's a killer and a convict, but in general he tries to save people he cares about. How is that evil?

I wish Riddick had the long hair and beard the whole movie.

"I'm sure God has his tricks…"

"Threshold! Take us to the threshold!" That might be the lamest chant ever.

I suppose seeing someone's soul ripped out would convince me to sign up with the Necromongers…

Sweet space mullet, Vaako!

"But I will take a piece of him."

I know he's a Furyan or whatever, but how the fuck does Riddick spin that knife like that?

Twohy went from low budget sci-fi horror to big budget Shakespearean (Dame Vaako is clearly Lady Macbeth) hardcore sci-fi, and I love it.

"Kill the Riddick!"

You gotta hand it to those Necromongers, they really cornered the market on black goo technology. 

Dame Vaako calling the Elementals witches and spies makes me think of the Bene Gesserit from Dune.

"Angle of approach: not good."

Sexual stuff with Riddick is odd. He doesn't have sex with anyone and has no love interests (which is refreshing), but the films make a point to show that women at least kind of want to fuck him (the flirting and whatnot with Carolyn in Pitch Black and that weird scene in Chronicles when the female merc straddles and sniffs him while everyone else is asleep).

The titles of these films have become confusing. They tried doing a Star Wars thing by retitling Pitch Black as The Chronicles of Riddick: Pitch Black on a DVD release. But that means The Chronicles of Riddick has no subtitle. And then the third film is just called Riddick. Or is it The Chronicles of Riddick: Riddick? (There are two alternate titles [Rule the Dark and Dead Man Stalking] that would work with the Chronicles theme.) Here's a title suggestion for the new one: The Chronicles of Riddick 4: Chronicle 3 - Riddick Origins: Furya.

Death by a Riddick pelvic thrust...I can't think of a more dishonorable death.

Crematoria has a real Alien³ vibe to it. Probably because Twohy wrote the first version of that film to feature a prison setting (his script wasn't used and he didn't receive a writing credit). 

Also, the planet in Alien³ is called Fiorina, but is known as “Fury.” Hmm...

I like how Crematoria has a band of welcome killers waiting for new prisoners to be lowered in.

I get that Crematoria is a prison, but one of the guards mentioned they get paid by the Guild per prisoner each year. Why set loose the weird giant dog things that try to kill the prisoners then?

A guard does say "They aren't dead if they're still on the books." But doesn't this mysterious Guild ever perform an audit? 

Those knives Riddick takes are cool, but no way he decapitates someone with them, Furyan or not.

Sweet backbreaker, Vaako!

The fuckin' Purifier went out hard. 

It's nice that they label the locations in this movie, but I hope at this point in the movie you know which planet Helion Prime is.

Lord Marshal: "Give me your soul!"

Riddick, as he uppercuts him: "Fuck you!"

And that Kyra, is why people should stay away from Riddick.

“Keep what you kill.” What a dumb fucking rule for any kind of society. What is it with sci-fi cults and this rule? This is what brought down Will Patton in The Postman. As for the Necromongers, I couldn’t help but think of that Futurama episode about the liquid planet where each king was pretty much immediately killed because of the rule. Why wouldn’t people just constantly try to kill the Lord Marshal? I know he has the weird powers now, but all it would take is two people: one to distract the ghost part and the other to kill him (kind of like how Vaako and Riddick did it). In the sequel, this was addressed in a very satisfying way: people constantly try to kill him as Lord Marshal until he is eventually marooned on Not Furya...because of an assassination attempt.

One more thing about this “keep what you kill” rule: what happens if a Lord Marshal dies of natural causes? Never mind, my brain is starting to hurt trying to figure out all this shit.

There are a lot of special features on the DVD, and my favorite is Vin Diesel's guided tour of the sets. Not only does it show just how expensive it must have been to do those sets practically, but you also get to watch Diesel geek out. You can tell he truly loves this shit.

Looking back at the theatrical ending, I like the final image of the ships and everything (to show what Riddick is now in charge of) more than the final image in the director's cut (a close up on Riddick's face). But I am glad they got rid of Vaako and the Elemental's dialogue for the director's cut.

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"Pitch Black" - God, "Alien," and Vin Diesel

*SPOILERS ahead.

The Midwest Film Journal is doing an upcoming series about Vin Diesel movies called All We Do Is Vin in March, and I volunteered to write about Riddick, the third film in the franchise. Before I revisited that film, though, I wanted to watch the first two entries. And since I feel obligated to write about every movie in my collection when I watch it, I decided to publish an article about the first two films leading up to my entry for Riddick. (By the way, I’m saving most of my thoughts on Vin Diesel for the Riddick article; these entries will focus more on David Twohy and plot elements.) So let’s go back twenty years (are you fucking serious?!) to where it all began with Pitch Black.

The Riddick franchise is the Alien series David Twohy never got to make.

Pitch Black owes a lot to the first Alien. Carolyn, a female second-in-command (Radha Mitchell) takes over after her captain dies and becomes stronger over the course of the film as she takes on the leader role (they are also similar in that they are willing to attempt to make cold-blooded logical decisions with Ripley refusing to let the contaminated crew members back in and Carolyn trying to jettison everyone to save herself and the navigator at the beginning). The ship is commercial rather than military or exploratory (much like how the crew of Alien are commonly referred to as “Space Truckers”). And, obviously, they are all being terrorized by an alien species they have never encountered before.  

It’s not an exact remake or anything, but the tone and plenty of plot points make it clear that this film, and its writer/director, is influenced by the iconic film. What makes it even more obvious is the fact that David Twohy wrote a version of Alien³ that went unused. His version was actually the first to feature a prison planet setting, which would eventually factor more into the Pitch Black sequel (more on that when I write about The Chronicles of Riddick next month). 

The similarity to Alien is what I like about Pitch Black. Any time you take (mostly) ordinary workers and put them up against crazy violent aliens, I’m game. And I’m just a fan of stripped down sci-fi, in general. Pitch Black is not a very ambitious movie, and I mean that as a compliment. There’s very little mythology or world-building going on here (which is why the sequel is so surprising since it’s nothing but mythology and world-building) that can sometimes bog down science fiction. Instead, we have a stranded group of survivors who are simply trying to get off a dangerous planet. 

With such a standard horror film set up, it would be easy to dismiss the characters as simply bodies waiting to be killed in increasingly gruesome fashion. That is the case with a lot of the characters, but the core group is quite interesting. With Carolyn, there’s an interesting character arc as she grapples with her attempt to basically kill everyone on board at the beginning of the film. Her attempt to save the survivors by getting them off the planet is her redemption. The fact that she dies is actually a bit surprising, but it’s the best ending for her. She makes the ultimate sacrifice to make up for her sins.

Speaking of sins, the character of Imam (the always great Keith David) provides the moral center of the film, somehow retaining his faith in the face of terrible event after terrible event. I’ll explore his role and the role of religion in general a bit more in the next section, but I will point out that his presence is interesting in regards to Riddick. But it’s actually more interesting when you consider who he largely ignores: Johns.

Bounty hunters, especially in sci-fi, are rarely seen in a positive light (perhaps that’s changing, though, with The Mandalorian), but even by that standard, Johns (Cole Hauser) is a fucking piece of shit. Imam doesn’t seem to be very interested in Johns probably because he sees no redemption is possible for this man. It’s not that he’s mean to Riddick (he kind of should be, since Riddick is a, you know, murderer with a bounty on his head); it’s more about how he treats the rest of the survivors. He seems to kind of like Carolyn, but he still treats her like shit. And everyone else is a nuisance that he would gladly be rid of if it saved his ass. Which is how he eventually gets his much-needed comeuppance: wounded by Riddick and left to be killed by the aliens after he tried to conspire with Riddick to use a survivor as bait. 

Johns is the evil man that he claims Riddick is. Riddick may have the reputation and the weird eyes, but he has more morals than Johns. He might be short with everyone and make comments about how they will die and whatnot, but he still tries to save people. Even when it looks like he is trying to take off and leave the others behind, it seems like it was more of a test to see if Carolyn would leave the others to die to save herself. I don’t believe Riddick was ever going to leave without saving as many people as possible.

Riddick ending up being a basically good guy is almost a weakness of the film. I usually want a character who claims to not give a fuck about anyone but himself to actually not give a fuck about anyone but himself. But since Johns fills that void, I’m okay with Riddick being more of a smartass hero than a true anti-hero. Riddick is still my favorite character in Pitch Black (I just think he’s perfect for the role of a smartass bad guy who’s really a good guy), but this time around I was much more interested in Imam.

Religion in space

Religion is often portrayed in sci-fi, but it’s usually something completely new (like the Force in Star Wars) or a version of an existing religion that has changed dramatically over the years (like how Islam is the basis for the Fremen in Dune). Rarely is it simply the same as it is now. And sure, Imam (his actual name is Abu, but he is referred to mostly as Imam) is looking for “New Mecca” rather than a Mecca on Earth, but other than that, he appears to be a pretty traditional Muslim.

Having Imam be Muslim as opposed to some new made-up religion is in keeping with the general efficiency of the story. Why get bogged down creating a new religion for the film which would require a character to explain it in some boring exposition when you can simply make that character a member of a commonly known religion? It just makes sense. But why have a holy man at all? 

Imam is there to establish that this film is going to tackle the issue of morality. Most films are about morality in one way or another, but for survival films like Pitch Black it is important to focus on it because desperate situations bring out a person’t true nature. Imam is our guide to the rest of the survivors, which is why he focuses so much attention of Carolyn and Riddick and ignores Johns.

Carolyn and Johns are fairly simple. She seeks redemption, and Johns doesn’t care. But the attention to Riddick is interesting, because for a series about a character who is meant to care about no one, the Riddick franchise is surprisingly focused on good and evil. In fact, Riddick is a good person who wishes he wasn’t. He wants to avoid people because he knows he will try to save them (the good ones, at least). This is echoed further in Chronicles when he seems to just be pissed off at Imam bringing him out of hiding because it means he will be forced to try to save people.

What’s great about Imam is that he doesn’t try to push his beliefs on others, but rather observes that God is working through all people all the time. Riddick, unsurprisingly, doesn’t feel this way. When pressed about his belief in God, he tells Imam that he actually does believe, but only because so many terrible things have happened in his life. I find that fascinating. Typically, a person might look at their misfortune as evidence that a higher power doesn’t exist. Riddick sees it as proof. So he does believe in God, and he hates Him. 

Of course, such a statement can be written off as Riddick just wanting to sound like a badass, but I believe him. I think that Riddick believes in God and does hate Him, but not just because of the terrible things that have happened to him, but because of how Riddick is. He wants someone to blame for making him have to be a hero from time to time when he would rather be left alone. Who else can he blame? (At least until the Necromongers show up in the next movie and a bit of backstory about Riddick’s homeworld is revealed.)

Riddick is right to be angry about his nature, but it’s too late to live a normal life now. The circumstances of his existence mean someone will always be hunting him. He can blame it on God or the Necromongers or whoever, but it is what it is. While he comes across as this confident badass, he’s actually a tragic character. Riddick wants to avoid humanity because anyone he gets close to will eventually be in danger. 

The inclusion of religion in a story about a character such as Riddick is actually a bit anti-religious. Here’s a wanted, dangerous man who claims to hate God, yet he’s morally sound. He doesn’t need religion to be a good person. This doesn’t make the Riddick series an endorsement of atheism, but it does make the case that humans can be good despite religion, not because of it. And Pitch Black shows that this is still the case, even in the distant future on different worlds. 

Why Do I Own This?

I love this franchise because I can shut my brain down and enjoy it, or I can overanalyze it and get into religion and morality and shit. I like a franchise that gives me that option.

Random Thoughts 

Riddick looks like he belongs in a Nine Inch Nails video at the beginning of this movie.

I like how dark (no pun intended) this movie is. Not just because the "hero" is an escaped convict, but because of all the death. For example, the other survivor who shows up only to be immediately killed by Zeke (because he thought it was Riddick). And there's also the fact that Carolyn tries to jettison everyone at the beginning.

Forgot about the part when Riddick claims that you can mellow the copper taste of human blood by mixing it with peppermint schnapps. 

I like that Riddick's eyes were done for "20 menthol Kool's." It sucks that this got retconned in the sequel (it’s referenced by Kyra, but it’s revealed that he has these eyes because he’s a Furyan), but I get that they did it to expand the mythology of what was originally supposed to be a one-off character. 

Johns is such a fucking dick. First, yelling "Shut up!" at Carolyn instead of just saying, "Quiet!" And then when they're digging her out of the spire, he says, "Give me your goddamn hand!" Was that necessary?

“C’mown!” Riddick definitely should have busted out his Johns impression more than once.

I like the sound design of the creatures, but the CG budget was definitely lacking. Twohy did a good job of showing the monsters sparingly, though.

I guess Riddick's claim of being found as a baby in a liquor store trash bin is made up too. Or do they have liquor stores on Furya?

The moment when Riddick pops his head in the cave opening with a cheesy grin was a bit too corny for me. It's just not in character for him, but it doesn't ruin the movie or anything.

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