The NCAA basketball tournaments are less than a month away. Because it’s obviously never been done before, HitFix is going to host its own tournament, but this battle won’t take place between teams on Tobacco Road. We’ve got something more exciting in mind. In our competition, the greatest Heroes from the worlds of television and movies will face off versus the greatest Villains.
The committee is currently mulling over the brackets, but we need your help. There are six characters who some would consider anti-heroes, but we know then need to part of the battle royale. Do they fall in the Heroes bracket or the Villains bracket?
You decide. You have 48 hours. Choose wisely.
Halloween, 1981. Chattanooga, Tennessee.
An eleven-year-old kid spent weeks putting together a meticulously detailed costume with an eyepatch, guns, sleeveless shirt, and a leather jacket, and headed out with three of his friends to make the house-to-house rounds in a suburban neighborhood called Mountain Shadows. He was thrilled to be dressed as Snake Plissken, the main character in John Carpenter’s “Escape From New York,” and thrilled to see people’s reactions to the costume.
Every house he went to, the conversation went like this.
“Trick or treat!”
“Oh, wow, look at you guys. Who are you supposed to be? Are you Indiana Jones?”
“No. I’m Snake Plissken.”
“Who’s that?”
“He’s from ‘Escape From New York.'”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a movie about a guy who has to rescue the President’s daughter from Manhattan, which has been turned into a prison.”
“Really? Because with that jacket on, you look like Indiana Jones.”
By the 20th house of the evening, the eyepatch was gone and a quick trip home to pick up a bullwhip resulted in a modified costume and one seriously irritated eleven-year-old version of me. I was enormously frustrated that none of the adults in my neighborhood seemed to know who Snake Plissken was. This was one of those early moments when I realized that I wasn’t on the same page as everyone else, and that maybe my taste didn’t exactly mesh with the mainstream.
Over time, though, Snake Plissken has become an icon, and while the sequel, “Escape From LA” was an exercise in frustration for writer/director John Carpenter, it still featured some very fun moments as Kurt Russell stepped back into the character. There have been threats of a remake for years now, but so far, no one’s managed to figure it out, and certainly no one has shown up who seems worth of slipping on the eyepatch to play the part, especially not when Kurt Russell is still one of the coolest dudes in movies.
One of the things that is enjoyable about the character is that while he may do some good things, he has a remarkable disdain for authority, and he does everything he can to get out of saving anyone. He is basically just interested in saving his own skin until he gets backed into a corner, and even then, he makes some choices that are questionable. He essentially destroys the world at the end of the second film.
So we put the question to you… is Snake Plissken a hero or a villain? Once we’ve got these questions answered, we’ll start building out our final brackets for what we hope is going to be a very fun way to spend March.
VOTE NOW, BELOW!
See also…
Heroes vs. Villains: Where does ‘Breaking Bad’s’ Walter White fall?
Heroes vs. Villains: Where does Michael Corleone from ‘The Godfather’ fall?
Heroes vs. Villains: Where does Travis Bickle from ‘Taxi Driver’ fall?
Heroes vs. Villains: Where does Faith from ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer’ and ‘Angel’ fall?
Heroes vs. Villains: Where does Batman foe Catwoman fall?