Category 20: Bodyguards

Category 20: Bodyguards

Eric	Richard	Khurram	Derrick
The Terminator	Solid Snake	Lara Croft	Selene
Terminatrix	Jill Valentine	Charlie’s Angels	Mrs. Smith
Claire Redfield	The Secret Service	MacGuyver	Chun Li
Princess Kitana	James Bond	MIB	John McClain

Despite the fact that we all have superhero powers, we all know that if given the choice all of us would rather sit around doing nothing than watching our own backs. For that purpose we have a team of Bodyguards. A bodyguard could not be a superhero, but he or she could be fictional.

Round 1: “Come with me if you want to live”. Eric starts us off with a true beast of a bodyguard, in The Terminator. Designed by SkyNet, this Robotic soldier can mimic human voices, wield any sort of weapon imaginable, take a few hundred bullets to the face and utter catchy phrases like, “Hasta la vista, baby” and “I’ll be back”. What more could you want in a bodyguard? Oh, how about the ability to not be reprogrammed or experience a short circuit so that the guy who was supposed to be protecting you is not now trying to kill you. All in all though, The Terminator is damn near indestructible, so if you can keep his programming straight you are good to go.

My pick was the venerable Solid Snake. A clone of the ultimate soldier, Big Boss, Snake is perhaps the most battle-tested bodyguard on the list. Let’s put aside the fact that Snake has saved the world from nuclear annihilation 4 or 5 times over for a moment, and instead realize that Snake has defeated foes such as Vulcan Raven, Sniper Wolf, Revolver Ocelot, and Psycho Mantis. Not to mention his own brother, Liquid Snake. Now, either he has a thing for slaughtering small deranged animals, or he plans to take on PETA head to head. Either way, I think I’m in good hands. Two potential downfalls. First, unless Snake is fighting some ridiculously named “boss”, he tends to hide from danger rather than fight it. Second, not only is Snake’s body filled with Nano-machines, but he is prematurely aging. That means I’ll be stuck with his whiny-ass replacement Raiden before long. The same guy who ran around naked during the latter parts of MGS2, fighting with one hand while covering himself with his other. Wonderful.

Khurram drafts the biggest example of a “fan service” character in video game history. I could make a veiled comment about Ms. Croft’s ability to wield two massive guns more effectively than most, but since her creator’s haven’t been so subtle about it, neither will I. How Lara Croft manages to aim straight, let alone swing from tree branches without one of her massive cans smacking her in the face is beyond me. So much for realistic physics in video games. But I digress; this is supposed to be about her ability as a bodyguard. Besides the fact that she’d stand out in almost any crowd, making it nearly impossible for her to keep the element of surprise when dealing with potential evil-doers, I think this is a good pick. Speaking of good, or at least funny, pics: Lara and Duke Nuke 'em.

Derrick, continuing his struggles throughout the draft, reaches for Selene, the death dealing, lycan hunting, vampire from the Underworld Series. In many respects, I like this pick since you can never be too sure when all things are going to go to hell and supernatural creatures will emerge on this earth. In that regard, Selene makes an excellent pick since not only is she easy on the eyes, but by the second movie I believe she is killing both vampires and lycans alike. The one worry I would have with her though is the fact that she is a vampire, so unless she is getting Blade-like blood transfusions, she’s going to get hungry eventually. When that time comes, Derrick will certainly not need all of that bad press that tends to come with one of your body guards sucking the blood out of some poor 6 year old girl.

Round 1 Analysis: I think this round goes to The Terminator. I mean, seriously, if you had to have one bodyguard to absolutely protect you, it’d have to The Terminator. Every other character on here has done some bodyguard work before, but they made two movies about The Terminator solely acting as a bodyguard for John Conner, and we know how that turned out. He’s the leader of the Resistance and a whiney 16 year old boy in a surprisingly good TV show.

Round 2: Derrick comes back in Round 2 with another smoking hot badass, Mrs. Smith. We all know she is an assassin by trade, and a damn good one at that. My worry if I’m Derrick is that she very nearly killed her own husband before ultimately turning against her own organization. That raises questions about her loyalty on both ends. I mean, sure you could say she was so dedicated to her mission that she’d be willing to kill her own husband. But at the same time, she tried to kill her own husband! I mean if she’d kill him, why wouldn’t she turn on you? Oh, I know she ultimately didn’t, but then that raises questions about her ability to follow orders. At least if she turns on you, you’ll get to look at something nice before your life ends.

Khurram goes with a trio of good looking women with Charlie’s Angels. Because I value my brain and don’t want it to melt, I thankfully never saw any of these movies. I thought they could’ve picked better women for this movie. Lucy Liu has never done if for me, despite the fact that she’s Asian. Drew Barrymore will always be that little girl from ET, and correct me if I’m wrong, but Cameron Diaz had already lost her “fastball” by then I think. Wasn’t Demi Moore the best looking woman in the second one? All of that being said, you could certainly do worse than having these three protect you from bad guys, Bill Murray, and food. After all, these three ladies look like they believe food is something sent here by the devil and won’t get near it unless, you know, they can throw up after eating it.

When I went to Florida last time, Eric and I had a conversation about what he would do in the unlikely event that Dawn of the Dead went from being science fiction to non-fiction. He came up with the sound plan of holing up in Sam’s Club for as long as he could. I thought this was a great idea. However, I live further away than Eric from my equivalent of a Sam’s Club (Costco), so I’d need some help getting there. Jill Valentine is my answer to that problem. This ex-S.T.A.R.S (Special Tactics and Rescue Squad…creative isn’t it?) member is a certified zombie killer. Not only did she survive the nightmare inducing mansion (and all of its inane puzzles, playing the piano to raise a wall, anyone?) in Resident Evil one, but she got out of Raccoon City before the nuke hit it in RE3, all while having that crazy bastard Nemesis on her trail. She’s good looking and her survival horror instincts have been well honed and tested. Capable of fighting the undead in either a police uniform or tube top and mini-skirt (with that oh so fashionable sweater tied around her waist), if I need to go anywhere in a zombie infested area, I can trust this “Master of Unlocking” to get me where I need to go.

Eric doubles up on the terminators, by closing out round 2 with his selection of The Terminatrix. An updated and upgraded model from the Governator version, this iteration is a sultry, sexy, silicon filled killing machine. The only problem is that the Terminatrix is an inherently evil being, sent by SkyNet to wipe out John Conner and end all man kind. Selecting her is like selecting Hitler (who would be quite the poor selection unless you are planning on protecting yourself from Jews…wait, was that over the line?...oh well). I know, I know, The Terminator was reprogrammed to protect John Conner, but do we know if that can be done to this version? Perhaps Skynet realized its mistake, so it created a version only programmable by SkyNet itself. Until we get a definitive answer, two of Eric’s bodyguards could spend a considerable amount of fighting each other. Or maybe, the Terminatrix will dominate the terminator into making some metal on metal love. Let’s just move on.

Round 2 Analysis: I have to go with either my pick or Khurram’s pick this round, as they are the only ones that don’t have any loyalty issues surrounding them. Ultimately though, I am going to stick with the pick of Jill Valentine. You never know when the first zombie epidemic is going to hit, and when it does, the Baretta and the beret are a dangerous combination. Additionally, The Angels strike me as being kind of stupid though and having three women around, you know there will be some catfighting going on (though some may argue this is a good thing).

Round 3: Eric starts off by stealing my idea and taking Claire Redfield of Resident Evil 2 and Code Veronica. I don’t blame him as she’s a cute biker girl who clearly can hold her own in the event of a zombie outbreak. She does have some features that make her selection different than that of my selection of Jill. First, Claire is just a 19 year old student rather than a member of an elite Special Forces team. Though she eventually joins in the fight to take down Umbrella, one can’t help but be concerned having a mere girl with no training as your primary deterrent against the inevitable zombie invasion. On the positive side though, she spends a considerable amount of time in Resident Evil 2 looking after a 12 year old girl who is scared shitless, (awesome video, just substitute Eric for that blond girl...so touching!) so she should feel right at home watching Eric’s back.

I went with the Secret Service, which in retrospect may not have been the best choice. Sure, there is a swarm of them, and they have those cool wrist walkie-talkies and give everyone codenames (“Anteater is on the move”, “Or Chito has left the bag”), but unlike everyone else on this list we have documented failures of the U.S. secret service. Reagan was shot, Kennedy was killed, and if they had Secret Service during Lincoln’s time, they sure didn’t do a very good job. Plus, I just remembered that they made a movie about a Secret Service agent protecting the president’s son. Since we couldn’t draft groups unless a member of the group was never featured alone, this pick should be disqualified. Considering Sinbad was the Secret Service Agent in question, that is probably a very very good thing.

We’ve already discussed the merits of MacGyver in the skills section of the draft, but this was a good pick by Khurram. If you can’t have the skills, you might as well have the man. MacGyver is great bodyguard to have when you are in a bind because he can build a device to defuse a bomb or incapacitate any enemy out of almost nothing. However, if you are rolling with MacGyver the rest of your team better be packing enough heat to make up for the fact that “Mac” doesn’t believe in guns. Won’t carry one, won’t use one. This could make things particularly difficult in a firefight, but with MacGyver, where there is a will (or two paperclips and a stick of gum), there is a way.

Derrick closes out round 3 with his third woman, thunder thighs herself, Chun Li. I’m not sure how I feel about this selection. I mean, on the one hand, she could level anyone who got near you with her ability to kick someone like 100 times in a span of 5 seconds, and in later iterations of the game, she had mastered a fireball. On the other hand, she strikes me a not so closeted flasher more than anything else. I mean, consider that she doesn’t even wear a skirt or dress, but instead just two long loin cloths. Then she proceeds to execute things like her spinning star kick where she spins through the air upside down, letting those loin cloths just flow freely. Oh, and you know her choice of attire is why all of those idiots stand there long enough to get kicked in the face all those times. This lack of restraint is more indicative of someone who needs help, rather than someone who should be acting as a bodyguard.

Round 3 Analysis: This round was just a mess. I like Eric’s pick (since it was basically my idea), but Khurram’s pick is better. Well its better only if he continues to draft the fire power to make up for MacGuyver’s hatred of the NRA.

Round 4: Yippee Ki Yay Mother Fucker! And with that, Derrick gets us started on round 4, and yes, I checked the spelling of that phrase. John McClain is 100% badass. Not only can he walk around Harlem with a sign that says "I Hate Niggers" on his back and survive, but he can also solve crazy ass puzzles involving gallons of water and a bomb. If ever you are surrounded by terrorists with bad accents, there is only one man you want or need by your side, and McClain is your man. This is an outstanding pick and redeems some of Derrick’s shakier picks. So what if the man has a drinking problem? He’s been Die Harded through Die Hard, Die Harder, Die Hard with a Vengeance (How great would it have been if they called this move, Die Hardest?) and Live Free or Die Hard. The man deserves a drink. Hell, he deserves to be a drunk. Oh, and he has a hot daughter.

We are seeing some tremendous value here in the 4^th round with Khurram taking the Men In Black. So what if Khurram doesn’t have a contingency plan for zombies, he’s the only one who’s got one for aliens. You know you’ll have at least 26 agents capable of protecting you at all times which is a great thing. However, since non-members of MIB aren’t supposed to know of their existence, Khurram might be neuralized after ever time he needs protecting. All in all, it’s well worth it though.

Sticking with movie icons, I went with James Bond. This was a panic pick, since I was faced with either him or Big Black, and considering Big does more eating than he does protecting, I had to go with Bond. No doubt he has the ability to protect me, however, he’d probably be too busy drinking his watered down martini and hitting on Jill Valentine to adequately watch my back. Oh well, at least he’ll come with a cool car and a lot of ridiculous gadgets.

Finally closing out the round and category, Eric goes with Princess Kitana, in what one would have to imagine was a decision to draft the best looking deadliest female available. He was partially successful. Oh, don’t get me wrong, her movie character (played by Talisa Soto) is hot and her in game persona is certainly deadly. There is one small hang up though, and that is the fact that she is currently 10,000 years old. Yikes.

Round 4 Analysis: I really really wish Derrick would have taken John McClain in round 3. It would have easily been the best pick of that crappy round. However, as it stands, I have to go with The Men In Black, it was simply an awesome pick.

Overall Impressions: I really like my first two picks, but my last two selections basically take me out of the running for this category. Derrick was all over the map. Eric’s first pick was the best of the entire category in my opinion, but he overdrafted that series I think and his last two picks left something to be desired. That pretty much just leaves Khurram. I am not sold on the Charlie’s Angel’s pick, but his worst pick is better than anyone else’s worst pick. The MIB pick was almost as good as The Terminator. So, almost by default, the category goes to Khurram, though I am surprised he didn't draft Darkwing Duck to protect him.