Mmmm… Emma Peel…
That certainly helps with his preparatory skills, does it not?
I just thought of another one: Neo from The Matrix is obviously supposed to be very intelligent, despite any failings of Keanu Reeves in portraying that. For that matter, Trinity and Morpheus were smart, too. But I suppose it’s very arguable that the Machines were still smarter than any of them.
How about Private Joker from Full Metal Jacket?
Of course, Full Metal Jacket is a movie where it’s tricky deciding who exactly the “villian” is. I’m not sure if it meets the requirements of the OP.
In Star Trek 2, Kirk may have been a boy from Iowa and Khan a genetic superman who was supposed to be very intelligent, but Kirk was able to outsmart Khan on several occasions. His only real mistake was being taken by suprise during the intial encounter with reliant.
Huh. How did I miss that even on the re-read?
Ooh, I like this thread. It’s as much fun trying to think why movies do this (everyone likes to see a smart-aleck get his comeuppance? more fun to see the underdog win? unconscious anti-intellectualism in Hollywood?) as it is to think of good counter-examples…
How about Richard Dreyfuss’s character in Jaws? I know he was only one of the 3 main characters but he was educated & had a helluva good tiff with Robert Shaw’s hard-drinking tough-guy character.
Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now?
Ed Norton in Fight Club?
Narrator: Tyler, you are by far the most interesting single-serving friend I’ve ever met… see I have this thing: everything on a plane is single-serving…
Tyler Durden: Oh I get it, it’s very clever.
Narrator: Thank you.
Tyler Durden: How’s that working out for you?
Narrator: What?
Tyler Durden: Being clever.
Narrator: Great.
Tyler Durden: Keep it up then… Right up.
Let’s not forget that in the TV episode that originally introduced Khan (“Space Seed”), Khan referenced Milton, but it was Kirk who knew the passage.
And re: Nick Charles from the Thin Man. Does he really count in the category of “action movie hero?” Because if he does, I have to nominate Charlie Chan.
Ack, yes, of course, Christopher Lloyd. Thanks, msmith537. I did know that! :smack:
Despite his famous “Khan” monologue*, I wouldn’t call Kirk a completely uncultured oaf: he quoted DH Lawrence, for instance, was seen reading Dickens, and occasionally popped off with the literary reference (“I’m a great one for rushing in where angels fear to tread”).
“Tonight for my audition I’m going to be reading the ‘Khan’ monologue from Star Trek II, and I’ll be reading ‘Chewbacca’ in ‘A New Hope.’ I’ll be reading Chewbacca first.”
I think people are confusing a couple of things here. There’s a diference between being “intelligent” and “educated” and being “intellectual”. For example, Indiana Jones is obviously educated and smart. Crighton from Farscape is educated and smart (although his companions think he’s a moron) by Earth standards. But neither are very “intellectual”. They don’t speak with “prestige” accents (English, French, German). They aren’t high ranking military commanders or businessmen. They were not raised in high society. They are regular guys who happen to also be very smart in their field. It’s a lot diferent than being a smug, condescending know-it-all (think Ivan Rickman in Die Hard).
No. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
First, Susan Silverman is not an English professor. When he meets her (God Save the Child) she’s a high school guidance counselor. As the series progresses, she earns her doctorate in psychchology and embarks on a career as a therapist. She sometimes recognizes Spenser’s quotations, but often not.
Secondly, Spenser’s love for literature vastly pre-dates his acquaintance with Susan. In Backstory, Spenser tells Paul and Susan about a high-school love of his, and how he used to send her notes in which he’d quote poetry.
- Rick
Or better yet, try Christopher Plummer, although Lloyd would have brought an interesting take to the role, I would guess.
Well, :smack: myself, I guess. Wrong movie, wrong Klingon, wrong Christopher.
A couple -
Jason Bourne from the Borne novels and films is super-smart although most of his enemys are equally smart as him.
Sam (De Niro) & Vincent (Jean Reno) in Ronin are both very intelligent and sophisticated.
None of the characters in those two examples go around spouting Shakespeare – they don’t appear pompous at all; but is going around quoting literature really a mark of intelligence and sophistication, or rather a sign of pretension and arrogance. That is an important aspect of the films in question. Its not that the audience doesn’t like smart and sophistciated people - its that everybody hates pompous jackasses who go around acting like they are better than everybody else. Its nice to see that type of person get thrown off a building by a cowboy (or a street cop, taxi driver, soldier, cook, etc.) every now and then.
As for Nick from The Thin Man, he is very intelligent even though he enjoys partying and spending his wife’s money. He is so sharp that he is able to outsmart everybody from the villans to the police – and he does it so causually that it elevates him the status of an intellectual giant compared to the other characters in the films. The villans are pretty stupid in the Thin Man films but the police are even stupider. Another good thread topic could be film with law enforcement who are so inept that an outsider is forced to solve the crime.
Good point. Now, who will nominate a smug, condescending know-it-all action movie hero?
James Bond comes close - he reeks of overconfidence, swagger, and pretension; and he shows almost no intellectual sensitivity to all of the killing he does, and shows no emotional sensitvity in the way he treats women. He always plays the know-it-all against his superiors and coworkers at MI6.
The latest line of Bond films has begun to address these things. In Goldeneye, Janus askes Bond if the screams from all the people he has killed are drowned out by the vodka martinis, and Zukovsky and his cronies make fun of Bond for ordering his martinis “shaken but not stirred.” Oddly enough Zukovsky comes across as more likeable than Bond in Goldeneye and World is not Enough, too bad they killed him off.
It seems more common (even preferred) to have smug heros in the Crime/Mystery genre: Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Nero Wolfe, etc.
Oh dear. So an intellectual is necessarily someone who speaks with a prestige accent, is a military officer or business tycoon, is raised in high society, and is a smug, condescending know-it-all?
Ye gods. I’ve been accused of being a smug, condescending know-it-all, but I don’t qualify on any of your other criteria. Guess I have to turn in my shiny intellectual’s badge. I think you’ve confused “intellectual” with “snob”.
I’ll grant that a great many intellectuals are snobs (though this is by no means limited to the upper social/economic class). But even if they do frequently go hand-in-hand, they are not the same. I’ve known plenty of intellectuals without a snobbish bone in their bodies, and I’ve also known plenty of snobs who could never be described as intellectual. Take Paris Hilton, for example.
An intellectual is someone whose interests are dominated by the world of ideas, art, and/or academia, sometimes to the exclusion of more mundane matters. What is more, they are passionate about these interests, not merely involved with them in a day-job sort of way. They very well may have day jobs not associated with their fields of interest, and may look, talk and act like “regular” people. Intellect is purely internal.
Indiana Jones definitely qualifies as an intellectual. He travels the globe, overcoming vengeful natives, evil rivals, cunning traps, feminine wiles, the perils of the wild, secret fraternities, snakes, rats, and insects. And for what? To recover some priceless artifact – and put it in a museum for the collective enlightenment of mankind. Not for glory. Not for fame. Not for money. Not even to get laid. He’s passionate about antiquity for its own sake. Now THAT’S an intellectual.
I got one: Zorro. He’s a goddamned Spanish hidalgo in “real” life.
Here’s one for debate: The Rock in The Rundown. Sure, he’s a hired goon for a rich mobster-type, but he’s studying to become a chef and open a restaurant, he outsmarts both Christopher Walken AND his boss, and he’s not the typical “shoot it until it stops moving” action hero.
And turnabout is fair play: it’s Alan Rickman in Die Hard. I don’t know an Ivan Rickman—are you thinking of Ivan Reitman?