I’m going by the Arnold heyday – his movies in the 80s and 90s that I’ve seen and can remember in detail. Your definition of “badassery” may vary, but for the purposes of this first post I’ll be ranking them by who I would think would win in unarmed combat on a neutral field:
The Terminator
Conan
John Matrix (from Commando)
Dutch (from Predator)
Jack Slater (from Last Action Hero)
Harry Tasker (from True Lies)
Ben Richards (from Running Man)
Quaid (from Total Recall)
Kimble (from Kindegarten Cop)
and lastly – Julius Benedict (from Twins)
Feel free to include any Arnold movies and characters that you like, and rank them on any criteria you like.
DQs
Never saw Commando or Conan.
Leave out Terminator, he’s a machine.
Jack Slater, the script makes him preordained to win.
Dutch(beats an alien stronger and better equipped)
Harry Tasker-Cool and competant, multi-skilled
Quaid-Secret agent, originally ruthless, prefers undercover identity.
John Kruger-pretty average agent
Ben Richards-Ordinary person thrust into the ultimate survival situation.
Kimble-Ordinary cop film, shows some competency at comedy
Benedict-raised to be a pacifist, has some combat skills but really only uses them to defuse the situation, not really to achieve total destruction.
Agree about Hesse-How can you be bad -ass and pregnant?
There’s nothing a Terminator can do against a God, and “The Villain” takes place in a cartoon universe for all practical purposes, so there’s nothing he can do against “Our Hero”
Does anyone remember the prank calls that were floating around the internet in the early 2000s that used clips from Arnold’s John Kimble character from Kindergarten Cop? I was in my late teens/early 20s so my humor may have been skewed but I remember laughing a lot.
How can it not be John Matrix, based on the absurd things he managed to do in the movie?[ul][li]Smells the bad guys coming[/li][li]Jumps out of an airplane at takeoff speed, lands in the marsh, is not injured[/li][li]Throws off something like twelve guys that have fat raided him in the Mall[/li][li]Rips bolted seats out of a Sunbeam Alpine[/li][li]Holds bad guy over a cliff one handed with his arm extended[/li][li]Picks up Bill Duke like a tin can and tosses him through one of those thick glass brick shower walls, also walls between hotel rooms. (He eats Green Berets for breakfast; was hungry)[/li][li]Murders the shit out of about 200 soldiers, including slicing the top of two guys’ heads off with circular saw blades thrown like Frisbees[/li][li] Picks up a blunt iron pipe and throws it like a giant dart through the bad guy’s body with such force that it punctures another pipe behind him so that steam can escape. “Let off some steam, Bennett!”[/li][/ul]
I agree with some others. The Terminator shouldn’t be on the list. As a machine, he lacks the appropriate badass attitude, and the machine muscles are kinda cheating at badassness too.
In the first Terminator movie, when confronted about the smell or noise or something in a hotel, you see the list of responses available on his/its internal screen. From “Sorry”, to “Haha”, and others. He scrolls down to “FUCK OFF!”