Curious to know the gender of the Reacher fans commenting in this thread. Cis male here.
The books have brief mentions of Reacher’s moral code: protect the weak from those who prey on them is about it, if he gets arsed enough to care. Child has said he modeled Reacher on Travis McGee, the errant knight with a rusty lance. Reacher doesn’t go into monologues/rants the way McGee does, but there is an attempt to have him act in accordance with a code. It’s the professional wrestling code where the face plays by the rules until the heel pulls a dirty trick and then all rules are set aside so good can triumph. It’s about exciting simple passions so you tune in next week and buy the next book in the series, not Kant.
No, being an outlaw is not the same as being an antihero.
If Robin Hood stole from the rich to feed his growing drug addiction, sexually abused his merry men, and also happened to feed the children and widows of Sherwood, then, yes, he might also be an antihero.
Basically, they may do the “right” thing but it will often be for self-serving purposes and/or will buck conventional morality. Hence, the classic Robin Hood would be a traditional hero. Dirty Harry would not. Note there is a trend towards anti-heroes as protagonists in recent decades. A Robin Hood film made today could well feature an anti-hero.
Yay!
Only objection to that article - it describes Reacher as liking punching people in the face. Any fan would know that he prefers elbows to the face/head over fists!
I hadn’t known LC intentionally modeled Reacher after Travis McGee. Had long wondered who would win between the 2. Long figured those 2 series pretty much typified “guy” lit.
And apparently [url=https://screenrant.com/reacher-lee-child-cameo-finale/]
LC’s cameo[.url] IS in the final diner scene.
“Your honor, some strange guy in a suit tied me up 40 floors up with this money. I was just walking down the street.”
“Sure buddy. When Spiderman testifies, we’ll…what’s that? Superheroes don’t go to court? Case dismissed!”
Yes, in the books Reacher does prefer elbows over fists. But in the show it’s appeared to me that TV Reacher uses his fists plenty, and I don’t remember seeing too many, if any, elbow strikes. So you can’t really fault the article, which is describing the show, not the books.
And I can’t really fault the show either, because when you’re choreographing a fight scene, it’s probably not nearly as dramatic-looking to see a guy elbowing his enemies into submission.
That’s odd. As I recall the fight scenes, Reacher used his elbows quite a bit.
Well, my criticism was somewhat tongue in cheek.
One reason I favored the initial prison bathroom scene was the use of elbows - very useful in close quarters. That was IMO a pretty realistic scene.
One of the “schools” of MA I used to practice/teach had the motto “HKE” - which stood for headbutts, knees, and elbows.
I guess he did then, as Dinsdale points out here. He does punch a lot though too:
So was my response meant to be
Now I’ve got “headbutts, elbows, knees and toes, knees and toes” stuck in my head
Hopefully only figuratively.
This is embarrassing, but all I really know about Robin Hood is the “steal from the rich, give to the poor line” and a couple of his men’s names. I’ve never read the book or seen a movie so I really can’t say because I don’t know any details.
I will say that an anti-hero doesn’t have to be evil. They are just a different kind of protagonist than the usual good guy that shoots the gun out of the bad guys hand. I find them much more interesting than Matt Dillon or the Lone Ranger. Just as I find Batman more interesting than Superman and Wolverine is more interesting than Cyclops.
Love the title of the article! I thought it was good but this is more than I expected:
More importantly, people are watching the show. Per Deadline , Reacher ranks among Amazon’s top five most-watched shows ever in the U.S. and around the globe over a 24-hour period. Amazon also says that it’s one of the streamer’s highest-rated original series ever.
Cis male also. I think Reacher is similar to McGee, but I admit I love all the McGee books and everything else MacDonald wrote. I may have made it thru 10 Reacher books when I gave up because of the repetitive nature most series books have. If I had to choose, the McGee books would win every time.
I have to say that this Reacher series is about 1000 times better than any Travis McGee movie I ever saw.
You obviously are not from NY. Superheroes all over the place here, we have special laws. That guy’s going to superhero court and then to prison.
Spiderman leaves bad guys webbed up on the sides of buildings and hanging off cranes with webbing that degrades in about an hour or so. You can’t convince me that NYPD is able to spot and recover all those criminals within those 60 minutes, and that no small number of them have plummeted to their deaths.
Trust me, it’s been working for decades. Spidey has designated drop off points for criminals. Police drive by every hour or so to pick up the webbed up criminals and haul them to superhero court. Easy-peasy. I’ve lived in NY for over 20 years and I’ve yet to have a criminal drop out of the sky on my head. Except for that whole Gwen Stacy thing he’s got a pretty good record.
This isn’t the movies - I had a chance to take them out and I did.
Comparison to the books:
Neaghy was brought in too early. She doesn’t come on to the scene until book 4 or 5.
What was consistent was Reacher using guns to kill people. In the books he uses firearms in the first two books, but after that, it is usually hand to hand combat for his killing.
I’ve heard that Netflix has already begun discussion for a season 2 with the creators.
I also liked that young Reacher is also Will Robinson.
You just had to go there, didn’t you.
Like a reverse Amazon drop box.
“You have criminals to pick up, at SPIDERBITE”
“You have two criminals to pick up at MULTIVERSE”
Note, you have two hours to claim your criminals.
Yep, a great line.
I thought I had read about 10 of the books, but I cannot remember her at all. Either I didn’t get that far or she was totally forgettable to me.
No use trying to hide these little mishaps, they always end up on twitter anyway. Best to get ahead of the stories.
Exactly!
Could someone refresh my memory about Reacher’s military experience? My thoughts were that his career was pretty much all in the Military Police. Did he have any other special training beyond Basic and AIT?
He is a competent, quite skilled, marksman, but, most significantly, the Army employs him to eliminate people (spies, terrorists, criminals, whoever), off the books:
He does not like running, and is a bad driver.
It’s even easier now in the digital age- he just sends a digital photo of the webbed-up bad guys to the cops along with a GPS marker on a map.