Kurt Russell is credited with 95 movie roles over a career that started in 1962 and is still going strong today. Since his start in '62, he has been in some outstanding movies. He beat the Soviets in Miracle, he was the strongest man in the world, and played Copper from Fox and the Hound. Along the way he has also had some really phenomenal "world saving" roles. These roles include Escape from New York, The Thing, Stargate, Executive Decision, Solider, and Escape from L.A. Let's break down these movies and rate the save on a scale of 1-10.
World Save #1: 1981. Escape from New York
19 years into Russell's acting career and he finally gets his first save, playing a character by the name of Snake Plissken (what a name, am I right?). The movie takes place in a crime ridden 1988 where Manhattan has been turned into a giant maximum security prison by the United States government; anyone sentenced here gets a life sentence with no chance of parole. Our man Snake calls this prison home after being convicted of trying to rob the federal reserve. The Air Force One is hijacked by terrorists while the President is traveling to a peace summit between the United States, China, and the Soviet Union. The President is taking the secret to using nuclear fusion for power generation to the summit. Snake is recruited to save the President and retrieve the secret; if he is successful he will be given a presidential pardon. To deter Snake from fleeing he is injected with micro-explosives that will explode within 22 hours if the President is not returned. Snake ends up rescuing the President and retrieving the nuclear fusion secret. With his job completed the explosives are deactivated but Snake has one more trick up his sleeve. The President is giving a speech after being saved and is planning on showing a cassette (clearly this movie was made in the 80s because they are still using cassette tapes) with the nuclear fusion secret, however Snake switched the cassettes and destroyed the original. If that tape got in the wrong hands we could have had a nuclear war. Rating: 6/10 Name: 'Snake Save'.World Save #2: 1982. The Thing
One year after his first save, Kurt is right back into saving the world. The Thing is one of the scariest movies of all time, but our man Kurt has nerves of steel. I don't want to ruin the whole movie so I am not going to go into great detail because if you have not seen this one you need to check it out immediately. Seriously, it's kind of a big deal so do your self a favor and don't tell anyone you have never seen it. Just go watch it. Anyway, in The Thing, Russell plays a helicopter pilot sent to Antarctica with a doctor to discover what happened in an American research station. It turns out there is an alien creature that is able to perfectly imitate any kind of organism. This leads to an intensely scary and horrifying 109 minutes of film. Rating: 9/10 Name: 'Scary Ass Save'.World Save #3: 1994. Stargate
In Stargate, the human race is threatened by the ancient Egyptian God, Ra. Russell plays an Air Force special operations airman and is part of a team that discovers a wormhole to another planet (they bring a nuclear bomb with them just in case-remember this it comes in again). When they arrive at the planet they discover a tribe of humans working to mine a mineral from the planet; the humans tell Russell and his team their leader is Ra. After sometime working with the humans on the planet they discover they are unable to talk so they have to use other ways of communication. Through their communication they discover Ra is an alien being who came to Earth in the ancient Egyptian times looking to possess human bodies to prolong his own life. Ra enslaved the humans and brought some of them to the planet to mine the mineral that is used for alien technology. Ra discovers the nuclear bomb Russell's team brought to the planet and he ends up making it 100x more powerful and threatens to send it back to Earth and destroy the planet. Some of the team use a teleportation device to make it back to Earth after a battle with Ra and Russell uses the teleportation device to send the bomb to Ra's ship and blow it up. This is one of the best saves I have seen for a few reasons:
1. Russell uses a wormhole to get to another planet which is awesome2. The humans on this planet cannot speak but Russell and his team figure out a way to communicate with them and learn about their leader Ra
3. Does Russell get scared when he learns that Ra has made his bomb more powerful? Of course not he uses this against Ra and blows his ship up with it
Rating: 9/10 Name: 'Egyptian God Save'
World Save #4: 1996. Executive Decision
Another military role for Russell in Executive Decision, he likes the military roles I assume. A group of terrorists hijack a plane with a U.S. Senator and a stolen Soviet nerve agent on board. U.S. intelligence learn that the terrorists plan to detonate a bomb with the nerve gas over U.S. soil, so who do we send in to save us? Dr. David Grant of course, played by our man Kurt Russell. He takes a team with him to sneak on the plane while in the air using a stealth aircraft, which sounds both ridiculous and awesome at the same time. They find the bomb and deactivate one of the triggers only to realize there is a sleeper agent on the place who has the other trigger. During a firefight on the plane the sleeper agent is sucked out of a broken window, which is extremely convenient for Russell and his team. With the bomb deactivated Russell must now land the plane without causing serious damage on the ground even though he has limited flying experience. Luckily there is a large open field he is able to land the plane in. Is this a "world save"? Maybe but maybe not, the nerve gas could have traveled to the world and caused serious problems. Rating: 5/10 Name: 'Executive Save'.World Save #5: 1996. Escape from LA
The sequel to Escape from New York and we are once again joined by Snake Plissken. (I am going on record to say this has to be the coolest name for a character right? A guy named Snake who wears an eye patch and is total bad ass dude, I don't think it gets any better than that, but anyway back to the movie) When a new President is elected to a life term he decides to ban tobacco, alcohol, drugs, red meat (uh?), profanity, firearms, atheism, freedom of religion and extra-marital sex...wow sounds like a really fun place to live right? Anyone who breaks these laws will be sent to LA which is a prison island after an earthquake split it off from the continent. The President has a remote control which controls a series of satellites that are capable of making any electronic devices on the planet useless. The President tends to use this device on America's enemies and take over the world (first he bans all the good stuff then wants to take over the world? Man this guy has some serious problems it seems like). A leader of a revolutionary group ends up stealing the remote and plans on taking the U.S. back from the President. Our man Snake is back to his old ways of course and is currently being sent to LA for his crimes, however the President intervenes once again. He tells Snake if he gets the remote back he will wipe his record and he will be a free man. Snake agrees to the deal and the President injects him with a virus that will kill him if he does not get the remote within in 7 hours (in the last movie he at least had 22 hours). Snake kills the leader of the revolution and gets the remote back but guess what he does next? He switches the remotes and gives the President a fake, keeping the real one for himself (Snake your name fits you perfectly). Snake uses the real remote ending all technological activity on the planet. The final scene of the movie you can watch below and it is incredible. God Bless Snake Plissken. Rating: 8/10 Name: 'Snake Save 2'.
World Save # 6: 1998. Soldier
In his last and final save Russell plays a futuristic soldier who has been trained since birth for fighting and war. Down the road new soldiers are developed while the old soldiers are used as training dummies for the new more powerful soldiers. Russell ends up escaping the training and flees to another planet that is determined a waste disposal planet. He finds a community of people and since he has no people skills (remember he was trained as a killing machine since birth) he has trouble fitting in. The new more advanced soldier come to the planet and plan to use it as another training ground using the people as targets. Russell has other ideas, he is not as strong as the new warriors but he is smarter and uses his wits to destroy the first batch. The leftover soldiers retreat then come back to the planet with heavy artillery, but they are no match for Russell's skill. The general of the new soldiers decides he is just going to use a nuclear bomb to destroy the planet and Russell. The humans take over the ship and leave the general and his army on the planet. Then the general unknowingly sets off the bomb which destroys the planet him and his army are standing on (not the brightest guy it sounds like). Russell commands the ship full of humans to a new safe planet. Does Russell save Earth? No but this is the future and who knows where we will live then so I consider this a world save. Rating: 6/10 Name: 'Witty Save'
That is a serious set of movies and world saves right there. I had no idea Kurt Russell was such a bad ass dude and has saved us so many times. He has saved us from terrorists, aliens, Egyptian Gods, unruly Presidents, and futuristic robot soldiers, brave Kurt bravo. I think he has a real shot at being the actor we would all want to save us if the world was in serious danger.
Don't forget to check back tomorrow when Duggs unveils his final actor in this series. Be sure to check out the new Facebook and Twitter pages.
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