Pitch Black (film)

Pitch Black is a 2000 science-fiction film about a group of travellers who find themselves stuck on a hostile planet after their ship crashes.
 * Directed by David Twohy. Written by David Twohy, Jim Wheat and Ken Wheat.

Don't be afraid of the dark. Be afraid of what's in the dark. (taglines)

Richard B. Riddick

 * They say most of your brain shuts down in cryosleep. All but the primitive side... the animal side. No wonder I'm still awake. Transporting me with civilians. Sounded like 40, 40-plus. Heard an Arab voice. Some hoodoo holy man, probably on his way to New Mecca. But what route? What route? Smelled a woman. Sweat, boots, tool belt, leather. Prospector type. Free settlers. And they only take the back roads. And here's my real problem: Mr. Johns, blue-eyed devil. Planning on taking me back to slam... only this time he picked a ghost lane. A long time between stops. A long time for something to go wrong.
 * All you people are so scared of me. Most days, I take that as a compliment. But it ain't me you got to worry about now.
 * Did I kill a few people? Sure. Did I kill Zeke? No. You got the wrong killer.
 * Finally found something worse than me?
 * These people didn't leave. Come on. Whoever got Zeke got them. They're all dead. You don't really think they left with their clothes on hooks... photos on the shelves?
 * You're not afraid of the dark, are you?
 * [to Fry] I guess if it were "trickeration," he'd just "X" me out. He'd kill me. Then again... I am worth twice as much alive. You didn't know that? Your Johns ain't a cop. He's got that nickel-slick badge. And that blue uniform. But he's just a merc. And I'm just a payday. That's why he won't kill me, see? - The creed is greed.
 * I don't truly know what's gonna happen when the lights go out. But I do know once the dying starts... this little psycho-fuck family of ours is gonna rip itself apart.

Carolyn Fry

 * [about the passengers] I'm not gonna die for them!
 * Is this whole planet dead?

William J. Johns

 * Why don't you shut up for two seconds and let me come up with a plan that doesn't involve mass suicide?
 * What's to be afraid of? My life's just a steaming pile of meaningless shit anyhow. So I say, "Mush on."
 * The verdict's in. The light moves forward.

Abu "Imam" al-Walid

 * I had the impression from the model... the two planets were moving as one...and there would be a lasting darkness.
 * They're afraid of our light. That means we don't have to be afraid of them.

Paris P. Ogilvie

 * It's amazing how you can do without the necessities of life provided you have the little luxuries.
 * People, just a suggestion. Perhaps you should flee!
 * I was supposed to die in France. I never ever saw France.

Dialogue

 * Jack: [sneaking up on Ogilvie] He'd probably get you right here... under the jaw, and you'd never even hear him coming. Because that's how good he is.
 * Paris P. Ogilvie: Did you run away from your parents or did they run away from you?


 * Jack: Where the hell can I get eyes like that?
 * Richard B. Riddick: Gotta kill a few people.
 * Jack: Okay. I can do it.
 * Richard B. Riddick: Then you gotta get sent to a slam where they say you'll never see daylight again. You dig up a doctor and you pay him 20 menthol Kools... to do a surgical shine job on your eyeballs.
 * Jack: So you can see who's sneaking up on you in the dark?
 * Richard B. Riddick: Exactly.


 * William J. Johns: [freeing Riddick] I want you to remember this moment. The way it could have gone and didn't. Here.
 * [Riddick suddenly grabs Johns' shotgun off him and aims it]
 * William J. Johns: Take it easy...
 * Richard B. Riddick: Fuck you!
 * William J. Johns: Do we have a deal?
 * Richard B. Riddick: [after a pause, Riddick hands the shotgun back] "I want you to remember this moment."


 * [Ogilvie drops a bottle of wine. He runs to fetch it, but just as he reaches out, it is picked up by Riddick].
 * Paris P. Ogilvie: [extending his hand] Paris P. Ogilvie. Antiquities dealer. Entrepreneur.
 * Richard B. Riddick: [grinning, taking his hand] Richard B. Riddick. Escaped convict. Murderer.


 * Hassan: Captain? Captain?!
 * Carolyn Fry: I'm not your fucking captain.


 * Richard B. Riddick: Looks clear.
 * [A creature lunges out and almost decapitates Johns before taking flight into the dark]
 * William J. Johns: I thought you said it was CLEAR!
 * Richard B. Riddick: I said, it looks clear!
 * William J. Johns: Well what does it look like now?
 * Richard B. Riddick: &hellip; Looks clear.


 * Riddick: [Riddick shuts off the ship's engines] We can't leave.
 * Jack: [panicked as creatures approach the ship] Why not?!
 * Riddick: Without saying "goodnight". [fires the ship's engines, incinerating the creatures behind it as it takes off]


 * Imam: Just because you do not believe in God, Mr. Riddick, does not mean God does not believe in you–
 * Riddick: You think someone could spend half their life in a slam with a horse bit in their mouth and not believe? You think he could start out in some &hellip; liquor store trash bin with an umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and not believe in God? You got it all wrong, holy man. I absolutely believe in God, and I absolutely hate the fucker.


 * [A creature is heard invading the shipwreck]
 * Riddick: Come on, Johns. You've got the big gauge.
 * Johns: I'd rather piss glass. Why don't you go in and check?


 * Johns: Doctors decide who lives and dies on the battlefield. It's called Triage.
 * Riddick: Kept calling it murder when I did it.


 * Jack: We're gonna lose everybody out here. We should've stayed at the ship.
 * Riddick: He died fast, and if we have any choice about it, that's the way we should all go out. Don't you cry for Johns. Don't you dare.


 * [Carolyn came back to the ship where Riddick already was]
 * Riddick: Strong survival instinct. I admire that in a woman.
 * Carolyn: I promised them that we would go back with more light.
 * Riddick: Did you?
 * Carolyn: What? Are you afraid?
 * Riddick: (laughs) Me afraid?
 * Carolyn: Come on, Riddick. There's gotta be some part of you that wants to rejoin the human race.
 * Riddick: Truthfully, I wouldn't know how.
 * Carolyn: Well, then just give me more light for them, and I'll go back by myself.
 * Riddick: Okay.
 * [Riddick gives her light]
 * Riddick: There you go.
 * Carolyn: Please, just come with me.
 * Riddick: I got a better idea. Come with me.
 * Carolyn: You're fucking with me! I know you are!
 * Riddick: You know I am? You don't know anything about me. I will leave you here. Step inside.
 * Carolyn: I can't.
 * Riddick: Sure, you can.
 * Carolyn: I can't.
 * Riddick: Here. I'll make it easy on you. [he lends her his hand] Take my hand. Come on. Come on &hellip; look. No one's gonna blame you. Save yourself, Carolyn.
 * Carolyn: I &hellip;
 * Riddick: Come on &hellip; come on &hellip; [she's getting to the ship] That's it. That's it. Good girl.
 * [She suddenly hears a creature, bringing back memories of the people she leaves, and changes her mind]
 * Carolyn: Now, you! You listen to me! I am the captain of this ship. And I am not leaving anyone on this rock with those fucking things, even if it means –
 * [Riddick brings the knife to her throat]
 * Carolyn: Get that thing off my neck.
 * Riddick: Shut up! You'd die for them?
 * Carolyn: I would try for them.
 * Riddick: You didn't answer me.
 * Carolyn: Yes, I would, Riddick. I would – I would die for them.
 * Riddick: (pauses) ...Interesting.


 * [Carolyn is taken by a creature when she was helping Riddick]
 * Riddick: Not for me! [weakly] Not for me!


 * Imam: Where's Johns?
 * Riddick: Which half?

About Pitch Black (film)

 * Pitch Black filmed in forbidding winter conditions in the isolated Australian town of Coober Pedy. "You start to feel quite fragile even though you're playing these cyberbabes. You just call on whatever strength you can to portray that sort of role," she says. Especially when conditions were far from movie-star glamour. "The crew comes over and says 'I'm really sorry, but I have to spray you with water now to make it look like you're sweating,' and they quickly spritz you and run for the hills because they're afraid you're going to murder their families!" Black says, chuckling. "It's character-building. I had a whole street of characters!"
 * Claudia Black in "Claudia Black Talks About Pitch Black" by Scott Chitwood, (10 Feb 2000).
 * Q: Okay, Pitch Black. What's up with your eyes? Were you guys doing contacts or was that CGI'd in?
 * A: "A little bit of both. Certain shots in the film, like if [my character] Riddick...turned a certain way, they would accent a moment in that sequence and punch up the effect a little bit--add a little light in the eyes. For the most part, it was just contacts. The contacts were prototypes, they had never been tested or worn before. So it felt like--imagine going to your father's 1960 Plymouth, taking the hubcaps off, painting them blue and sticking them in your eyes. They had to fly out an optometrist from three hours away on the first day because they couldn't get 'em out. And they were like, 'What the--?' And at the end of that, I had to go to the hospital. They were like, 'We should take you to the hospital.' I was like, 'Why? What are you--?' 'Because there's a little scratch, we have to make sure everything's okay, we have to go to the hospital.' It was a grueling experience having to wear those contacts. Because as an actor, you rely so heavily on your eyes. Your eyes are a great sort of resource for communication of thoughts and emotion, and you're stripped of that, you have to use other things you haven't used before. You develop mannerisms, and you really rely on creating that inner emotion and hoping that comes through. And the contacts did that, the goggles did that. I think a large decision was made in creating this character in terms of the process and that was to rely on not showing his emotion and hoping that somehow showed his emotions, that that would somehow give you an idea of what's going on."


 * Vin Diesel in "Interview With Vin Diesel on Pitch Black" by Scott Chitwood, (10 Feb 2000).
 * The spoiler commences: Yes, night does fall on the planet, every once in a long while when all three suns are in eclipse. I am not sure what complex geometries of space and trajectory are necessary for a planet to exist in a three-star system and somehow manage to maintain any continuity of climate and temperature, but never mind: What is maybe more difficult to accept is that it would develop a life form that appears only in the dark. Since sunlight is the source of heat and energy, Darwinian principles would seem severely challenged by the task of evolving living things that hibernate for 22 years between eclipses. How does a thing that lives in the dark evolve in a planet where it is almost always daytime? This is not the kind of question you're supposed to ask about "Pitch Black," but I'd rather have the answer than any 45 minutes of this movie. The story also poses the problem (less challenging from a Darwinian view, to be sure) of whether the Diesel character will cooperate with his species mates or behave entirely like a selfish gene. Whether this happens or not I leave it to you to discover. By the end of the movie, however, I was wondering if the trip had been necessary; most of the plot could be ported into a Western or a swashbuckler with little alteration.
 * Roger Ebert, “Pitch Black”, Chicago Sun-Times, (February 18, 2000).
 * With his elephantine glare and trapezius muscles that could support a Mack truck, Vin Diesel, who appears in two films opening today, is definitely the flavor of the movie weekend. In The Boiler Room he is a hulking illegal stock trader who would be right at home in the world of The Sopranos. And in the snazzily atmospheric sci-fi horror film Pitch Black he is Riddick, a fiendishly grinning murderer with a nose for menstrual blood. In the movie's opening scenes, in which Riddick tears off his manacles, he suggests a bone-crushing hybrid of Hannibal Lecter, Harry Houdini and Hulk Hogan stomping out of a leather fetishist's private dungeon. But in both roles Mr. Diesel finds ways to insinuate glints of humor, intelligence and even a grudging sweetness. As styles of macho, shaved-headed antihero go, he is a new variation on something familiar. Think of Telly Savalas as a hip-hop thug, and you'll get the idea.
 * But in evoking a fear of darkness and of shrieking batlike things slicing at you when the lights go out, the movie shrewdly taps into the lurking primal terrors of anyone who ever had to sleep with a night light. If Pitch Black goes where The Blair Witch Project has gone before, it has millions of dollars at its disposal to give that unnamable menace a shape as well as a sound.
 * One thing Pitch Black can't do is begin to create the engulfing sense of total darkness that its title promises. Even when the survivors' lights begin to fail (among the unforeseen meteorological events on this supposedly parched planet is an unexpected cloudburst), the humans are clearly visible. Still, as their lights begin to flicker, and the ravenous creatures gather on the edge of darkness, you have an ominous sense of what the world must have been like before electric light gave us the illusion of rationality, a time when our demons couldn't be instantly banished with the flick of a switch.
 * Stephen Holdenfeb, "FILM REVIEW; Dark and Dismal Doings on a Planet With Three Suns", (Feb. 18, 2000).
 * Pitch Black was made for $23 million, which is about how much Diesel demands per flick these days. While it's debatable whether he deserves it, what isn't debatable is that director David Twohy got his money's worth. The mysterious planet (in reality, the Australian desert) had a distinct, spooky look. The film owed a few debts to Aliens, but was still stylish enough that people didn't mind. The $39 million box office for the film was impressive, given its moderate release (1,800 theaters, as opposed to 4,100 for Spider-Man) and R rating.
 * Andy Patrizio, "An Interview With David Twohy", IGN, (2 Dec 2004).
 * The script called for a hot arid desolate world; and there aren't many places in the world where you can find a place with 360 degrees of no tree's no telephone poles phones, no power lines; and we found that nothingness in the the middle of your outback.
 * David Twohy "David Twohy and Vin Diesel Interview", SBS, (2000).

Taglines

 * Fight Evil With Evil.
 * There's A New Reason To Be Afraid Of The Dark.
 * Don't be afraid of the dark. Be afraid of what's in the dark.
 * Are you afraid of the dark? You will be …
 * It's getting Dark.
 * There's only one rule: Stay in the light.
 * A new species of terror.

Cast

 * Vin Diesel – Richard B. Riddick
 * Radha Mitchell – Carolyn Fry
 * Cole Hauser – William J. Johns
 * Keith David – Abu "Imam" al-Walid
 * Lewis Fitz-Gerald – Paris P. Ogilvie
 * Claudia Black – Sharon "Shazza" Montgomery
 * Rhiana Griffith – Jack/Jackie
 * John Moore – John "Zeke" Ezekiel
 * Simon Burke – Greg Owens