Answer for Tom Dioguardi

Tom Dioguardi writes:

Hey Bod, got a question for you.My cousin and I are coming up with a NCAA March Madness style tournament for the 65 Most Badass Movie Characters of All-Time. Some examples: Achilles, Hannibal Lecter, James Bond, Lord Voldemort, etc.What's your take on this tournament? And do you have any input? When my cousin and I have created the final bracket with our picks I'll give you a sneak preview.

-The Best

I think this is a great / super dorky idea. I'm kind of suprised it has never been done before, and I am interested to see where you take it. I'm glad you asked me for my input because I do indeed have some very important and, seeing as how I myself am a badass and very knowledgeable on what in fact makes a badass, educated source of factual information.

The first thing I might ask is whether each character can make only one appearance or is it a character throughought his career? By this I mean do you choose each character from a specific movie or over the course of all of their films? For instance, James Bond is a huge badass in Casino Royal, but is not nearly as big of a badass in any movie that Pierce Brosnan was in. So do you pick James Bond in general or James Bond in Casino Royal, and if so can he potentially match up with a James Bond from another film. This is something you definitely have to take in to consideration.

After you get that settled, I think you should set yourself some sort of guidelines for what makes someone a badass. Is it their body count? Is it their skills with numchucks? Is it their hand-to-hand combat skills? Or is it something intangible, something that really has no name but can be seen in their eyes? The list has to have some sort of guidelines in order to be fair.

I'd also like to bring to your attention the fact that Danny Trejo is probably the biggest badass of them all and should make numerous positions in this tournament. Some other characters that I believe should be on the list include the obvious, such as William Wallace, John McClane, Rambo, Ripley, Rocky, Han Solo, Mad Max, Highlander, the Terminator, Sarah Connor, Beatrix Kiddo, Ivan Drago, to other not as obvious badasses like, Dutch, John Matrix, Luc Deveraux, Andrew Scott, Carrie, and Ghost Dog. That's all I can think of for now, but if you want more input don't hesitate to ask. Good luck.