When I finished saw Avatar (2009), I did not even remember the name of the character. But for sure I was impressed by the great determination of the character to accomplish his duty and how dedicated he is to his job.
Col. Quaritch is the main antagonist in the movie, I'm sure you'll remember actually this figure
A thought came on my mind after I watched Avatar. Col. Quaritch is not a pure bad guy at all. He's two dimensional. He could be a hero if he's on a right side. He could be a great protagonist. The fact that he's on the marine side, which in this movie is the bad guy, made him then a super antagonist.
I am left more impressed with Col. Quaricth character than Jake Sully's (Sam Worthington). The colonel's character seems so well embedded in this movie that Stephen Lang (only know this name after I watched Avatar) seems to be born for this role.
The colonel is so committed and dedicated that there are two scenes I still clearly remember. First is when he shoots at the stolen helicopter, he kicks the door, gets out of the room with no oxygen mask on, focused on shooting the helicopter until one of his men gives him a mask. Even after he wears it and breathes, his eyes are still locked on his target!!
Second scene is at the final battle when his ship is shot down, he runs to his robot suit with a fire still burning on his left arm. He simply scrubs his left burning arm with his right palm, putting off the fire, and he did it without even looking! He is only focused on wearing his robot suit.
The movie was played on HBO recently and near those scenes, I purposedly waited just to see the scenes again. The similar determination is shown by Robert Patrick in Terminator 2. When Robert was running chasing Arnold, Edward and Linda Hamilton, he was so focused that he did not look anywhere else when he ran. Not sure if this is a coincidence, but both Terminator and Avatar are directed by James Cameron.
The above Avatar scenes did left impression not only on me, but also to other viewers out there. I once read on internet that someone was so greatly inspired by these scenes that the determination of Col. Quaritch helped him overcome obstacles in his life...! He wrote in his post that he learned to focus on resolving his problems and when he feels down, he keeps his determination like the Colonel did.
What a strong a character it is that it can inspire people.
There's even a fan creating a facebook account dedicated to his character.
This is the colonel having a sip of morning coffee with his eyes locked on his target
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