Complex messiahs: The 12 greatest sci-fi saviors from film and TV

Technically, John Connor was introduced in the first Terminator film back in 1984, as humanity’s greatest hope in a future war with machines. But most of that movie took place before he was even born (that was kind of the whole point). We wouldn’t get to really meet John himself until 1991, as a whiny kid (Edward Furlong) who doesn’t believe his mother’s ramblings about a killer robot from the future. He figures out pretty quickly that Sarah (Linda Hamilton) is perfectly sane when those robots (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Robert Patrick) come for him again, but it still takes him some time—and a few more movies, plus a TV show—to accept his destiny as a messianic leader.

In the first episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Commander Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) visits the planet Bajor shortly after he’s assigned to the space station in the show’s title. There, he meets a Bajoran spiritual leader who informs him he is the “Emissary of the Prophets.” The Prophets are actually a race of non-corporal entities who live inside a stable wormhole, revered as gods by the Bajoran people. Sisko doesn’t want the responsibility at first. Like many chosen ones, he initially refuses the call. Over time, though, he learns that he was literally born for the job, and comes to accept his destiny.

Daniel Jackson was first introduced in the film Stargate and originally played by James Spader, but it wasn’t until the spinoff TV series, in which Michael Shanks took over the role, that the lore surrounding him got really deep. Daniel died and came back so many times during the show’s decade-long run that it became a running joke both on and off-screen. A talented linguist and archeologist, he’s the one who deciphers the markings on the ancient Stargate and figures out how to use the wormhole it opens to travel across the galaxy. In season five he nearly dies after being exposed to a lethal dose of radiation, but he’s chosen to ascend and become a being of pure energy instead. It doesn’t last, though, and he’s demoted to regular human status two seasons later. Sometimes one can be unchosen too.

Next to Paul Atreides, perhaps the clearest example of a chosen one in science fiction has to be Neo (Keanu Reeves), literally an anagram for One. He doesn’t need a prophecy to tell him he’s special. In fact, despite Morpheus and Trinity’s unwavering belief in him, many of the early signs seem to point in the opposite direction. It takes him some time to master the physics inside the Matrix (we were just as disappointed as everyone else when it didn’t make that jump), and the Oracle flat-out tells him he isn’t the one. Even so, he manages to fulfill his destiny, learning to take control of the Matrix, merging with the rogue program known as Smith, and sacrificing himself to save humanity.

Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) may be the hero of the original Star Wars trilogy, but he was just a farm boy who rose to glory through determination and a natural sensitivity to the Force. It’s his father Anakin (Jake Lloyd, Hayden Christensen, and others) whose future was foretold through prophecy (and midi-chlorians). But prophecies can be tricky, even something as simple as being the one to “bring balance to the force” can play out in unexpected ways. Like turning to the dark side, killing a bunch of innocent people—including younglings!—and becoming a space dictator before repenting and throwing your evil mentor down a ventilation shaft. It was Anakin’s self-fulfilling prophetic visions of his wife dying in childbirth that sent him down that path in the first place, which goes to show the danger of relying on them.

The transcendental aspects of River Tam’s (Summer Glau) destiny weren’t explicit in the original Firefly TV series, but her importance to the fate of humankind is a much bigger deal in the feature film Serenity. River’s true path is laid out before the series starts, from child prodigy to lab experiment to wanted fugitive to big damn hero. From the moment she read the minds of the government scientists trying to turn her into an assassin she knew what her true calling was. It’s just buried somewhere in her chaotic, broken mind. But when that knowledge is unlocked by a subliminal message hidden in a broadcast, she overcomes her conditioning and leads the crew to the planet Miranda, where they learn the truth of a conspiracy to control human populations and the origins of the Reavers.

There were a lot of potential chosen ones on Battlestar Galactica, many of them self-appointed. Gaius Baltar (James Callis) is told he is one by the Number Six (Tricia Helfer) in his head, but is later revealed to be an actual angel. Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell) also has visions which she interprets as a sign that she’s fated to lead the colonists to Earth. Number Three (Lucy Lawless) also has a messiah complex, which leads to her model being boxed. The true chosen one, it would seem, is Starbuck. Fans are still speculating about what her actual ending means, whether she’s an angel or a “harbinger of death.” All we know for sure is that it’s Kara Thrace, or some incarnation of her, who leads humanity back to a new “Earth.”

It’s a classic story, as in it literally comes from Greek myth: A seer reveals to a ruler exactly how they’ll die, and the ruler does everything in their power to prevent it, which ultimately brings that ending about. The backstory of the main character in The Chronicles Of Riddick mirrors that old tale, but with a sci-fi twist. As a newborn, Riddick (Vin Diesel) survives strangulation by his own umbilical cord during a massacre of his home planet Furya. Eventually, he grows up to overthrow Lord Marshal Zhylaw (Colm Feore), exactly as predicted. Because fate always has a way of catching up to you.

James Cameron’s Avatar takes inspiration from a lot of other media, including Dune. Like Paul Atreides, Jake Sully is an outsider from another world who allies himself with the indigenous people of Pandora, known as the Na’vi. He also learns their ways, falls in love, and comes to be accepted as one of their own. The difference is that Jake joins them in the form of an “avatar,” a hybrid clone body that he pilots remotely. Ultimately, he unites the Na’vi clans and helps them fend off an invasion by his own people, becoming the savior he was always meant to be.

The second of three films on this list from the Wachowskis (plus Tom Tykwer, in this case) Cloud Atlas spans multiple plots over six different time periods, but the one most relevant here involves an android “fabricant” in the year 2144. Sonmi-451 (Bae Doona) is different from others of her kind in that she has emotions and can think for herself. Those thoughts begin to turn to rebellion when she is exposed to new ideas through the works created earlier in the film. Essentially, she becomes a freedom fighter for the enslaved fabricants, and even composes a bill of rights. That’s a dangerous thing to be when you’re living in a dystopia, but before her death, she makes a recording that will later become the text for a new religion, with her as the central deity.

The Wachowskis do love their chosen one stories. In Jupiter Ascending an ordinary woman (Mila Kunis) discovers that she’s actually the second coming, technically a “genetic recurrence,” of an alien queen called Seraphi Abrasax, of the House of Abrasax. Against her will, she becomes entangled in a game of royal galactic politics, but all she really wants is to go back home to Earth and cuddle up with her loyal dog-like protector, Caine Wise (Channing Tatum). It’s one case where the initial rejection of the call to adventure actually sticks.

Before he made the Dune films director Denis Villeneuve played around with the chosen one trope in the sci-fi sequel Blade Runner 2049. While the film technically doesn’t have a prophecy like many of these others, it does begin with the main character, K (Ryan Gosling), discovering a box that serves the same purpose. The rest of the film deals with the revelation that there is a miracle baby somewhere out there, the first child to be born to a replicant. While in pursuit of the child, K (and the audience) begins to believe it could be him. The film subverts the concept, though, by eventually revealing that it’s someone else’s destiny after all.