How many on-screen badass women can you name?
(I'll update the list periodically.)
Badass On-Screen Women
- Landlady (Kung Fu Hustle)
- Ellen Ripley (Alien, Aliens, Alien3, Alien: Resurrection)
- Sarah Connor (The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Terminator: Dark Fate)
- Zoë Washburne (Firefly, Serenity)
- Kaylee Frye (Firefly, Serenity)
- Inara (Firefly, Serenity)
- Private Vasquez (Aliens)
- Xena (Xena: Warrior Princess)
- Chrisjen Avasarala (The Expanse)
- Naomi Nagata (The Expanse)
- Roberta 'Bobbie' W. Draper (The Expanse)
- Camina Drummer (The Expanse)
- Yu Shu Lien (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon)
- Buffy Summers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
- The Bride (Kill Bill, Kill Bill: Vol. 2)
- Trinity (The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions)
- PrinceessLeia (Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope, Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi, Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens, Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi)
Major Motoko Kusanagi.
I can't decide if she counts though, as she is a cyborg who looks like a woman rather than actually being a woman. To be perfectly honest, I can't think of anywhere in the universe that it is stated that her brain is even from a female donor.
Haven't read the manga, but at least in stand alone complex when talking about the accident and her recovery in third person, I feel like she was referred to as a girl, though I'm honestly not sure if that's important at all, the way she talks about herself in the adaptations I've seen, she seems to put her personality above everything else relating her past or identity, she is her actions, not her backstory (or that's how I perceive it in the versions I've seen, except maybe the first season of the latest one).
I just watched the 1995 movie last night, and there is definitely reference to her having at least some amount of human brain in her head, though her body is entirely robotic
She definitely has a human brain; the central theme is that she doesn't know her own identity
In Second Gig (the second season of the anime) they do go over her past more and it reveals that she was a little girl that survived a plane crash (?) and was one of the first children to have a fully cybernetic body. That season explores a lot about her relationship with her past and present identities, motivations, and principles. It is one of my favorite pieces of media.