There’s a reason that this list feels a little skewed, and it’s not just because Donald Trump and Joe Biden appear to have made it within the top 20 people that would be most effective during an alien invasion. Save the derisive snort for the moment since of course this is all hypothetical and in good fun, one would hope at least, since the on-screen achievements of so many stars are great and all, but it does feel as though a lot of them would cut and run if a real alien invasion was about to happen. If anything such as a xenomorph or predator were real one can bet that a real-like Ellen Ripley or Dutch would find themselves a bit outmatched since the capabilities of said aliens are beyond deadly and it’s fair to say that unless one had a massive machine gun on hand that they wouldn’t last long. But Schwarzenegger gets this honor apparently since the guy has been in the political ring in real life and he’s been known to kick some serious butt on the silver screen. If that’s all it takes then wow, the bar is incredibly low. But again, this is supposed to be fun so let’s just run with it and try to compare a few big names that might be best during an alien invasion and why we think this way.
There are a few other names that might need to be mentioned such as Jason Momoa, who played Aquaman, Henry Cavill, Kurt Russell, and several others that should be given some consideration since they’ve all starred in movies either dealing with alien invasions or as super-powered individuals that were insanely tough. Sigourney Weaver feels as though she should be way higher on the list since she was given one of the absolute toughest aliens of all time to fight and knows a little more about the species than Arnold could discover about the Predator. But the fact is that when it comes to sheer toughness and being able to stick it out with some of the toughest on-screen monsters, Arnold has shown a lot of resilience as a character. As Dutch, he survived a creature that no one had ever lived to tell about before, and as Conan, he took down a demigod and a demon on his own. People might want to scoff and laugh at this, but in the realm of pop culture, this is something pretty special since in the movies if one has been said to take down a creature of some significance it’s easy to see how they should be given a greater amount of respect than normal. Yes, in real life Arnold Schwarzenegger is getting to be an old man, but for the fun of it, seeing the character of Dutch taking charge during an alien invasion would be pretty cool. It would never happen in the movies but it would be pretty cool all the same.
The reason I say that it wouldn’t happen is rather simple: the people in charge can’t decide upon which canon should be used for any given story. The Predator story went to novelization a while back and has mentioned Dutch in passing now and again, but doesn’t really revisit the character after a while since it was time to move on. It’s hard to say that he hasn’t appeared at all without taking a look at the entire library, but it does appear that things moved forward and, as a result, Dutch had to be left behind. Plus, when last I read anything about the guy in the stories, he wasn’t mentioned that much and the feeling was that there was a good reason. But picking Arnold out as the man to lead the charge if an alien invasion did come along is more a vote to say that he’s been one of the top action stars and someone that people would follow right up until the stuff hit the fan. Yep, I said it.
The reason for that is the realization that if an alien invasion did come along, it wouldn’t matter how many Arnold Schwarzeneggers, Sigourney Weavers, or Will Smiths there were in the world, people would run as though someone had lit a fire in their pants and been told the only source of water was a mile away. In short, a good percentage would hide behind Arnold or light out and hit the bricks as quickly as they could. Even Arnold might find that it was no longer necessary to bask in this dubious honor since in real-life, he’s still a very strong individual, but he’s an actor first and foremost. That’s why this feels silly, but at the same time kind of interesting since people tend to come up with one reason or another to celebrate their favorite actors.
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