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The IMDB pops the action-heroine questionsThe Internet Movie Database has a daily poll, where they ask a film-related question to their readers. While obviously wildly unscientific, not least in that respondents are limited to a small selection of possible responses, they do serve to give an insight into popular opinion. And, particularly in recent months, they sometimes ask questions related to our topic here...
Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), or Alice (Milla Jovovich): Whom would you choose to protect you? - 15 September 2007 - Full results
Who would win in a fight: Abigail Breslin or Dakota Fanning? - 7 February 2007 - Full results
What was your favorite major horror film of 2006? - 10 January 2007 - Full results
Are you saddened there will be no Jinx spinoff, featuring Halle Berry's sexy character from Die Another Day? - 9 November 2003 - Full results
Ouch. The Halle Berry backlash starts here. Though personally, it began during her Oscar acceptance speech. Berry may be miffed, but with less than 12% of voters giving this a full thumbs-up, and devastatingly, over two-thirds opting for "It was a lame idea", it looks as if MGM executives were right on the money to cancel this project. If you can't think of half a dozen Bond girls more deserving than Jinx of their own film, you're not trying hard enough. Hell, I'd rather go see Rosa Klebb: The Movie, than watch Berry suck thoroughly undeserved life from the Bond franchise for her failing career.
Favorite onscreen catfight? - 23 October 2003 - Full results
#1 is Kill Bill, Volume One, albeit in general, rather than a specific choice between Thurmann vs. Fox, Kuriyama or Liu. This is no real surprise, recent movies do well in the IMDB - according to voters there, the leaden Two Towers is the 4th-best film of all-time - and one suspects that if asked next year, Bill would do less well. When asked in December 2000, Aliens won out over 2 Days in the Valley. Now, Wild Things surprisingly beats Ripley. But no Crouching Tiger? Pleased to see that the Lainie Kazan/Divine catfight from Lust in the Dust came dead last. And stop me if I'm wrong, but are there any real catfights in Faster Pussycat? It's been a while since I saw it, admittedly, but I seem to recall Tura Satana mostly beating up men.Best female action hero of the summer? - 20 August 2003 - Full results
This question was asked before Kill Bill arrived, or we could expect another #1 position here. Instead it goes, somewhat bizarrely, to Dory from Finding Nemo. Now, much as we love the film here - it's probably our favourite of 2003 so far - we'd be hard pushed to call it an action heroine movie. Perhaps the most remarkable result is the failure of any of the Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle stars to get more than 2.2% of the votes. Even if we add Demi Moore's supporters to those of the Angels, it still leaves the film in a combined sixth place. We also note that, from X2, Famke Janssen got more than three times the support of Halle Berry, which may help explain why Berry's 007-spinoff Jinx got canned. See above for more brutal destruction of that concept.There's been much talk about a Wonder Woman movie -- who do you think should play the Amazon Princess? - 12 July 2003 - Full results
This one was close, only sixty-one votes separaring the top four. A surprising winner in Jennifer Connelly, not exactly an actress with a great action pedigree, despite her Hulk role. "Other" came in as runner-up, which could cover a whole multitude of possibilities - Jennifer Lopez, Sandra Bullock and Birds of Prey's Ashley Scott have been linked to the part in the past. Very poor showing by Sarah-Michelle Gellar, getting left than half the votes of her Buffy colleague, Eliza Dushku. If Wonder Woman was blond, however, the result could very well have been reversed. Hilary Swank brings up the rear: guess everyone has forgotten The Next Karate Kid. See this site for an exhaustive/ing list of other possibilities.
The many faces of Wonder Woman 
The comic-book Lynda Carter Jennifer Connelly Besides Demi Moore, what late 30s-early 40s actress would you like to see as a formidable former Angel? - 27 June 2003 - Full results
A clear victory for Michelle Pfeiffer, suggesting a lot of people still remember Batman Returns fondly (in another poll Pfeiffer got two-thirds of the votes for best Catwoman). Stone and Gershon take the other podium places, and IMHO, any of these three would probably have done a better job than Demi Moore. A high showing for Phoebe Cates, given how little she's done lately. Meg Ryan might have done better if the poll was asked after her (supposedly) sexed-up portrayal in In the Cut. Or maybe not.Which Buffy spinoff would you like to see happen? - 3 March 2003 - Full results
With three times the votes of the second-placed choice, "No spinoffs, please" is the runaway champion, and the closest to a clear majority seen since Wile E. Coyote won the "Looney Tunes sympathy" poll with 59%. I heartily concur, much though the idea of Spike The Vampire Who Slays Vampires kinda appeals. We did like Faith, but as a supporting character - just like the idea of, say, Xander the Vampire Killer has no appeal. There was also a resounding thumbs-down to anything involving Dawn, with a mere 2.2% of votes. The only thing we'd like to see in that area is Dawn, the Slayed-by-a Vampire...Who's the fiercest female action star? - 7 June 2000 - Full results
Standing out here is Michelle Yeoh's sterling performance in third, beating out Carrie-Anne Moss - don't forget, this was back before Crouching Tiger propelled her to superstardom, when Yeoh was only known to the masses as a Bond girl. It says something that the poll creators could only come up with six names, and of those, Hamilton and Moss qualify on the basis of single movies. Weaver's name recognition was unparalleled, though I suspect Uma Thurmann would now be far up the list.If there's a Tomb Raider movie, who should play Lara Croft? - 27 December 1999 - Full results
It may be difficult to believe now, but there was a time when it wasn't a case of Lara Croft = Angelina Jolie. This poll was conducted less than 18 months before the movie was released, and doesn't even mention her. Just goes to show how far under the wire she went, amazing given how obvious a choice she now appears (even if Cradle of Life largely sucked). In her absence, the equally-lippy/Botoxy Denise Richards wins first place, though I should mention to Chris that none of those votes were mine. I spent some time in purgatory, a couple of years back, following an unguarded comment involving Ms. Richards and a vat of chocolate, so best if I don't spend hours gazing at pics of her, even if it's simply finding the right one for this article. Instead, here's a nice one of another candidate, the harmless, fully-clad Minnie Driver. :-) I should mention though, that the IMDB voters are some way short of infallible. They picked Ben Affleck for Spiderman, and Daredevil proved what a wonderful idea that would have been...Who should join Cameron Diaz and Drew Barrymore as Angel #3 in the upcoming film of Charlie's Angels? - 4 November 1999 - Full results
In the same line, no mention of Lucy Liu in this list; Catherine Zeta-Jones is the clear winner, with Salma Hayek second, suggesting a Hispanic Angel rather than an Oriental one [yes, I know Zeta-Jones is Welsh, but that didn't stop her - or Anthony Hopkins - from doing The Mask of Zorro] Interestingly, in the light of Kill Bill, future DIVAS member Thurmann performed very badly as a potential Angel, scoring only 26 more votes than Rupaul.
Loser... 
Girls With Guns Winner... 
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