Summary

• Borderlands movie changes story by focusing on Lilith & Atlas, missing key characters like Handsome Jack, creating mixed reactions.
• Director's choice to exclude fan-favorite characters like Brick & Mordecai leaves room for potential sequel but disappoints some fans.
• Despite missing beloved characters like Gaige & Dr. Zed, Borderlands movie introduces new narrative elements, receiving mixed reviews.

Despite its impressive ensemble cast, the Borderlands' missing characters set up a sequel, in some ways — director Eli Roth's decision to pull from all the installments in the franchise and craft a new story around the bounty hunter Lilith (Cate Blanchett) resulted in massive alterations. Instead of centering on the first game's Vault Hunter squad, the movie sees corporate magnate Atlas (Edgar Ramírez) hiring Lilith to rescue his daughter, Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt).

Not only does the Borderlands' cast of characters, including the mercenary Roland (Kevin Hart) and the "psycho" bandit Krieg (Florian Munteanu) to protect Tina. Still, some beloved Borderlands personalities are missing.

10 Handsome Jack

One of the most glaring omissions is Handsome Jack, the main antagonist of Borderlands 2. In the games' canon, Handsome Jack takes over the Hyperion corporation and declares himself the dictator of Pandora. He manages this by leveraging his fake clout, claiming that he alone found the Vault and vanquished the monstrous creature, The Destroyer, that resided within it. Between his ego and his ruthlessness, Handsome Jack is a detriment to Pandora. Even though the series' most compelling villain was cut, Atlas seems to be a Handsome Jack stand-in.

9 Brick

There's no denying that Borderlands missing characters make a sequel more likely, especially since one of those missing characters is Brick. A Berserker class character in Borderlands, Brick also appears as a non-playable character (NPC) in most of the other franchise installments. Needless to say, Brick is a constant presence throughout the series, and it's strange that he was cut from the Borderlands movie. In addition to being one of the four Vault Hunters in the first game, Brick was a founding member of the Crimson Raiders. Clearly, the film gave his role as the crew's tank to Krieg.

8 Mordecai

The fourth Vault Hunter to Lilith, Roland, and Brick on their quest in the original Borderlands was Mordecai, a Hunter class character who relies on his precise marksmanship and falconry as a means of dealing damage. Like Brick, Mordecai is a fan-favorite character who appears in other games as a ing character. It's possible that Roth and the team behind the adaptation wanted to save Brick and Mordecai's introduction for a future installment in the series. However, the planned Borderlands' cinematic universe doesn't seem like a good gamble after the first movie's dismal box office performance.

7 Gaige

Gaige DiMartino, a Mechromancer class character, was added to Borderlands 2 as a part of the post-launch DLC, but that doesn't make her any less memorable. If anything, the Tiny Tina featured in the Borderlands movie seems more akin to Gaige — at least personality-wise. A high school student with a penchant for livestreams, Gaige is most interested in the history of Pandora, from the Vaults to Eridium. In her own words, the Pandora of yesteryear was "the most awesomely awesome time period in history." That said, the movie probably didn't want to feature both Gaige and Tina.

6 Guardian Angel

Guardian Angel — who also goes by just Angel in some instances — was first introduced in the original Borderlands, in which she watches over the Vault Hunters during their quest. It's later revealed that Angel is the daughter of Handsome Jack as well as a Siren with the ability to Phaseshift. In essence, Angel can herself off as an AI being by phasing into technology. ittedly, introducing Angel's backstory might have been too much for the first movie, but it's a shame that Borderlands tossed away Angel and Handsome Jack's plot for the Atlas-Tina connection.

5 Pain & Terror

Originally, Penn Jillette was going to have a cameo role in Eli Roth's Borderlands, playing a preacher who would oversee a wedding. Sadly, the cameo from the Borderlands voice actor, who plays Pain, was cut from the final film. While that's a shame in its own right, it's also a bummer that Pain and Terror didn't appear in the Borderlands movie. In Borderlands 3, Pain and Terror are bandits who become enthralled by the Calypso Twins' talk of family. After ing the Children of the Vault cult, Pain and Terror find themselves among other bloodshed-loving comrades.

4 Janey Springs

A ing character in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel and Tales from the Borderlands, Janey Springs is a fan-favorite junk dealer. One of Borderlands' openly queer characters, Janey runs Springs' Emporium O Stuff on Elpis and, in her spare time, writes children's books about the chaos unfolding all around her. There's no denying that Eli Roth's movie features a good number of ing characters with one-off scenes — and Janey would have been another of those figures. Still, with Borderlands' dismal (and rare) Rotten Tomatoes score, Janey Springs might not ever see the silver screen.

3 Dr. Zed

Many gamers believe that Dr. Zed is one of the strangest Borderlands characters — and that's saying something. The only human resident in Fyrestone to encounter the first game's Vault Hunters, Zed becomes the series' traveling doctor. Despite maintaining the medical vendors set up around Pandora — and using his free time to chop up corpses in the infirmary — Dr. Zed is truly bizarre because, canonically, he lost his medical license for reasons unknown. It's hard to know if Zed was ever a doctor at all, but, nonetheless, a cameo would have been fun in the Borderlands movie.

2 Mr. Torgue

The muscular, explosion-loving Mister Torgue High-Five Flexington, also known as Mr. Torgue, appears as an NPC in Mr. Torgue's Campaign of Carnage — DLC for Borderlands 2. The founder of the weapon manufacturer, Torgue, the character's role at the company is a PR stunt; he's merely the face of the company, having sold his weaponry designs. Again, it's possible the Borderlands movie's cast of colorful characters was just too large to accommodate more eccentric, one-off personalities, but missing out on a live-action Mr. Torgue (and his grandmother) definitely stings.

1 Lady Aurelia Hammerlock

Although Charles Babalola appears as Sir Hammerlock in the Borderlands movie, his sister, Lady Aurelia Hammerlock, doesn't the cinematic fray. A playable Baroness class character in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, Aurelia is one of the Vault Hunters who's responsible for aiding Handsome Jack as he rises to power. In the third installment of the Borderlands games, Aurelia Hammerlock serves as a sub-antagonist. Again, between a crowded playing field and the movie's decision to trade Handsome Jack for Atlas, Aurelia just didn't fit the narrative of Borderlands.

Borderlands is now playing in theaters.