Lara Croft

Lara Croft
Tomb Raider series character
File:Lara Croft.png Protagonist Lara Croft
First game	Tomb Raider (1996)
Created by	Toby Gard

Lara Croft is a fictional character and the protagonist of Eidos Interactive's Tomb Raider video game series. Created by Toby Gard, the character has also appeared in comic books, novels and a series of animated short films, and has been played by Angelina Jolie in two feature films. In 2006, Lara was given a star on the Walk of Game, and was recognised by Guinness World Records as the "most successful human video game heroine." In late 2008 MSN named her as the third-most-iconic video game character after Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog.

Lara is generally presented as a beautiful, intelligent, athletic, and somewhat reckless English archaeologist-adventurer who frequently ventures into ancient and hazardous tombs and ruins. In addition to traps and puzzles, Lara encounters rivals, gangsters, dangerous animals, legendary creatures, and supernatural beings.

Conception and design

When Toby Gard designed the settings for Tomb Raider he initially envisioned a male lead character with a whip and a hat. Core Design founder Jeremy Heath Smith characterized the design as derivative of Indiana Jones, and asked for more originality. Knowing his male co-workers' preference for female game characters in Virtua Fighter, he recast the character as a South American woman, Laura Cruz, who evolved into Lara Croft after Core Design asked for a more "UK friendly" name; the name was selected from similar-sounding English names found in an English telephone directory.

Toby Gard has claimed a desire to counter stereotypical female game characters, which he has characterized as "bimbos" or "dominatrix" types, while Lara was intended to be sexy "only because of her power". Several concepts were considered and discarded, including a muscular sociopath, a soldier or in "baggy trousers and crop tops" like singer Neneh Cherry. While Lara's design was intended to be an exaggerated caricature of womanhood, he attributed her improbable figure to a "slip of the mouse" in which he accidentally increased her character model's breasts to 250 percent of normal size instead of the intended 150 percent. Though he initially praised the marketing for the Tomb Raider series as "clever" for its focus on her breasts, Gard later expressed disdain for the character's hypertrophy, declaring: "I just wish ... they hadn't made her boobs so big." In 2006, the design was modified to make her proportions less bizarre.

Throughout the video game series, four actors have given voice to the character. After Shelley Blond voiced Lara Croft in the first Tomb Raider, Core Design cast Judith Gibbins for the next two games because of her "upper-class accent with character" and "strong but sweet voice". Jonell Elliott, who voiced the character through three more games, described the character as giving a positive image of a "strong female adventurer". Keeley Hawes, who has voiced the character subsequently, described the character as "strong and powerful" with a distinct "edge".

Physical appearance

Lara is depicted as an athletic woman of British descent, who has brown eyes and frequently keeps her long brown hair in a plait or ponytail.

The character's classic costume is a turquoise sleeveless shirt, light brown shorts, calf-high boots, long white socks, fingerless gloves, a backpack and a utility belt, an outfit appearing in nearly every Tomb Raider game to date. Variations on this theme, such as camouflage pants and black or light-brown shirts, have appeared in some games and she has worn a wet suit for a watery environment. or trousers and a jacket for a colder area.

Appearances

In video games

Lara Croft first appeared in the 1996 video game Tomb Raider, introduced in the manual as Lord Henshingly Croft's disinherited daughter, who has survived a Himalayan plane crash. The game follows Lara's search for the "Atlantean Scion" artefact, and her encounter with an ancient ruler of Atlantis. Tomb Raider II, released in 1997, centres around Lara's search for the Dagger of Xian, an artefact loosely based on Chinese mythology. During her search, Lara faces a cult obsessed with using the artefact's power to their own ends. In Tomb Raider III Lara seeks ancient meteorite fragments which convey strange powers and became associated with various cultures' myths.

In 1998 and 1999, three expansion packs were released that expanded the gameplay of the three video games. Tomb Raider: Unfinished Business (Tomb Raider Gold in North America), depicted Lara escaping the Great Pyramid and returning to Egypt. Tomb Raider II: The Golden Mask featured Lara searching for an artefact with the power of resurrection. In The Lost Artefact, Lara searches for the Hand of Rathmore, a fifth meteorite piece.

File:LaraAOD.jpg

Lara in Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness.

Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation, released in 1999, depicted Lara accompanying archaeologist Werner Von Croy to Cambodia and developing her interest in ancient civilisations. Lara searches for artefacts associated with the god Horus so that she can defeat Set, who has possessed Von Croy. That game contains an extra level, known as the "Times Exclusive Level", which has The Times of London hiring Lara to explore some passages under Tutankhamun's tomb.

In Tomb Raider Chronicles, released in 2000, most of the game focuses on previously untold earlier adventures featuring Lara finding the Philosopher's Stone, the Spear of Destiny, helping in an exorcism and breaking into a building to steal an artefact. Von Croy searches for Lara, but her fate is left unresolved.

In 2000 Lara first appeared on Tomb Raider on the handheld Game Boy Color game console in a game simply entitled . The story is unrelated to the original Tomb Raider and follows Lara's search for the Nightmare Stone. Tomb Raider: Curse of the Sword (2001) sees Lara facing off against a cult which plans to use her body to revive a witch. In Tomb Raider: The Prophecy (2002), Lara fights to defeat Teg-du-Bhorez, who is searching for three magical stones with the power to end the world.

In the 2003 game, Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness, Lara appears alive and well, but the segment explaining her survival was cut from the final game. (Mike Resnik's novelization Tomb Raider: The Amulet of Power depicts Lara being rescued from beneath a collapsed pyramid.) While revolving around artefacts connected to the Nephilim and Lara's search for these after she is accused of murdering Von Croy, the game also introduced Kurtis Trent, the first playable character (other than Lara) in the series.

Tomb Raider: Legend (2006) does not use the backstory provided in the original game's instruction manual, and even contradicts it.

Several flashback sequences depict a nine-year-old Lara (voiced by Charlotte Asprey) surviving a plane crash in Nepal with her mother, Amelia Croft. Amelia disappears after reprising the Arthurian legend by pulling a sword from a stone; the entire game deals with Lara's search for an Arthurian artefact. Surviving a journey to Kathmandu, she contacts her father (now named Richard, not Henshingly, Croft) and grows up in the care of her archaeologist father. At 18, Lara inherits the Croft estates along with the title "Countess of Abbingdon."

Tomb Raider: Anniversary, a 2007 remake of the first game in the series, changes the original story for consistency with Lara's backstory in Legend. Anniversary implies that Lara had searched for the Atlantean Scion, which her father believed to hold clues about Amelia's disappearance.

For Tomb Raider: Underworld (2008), Lara's movements were based on those of Olympic gymnast and stuntwoman Heidi Moneymaker recorded through motion capture techniques. Lara is searching for Thor's hammer, Mjöllnir, and acquires Thor's gauntlets, belt and hammer whilst attempting to enter Helheim in search of her mother.

In 2009, two downloadable levels were added on Xbox Live for Underworld. In the first of these, Beneath the Ashes, Lara explores dungeons beneath her manor, and she discovers the "Eitr Stone", which can control thralls. The second level, Lara's Shadow, features Lara's doppelgänger as the playable character.

In film and printed adaptations

File:Screen44AJLC.jpg

Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft.

Beginning in 1999, a comic book series by Top Cow Productions tells another version of Lara's backstory in which both her parents and her fiancé (a character unique to the comic version) died in the Himalayan plane crash. In the series Lara encounters various characters from other Top Cow comics, most frequently Sara Pezzini of Witchblade.

In 2001 Lara was brought to life by actress Angelina Jolie for the film Tomb Raider. The young Lara is portrayed by Rachel Appleton. The film follows Lara's race through Angkor Wat and Siberia to find the Triangle of Light, said to give its owner the power of God. For the film, Jolie performed all her own stunts.

Jolie reprised the role in The Cradle of Life (2003), in which MI6 hires Lara to find Pandora's Box. She releases Terry Sheridan, a friend imprisoned in Kazakhstan, who provides a romantic interest rare in the series. The film implies that Lara had served with the Royal Marines, a detail hinted at in the first film, which shows her at the centre of a small military unit.

Angelina Jolie has expressed interest in portraying the character in a possible third film.

In 2007, Lara appeared in the Re\Visioned: Tomb Raider Animated Series, a series of short animated films created for GameTap TV. Lara was voiced by Minnie Driver in all ten episodes.

Cultural impact

Promotion and merchandising

Several models have been hired to portray Lara Croft at various publicity events and promotions, including Nathalie Cook, Rhona Mitra, Nell McAndrew and Alison Carroll. In 1999, while still portraying the character, McAndrew posed nude for Playboy, and the magazine use the Tomb Raider trademarks to promote the issue without permission. After Eidos sued, all references to Tomb Raider were removed from future copies of the issue and McAndrew was fired.

Various dolls and models have been released of the character. Figures of Lara Croft from the first and second Tomb Raider films, and as she appears in Tomb Raider: Legend, have been released.

Merchandise — from pens, wallets, mobile phone covers and holders, mouse mats and playing cards to books and chocolate bars — has been produced to capitalize on the Lara Croft image.

Critical reception

Lara Croft is considered by critics and fans alike as one of the most significant game characters in popular culture, and the most famous female video-game character.

Lara appeared in many "Lucozade" advertisements during the late '90s, and was the cover girl for style magazine The Face in 1997. Writer Douglas Coupland dedicated his book, called Lara's Book, to her; the work analysis her effect on pop culture.

Lara made a guest appearance during U2's PopMart Tour and appeared in a music video by the German punk band Die Ärzte. She has also been featured in SEAT car commercials, and three G4 commercials. In all of these appearances, Lara was represented by computer animation. Lara also appeared in a Visa commercial which featured a live-action Lara, portrayed by Sofia Vergara, interacting with her in-game counterpart.

Lara is the subject of a song, "Amami Lara" (Love me Lara) by the Italian songwriter Eugenio Finardi. The song was presented during the 1999 edition of the Festival della canzone italiana in Sanremo.

"Playstation: The Official Magazine" described Lara as a "Comeback Queen" after the good reception of Tomb Raider: Legend after the previous game (Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness) was panned by critics. "MSN Gadgets" described Lara as "Gaming's most Important Leading Lady" and gaming site "Ugo" listed her as number 1 one their list of the "Top 11" of female game characters.

The first two sequels of the series portray the character as being increasingly bloodthirsty and occasionally as not having the option to avoid lethal force against "human" characters. Tomb Raider III was heavily criticised for showing Lara fighting security guards and military police officers. To "address" this issue, Anniversary added a subplot where Lara supposedly felt guilty when she killed for the first time, with Toby Gard stating: "We wanted to make Lara's first kill more meaningful". IGN editor Colin Moriarty has stated that while she began as an intelligent and strong female character, her games grew bland and she became more like a virtual blow-up doll.

See also

• Girl Heroes
• List of women warriors in folklore, literature, and popular culture

External links

• Official Tomb Raider website
• Evolution Of Lara Croft