So E.D. recently said that movies need better villains.
Creation of a decent villain is easier said than done, however. I’m sure that we’re all thinking now about various villians from various movies but it’s too easy to rattle off names of the best villains from the best movies and come up with a Venn diagram and point to the areas with the most overlap from the most bad guys.
(Did I say “but it’s too easy”? Perhaps, I should have phrased that differently because that might lead the reader to believe that we’re going to do something else entirely. Little did they know they stepped right into my trap…)
Off the top of my head are Darth Vader (pre-prequel version), The Joker (Nolan version), Hannibal Lecter (Silence version). These guys are all planners, they’re all as smart (or smarter) than the good guys who they go up against. Sometimes they win, sometimes they lose… but one always gets the feeling that it would be more than possible to have a conversation with them about why they do what they do. One might also be worried to hear that the reasons make some sort of sense. How do you fight against these guys? Well, you pretty much have to be a good guy who can’t be swayed off of the Straight and Narrow Way. You have to be principled.
Other villains come to mind, as well. Jason Vorhees (Kane Hodder version), The Terminator (Reagan version), and the Xenomorphs (most of them work pretty good). These guys are pretty much forces of nature. They have a goal/purpose and walk towards it. (Kane Hodder said that he doesn’t feel that Jason should ever have to run, for example.) These villains are more forces of nature. They can’t be reasoned with, you can’t appeal for mercy from them, they are just machines. How do you defeat them? Well, you need, at a bare minimum, heavy machinery. You’re probably going to die, though.
A third category might contain the guy from Cape Fear (Robert Mitchum version but Robert De Niro’s is good too), the guy from No Country For Old Men (Javier Bardem!), and the Captain from Pan’s Labyrinth (Benico del Toro is insane). Each of these guys qualifies as more of a “banality of evil” bad guy. You could easily see how each one of these guys could exist in the real world… and the moments where they each seem the most real are the moments when they’re at their absolute most terrifying. How do you defeat these guys? Well, because they’re real, you know that something as simple as a handgun could do it. Something as simple as a knife. There’s never one around when you need one, though…
Those are the three categories that I was able to come up with. The Urbane Mastermind kinda bad guy, the Amoral Juggernaut, and the banal.
Each one of these villians has different uses depending on what you’re going for.
For example, if you want to fill your audience with a sense of dread, you go for the juggernaut. If you want to make them *HATE* the bad guy, you go for banally evil. If you want them to think that the bad guy is cool? You go for urbane.
For me, the issue with villains today is that, far too often, the director doesn’t know what s/he is going for. So the villain is cartoony in this scene, banal in that one, gives an intelligent speech in this scene, then picks up the idiot ball for the final confrontation. Instead of feeling one thing strongly, the audience goes back and forth between two or three things that are felt strongly and they all mix together to create a melange of meh.
To get better villains, we need writers/directors who know what they want the audience to feel and then stick with the archetype that will best make them do that.
With all that said: Who did I miss? More importantly, what *CATEGORIES* did I forget?
A category I always think of might not fit with your list (because it can easily overlap with other categories) is the Sympathetic Villain.
With these villains, you recognize the reasons why they have had their trajectory, and it’s hard not to sympathize with their plight. More than wishing for their defeat, we root in vain for them to overcome their circumstance and join the hero.
My son and I just watched Last of the Mohicans last week, and Magwa (sp?) theIndian bad guy was a better villain once we knew why he so wanted to kill the heroines. (Yeah, yeah, I said Indian – but it was the French Indian War so bite me.)
King Kong fits nicely into this category, as does the Bond villain from Goldeneye. Draco is this type (eventually) in Harry Potter, as is Darth Vader from the post-pre-prequals. Magneto definitely fits this category. The Rutger Hauer character from Blade Runner too.
Even though they are protagonists, you could also make an argument for including Michael Corleone from the Godfather, Sweeney Todd or the Malcolm McDowell character from Clockwork in this list.
One of the great strengths of the first two Godfather films is Michael’s arc from hero to sympathetic villain to utter bastard, in each case turned up to 11 by his intelligence and resolve. The great weakness of the lamentable third film is that Michael’s just some guy.
Is it Kevin Spacey that played the crazy guy in “Seven?” I thought he was pretty psychologically scary, not Freddie Krueger scary. But sometimes the psychologically scary is worse.
What about the type of villain where your not sure if he (or she) is one? The most recent example I can think of is in Game of Thrones (base on watching to the end of the first season but not reading the books (yet)). You get early on that Jaime Lannister is a selfish asshole – and he is – but what about Tyrion? Tyrion, of course, can be a bit of a dick, but he also can not be one at times. But how much of that is just being very clever and very self serving and knowing exactly when to turn it on and off, and how much of that is actually an innate properly calibrated moral compass? I honestly don’t know, and that’s one of the real strengths of the series (and the acting, writing, and directing around this character) (and my ability to avoid spoilers).
Otoh, this is really hard to pull off most of the time, between spoilerrific trailers and Big Hollywood Names. For instance, one can see they tried this unsuccessfully in the Papa Bush era Terminator from the opening to the mall scene.
Have you read the books that the series came from? You will have a better understanding of Tyrion from those. For the most part though, almost none of the main characters are all good or all bad.
I have not read a single word of the books. Which is what makes it very difficult to discuss GoT on the interwebz because everyone else has. I’ll probably fix this problem later this summer.
DO read Lord of the Flies, Mr. Kolohe.
Hey Northie, how goes it? Hopefully great. All circle jerky behavior is now banned!! (justy teasing). A man without a country at the moment.
We’ve already been through all of this, and I’m speaking about E.D. Kain making all your lives miserable. He delights in playing games with “banning”. Presently, all posts that I have submitted have been blocked with the exception of “Gifts of Gab Around The League”. I am very sorry for all the problems this has caused you folks-if I could have fixed it I would have. If you’re looking for a villain and a cause for all your headaches, contact him. I’m very well aware of how these tribes at the League form and sustain themselves. Posts that lack dissenting opinions crash and burn very quickly–if you remove any of the handful of Conservatives you have here, then, poof–your dialogue sputters to a whimper. I’ve done the math. The conservatives at this site generate and give fuel to about 85-90% of the commenters here. Simply put–you guys are toast without us! You’re lost when we’re not around and even worse, if you don’t have us to slap around, you very quickly start resorting to cannibalism. Heavens to Betsy! Um Himmels villen! You see, I have done a very detailed analysis about this–starting with Alpha, and the lead tribe, which splinters into another tribe, followed by subsequent splintering, and before you know it, the realization that you don’t exist without nuts and crackpots like me and the other Buffalo Heads that grace your site. Sad, I know. There is very little “thinking outside the box” here. Thinking outside the box will end up being dismissed, denounced, given the cold shoulder, mocked, ridiculed, and worst of all, banished.
I don’t have everyone down–maybe 20-25, but the devil is in the details. The banal, predictability of most comments keeps everything “safe”–in line, “on topic”. This “on topic” business just kills me. Normal, natural conversation rarely sticks to topics–listen for yourselves. Words, thoughts, dart, weave, and jump everywhere. Why should we be forced to stay on topic when we find less than 5% of it to be interesting? Oh well, off to Electroconvulsive Therapy. I’ll be back with only happy thoughts-promise. Where does a banned person go with only a tiny sliver of light left to express himself? Death is immanent. Have a ball, y’all!
I’m shocked, SHOCKED!! I always thought the cutsie, clever Left liked to spell this country, Amerikkkkkkkkkkkkkka. Or some variation thereof. Your basic lame brain Abbie Hoffman kind of stuff. Yes, I know he’s dead.
They’re getting brighter ever day.
Okay, naked as a jaybird, quick on your feet Jaybird. NO cheating! “This is this.” Movie and actor, please. No more clues. I would guess you’ll know the answer immediately just because that’s the way your brain works–always outside the box.
Uh hullo Heidegger? I don’t think anyone else could achieve quite that epic a ramble without the drug.
I still feel like there is more to the force of nature though. There still needs to be some form of personality there, even if they do not speak. Look at some of the failed attempts like Paralax from the new Green Lantern movie or the big-storm-cloud-of-doom (that they named Galatus) in the Fantastic Four movie. Both were forces of nature, but they flopped as “good” bad guys. Some of it is most likely breaking of comic book fluff for these characters, but I think there is more to it than that as well. What are your thoughs on what makes a force of nature good?
I think that the medium also changes things. Paralax was a four-color villain (I think that he had enough moral agency to not be a force of nature, though). Galactus was a four-color juggernaut (though, in the movie, he was a four-color thing that sucks).
What makes the force of nature good, in my opinion, is a universe where, all other things being equal, humans are just humans.
Interesting, Jaybird. However, I’m a bit puzzled by the .”humans are just humans.” We never have and never will be “just humans”. It almost sounds like you’re ashamed of your place in the universe. Whether you like it or not, we are all that is, was, and shall forever be–we clearly and unarguably occupy the top place at the universe’s intellectual totem pole and Darwin be damned, it’s not even fathomable that this will ever change. There have been zero changes to the developed human brain for more than 100,ooo years. The neural conections of the human brain are more numerous than every atom in the universe. Wouldn’t it be interesting to hear the languages of our ancestors? There must have been lots and lots of hand language going on. Did the structure of the hand change the structure of the of the brain? Or was it the other way around.
As opposed to a universe in which there are also meta-humans, mutants, wizards, and otherwise humans who cannot be described as “just humans”.
Understood, Jaybird. It’s always sort of bugged me that we occupy this hallowed ground of being. Makes me think God must have been a bit of an underachiever but then again, maybe he was a great comedian.
Hey, no religion.
Who do you think you are, John Lennon?
I am not saying that you cannot talk about it.
I am asking that it not be spoken of here.
This is a place where one argues matters of taste as if they were matters of morality.
Not matters of morality as if they were either matters of morality (or of taste).
Jaybird–thanks for the reminder about keeping politics out of the discussions on your site. Nice to have a breath of fresh air once in awhile.
Jaybird and Mike—“Nothing to kill or die for.
And no religion too”
“Who do you think you are, John Lennon?”
You guys bring insane laughter–God that was damn funny!
Thanks.
The old lady in Goonies?
The bald Nazi guy in Raiders? Until his face melts off, of course.
Sort of the scheming villain? They’re not brilliant but they’re wily? I don’t know if they count as ~the~ villain, they’re more like henchmen(women)
The best villain is the one who has a good argument and makes the viewer question their beliefs and prejudices.
The best trait for a villain is their capacity to win. Bad guys don’t win in mainstream media making one question their effectiveness and the necessity for hero(es) to address situations involving bad guys. Cobra Commander was a two dimensional foil posing no threat to the world. GI Joe intervened and sent him packing so he could forment another hare brained scheme. Same thing with Batman who doesn’t get the idea that Arkham is the best place to send his rogues gallery since they always escape.
I’m looking forward to the next Nolan Batman film and if it’ll be a homage to Knightfall.
I think the the craaazy villains, like Tim Burton’s Joker or the dude from 7even or a variety of other disordered psychos deserves their own category. Madness has an allure of its own, it lends a manic strength and a limitless willingness to do anything that makes it mesmerizingly frightening.
I’m not sure if they should be distinct from forces of nature but I feel like there should also be a category for things like zombies, bio-zombies (28 days later), demons and other freakies… think Forces of Nature but twisted. Maybe a sub-category of forces of nature.
Okay, so I overlooked the “Anti-Hero” kinda villain. The one who isn’t purely evil but merely at odds with the goals of the protagonist. Perhaps he’s a “we’re going for an omelette here” kinda guy who breaks eggs (like in X-Men), perhaps he’s a guy who was merely born too early/late (like in Blade Runner). Perhaps you even get the feeling that if he won and was able to be the guy who wrote the histories…
Four-Color Nazis like those found in Raiders lead me back to my Nazi continuum theory. Sound of Music Nazis are not Raiders of the Ark Nazis are not Schindler’s List Nazis. On one level, it’s very good for the viewing audience. “Who do we root for?” “The guy fighting the Nazis.” On another, I can’t help but feel like the writers are cheating in some way…
Madness is perhaps another new category… but I’d put stuff like The Exorcist in the same one. You’re fighting a mental/spiritual parasite as well as its host.