Viewing Thread:
"Stop Killing the Villains"

Bond was better when he had Blofeld to deal with, and the threat of SPECTRE. Blofeld and his organisation had time to develop over a number of movies, and we knew what the threat was right away. Yeah there were all of the sub-divisions and plots he had to deal with - eg Goldfinger, but at least it was a proper threat. The worst recent example would have to be Tomorrow Never Dies, when our villain is a media chap. Ooh, scary. I can't help but think that the quality of the Bond movies would improve if SPECTRE still existed, sometihng consistent to tie the films together.

If you want to really see the problem with multiple villians though, with a new one for each movie, look no further than Star Wars. Darth Vader. Bad Guy in the first movie, gets blasted off into space. But he's okay, and back in the second, when we learn that he's actually Luke's father! Then in the third, there's redemption. What an arc! What a villain!

New movies, Darth Maul looks like he could be a fantastic villain for the trilogy. But he dies at the end of the first movie. Damn. But that's okay, because we've got Count Dooku (albeit in a rather confused role) he's bound to play a significant part in the next two movies. Yes, and he lives through the second. Only to die in the first scenes of the third movie. When we get General Grevious. A coughing robot. Where the hell did he come from? Oh, a cartoon series. Great. But if you haven't seen it it's just another bad guy with no past, no story, just a plotsticle.

I watched the X-Men the other day. The relationship between Professor X and Magneto is a fascinating aspect of the series. Whilst they have to work together in the second, it seems they'll be enemies again later on. What's more, a Magneto prequel is planned. So he has a backstory, and more importantly, he has a future.

One of the failing of the Batman series of the 90's was its constant killing of its bad guys. Fair enoguh when you've only got one to deal with, but by the time the turkey that was Batman and Robim arrived you had two new villains backstories to tell (and Arnie demanded an awful lot of screen time) don't you think if the bad guys lived to fight another day the battles between good and evil would mean a little more? I've yet to see the new Batman, but the focus isn't so much on the villains here anyway, is it? As it's more about Batman's beginning (funny that)

Maybe it's just me. Being a second child, I always had to play the bad guys. I had the decepticons. Skeletor and his crew. In play, I'd want them to get away, even if I didn't actually want my evil plots to succeed...

Doesn't it make more sense to let evil live to fight another day though? Learning the strengths and weaknesses, creating even greater battles? It's odd, especially in super-hero type movies where they like to leave it open for a sequel, that t's not through the nemesis? Does it say something about the world we live in today that evil has to be defeated? Must good always triumph in every single aspect? Can today's movie going public not live with the idea of the bad guy getting away, even if to make his downfall greater in the long run?

Natural Born Killers was a total mind f**k of a movie. It was a satire on pop culture and the media, though most people will probably just see it as a strangely edited violence fest. I really enjoyed it, though I can understand why a lot of people have problems with it.

Reminded me of MTV with it's whole approach.

Hedfix wrote:
> Likeable? No, the pair in NBK were complete twunts.

H'yeah.

They were a good reflection of the film really. Crap.

Entertaining yes.

Likeable? No, the pair in NBK were complete twunts.

Hedfix wrote:
> Villains have to die otherwise you get guff like Natural Born Killers.
> ;)

The villain's character usually dictates that. If you get an entertaining and almost likeable villain then it's not always in the best interest of the film to kill them off.

> RoJ wrote:
> Connery
> Brosnan
> Dalton
> Moore
> Lazenby


Brosnan and Dalton swapped for me, obv.

Otherwise yeah. I hate Moore, but the African one reedems him, unlike George Lazenby who was awful. Always. Awful.

EDIT:

I say always... Well. Every one of his few minutes.

Meka Dragon wrote:
> Doesn't it make more sense to let evil live to fight another day
> though? Learning the strengths and weaknesses, creating even greater
> battles? It's odd, especially in super-hero type movies where they
> like to leave it open for a sequel, that t's not through the nemesis?
> Does it say something about the world we live in today that evil has
> to be defeated? Must good always triumph in every single aspect? Can
> today's movie going public not live with the idea of the bad guy
> getting away, even if to make his downfall greater in the long run?

*

It's a shame that - in superhero movies especially - that directors / scriptwriters / whoever seem to always deem it necessary to kill the villain off. The Spider-Man movies are a good example. Whereas in the first movie, Norman Osborn / Green Goblin dies at the end... in the comics he's plagued Spider-Man's crimefighting career and personal life for years. He would constantly torture Peter Parker by threatening his loved ones and then he actually killed the first love of Peter's life, Gwen Stacy, before he seemingly died (impaled on his goblin glider, like in the movie), which is something you'd never see in today's typical good vs evil happy ending movies...

But even afer he was declared dead in the comics, he actually survived, retreated to Europe and engineered a years long plot involving Peter Parker clones and Peter's mental torture of believing he was himself a clone; he caused Peter and Mary Jane's child to be born stillborn. Even his son, Harry, died because of the whole Green Goblin legacy. Yet in the movie, Norman Osborn gave Spider-Man problems for a few days then died. Granted, the end of Spider-Man 2 set the stage for Harry continuing on the Green Goblin legacy, but I would bet everything I own on him dying in Spider-Man 3.

Even now in the comics, Norman is the threat to Spider-Man's existance. Recently Spidey's been attacked by two children who believed they were his, but were actually Norman's and Gwen Stacy's; Norman having brainwashed them into believing Peter was their father and that he'd killed Gwen. Then when that failed, he let slip Peter's identity, had Peter's Aunt May kidnapped, tricked Peter into breaking him out of prison then attacked him along with eleven other super-villains he'd re-vamped.

This kind of material would make excellent movies, yet we're always limited to seeing one villain in each movie, who dies after 2 hours or so. I love the Spider-Man movies (as I'm a huge Marvel geek, as you may have picked up), but I'd love them even more if the writers and directors made a series of movies featuring the same villain tormenting the hero.

Not gonna happen though...

Rant over.

My gran met Roger Moore on a skiing holiday. Exciting, no? The closest I've come to meeting a celebrity is Mickey Mouse at Disney World.

Meh, fair enough. I met him once in Dublin airport, seemed a genuinely nice guy. Probably why he beats Dalton on my list.

Because I hate him. I don't know, there's just something about him that I don't like as Bond.