this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2024
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Here's a list of tons of leftist movies.
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I don't get why they don't just make these villains self-interested megalomaniacs like the old days. Focus the drama on the protagonist instead.
Because a few movies did "tragic villain" decently, audiences liked the switch-up, and the talentless hacks took it to mean that ever villain has to be "complex".
Those writers completely miss the point that the best sympathetic villains are the ones where their feelings of anger or other emotions that made them this way are somewhat justified, but the actions they take because of them are definitely not.
Nero from the first ST reboot was this. "my family/planet was lost: go crazy and waste everybody"
So billionaires?
Lex Luthor is the best comic book supervillain EVAR.
Especially cuz he's just pissed about being bald
The villain is the protagonist in most superhero movies, the superheroes are generally the ones maintaining a vague status quo in the antagonist role
Only in the bad ones
Nolan's batman movies did really well and they had more "grounded" villains (well, so long as you ignore scarecrow, ras al ghul, bane, talia al ghul...), so this one tried to follow the same trend. It also apparently brought in Nolan's tory politics and utter contempt for the poor. Remember when Bane stages a people's revolution in Gotham only to then decide he's going to nuke the city for no reason?
I was gonna say that they did make Lex Luthor a billionaire tech-bro asshole in the Superman movie, but then I also remembered that his opposition to Superman was out of a commitment to a bizarre interpretation of reddit-atheism, and didn't have anything to do with competing visions of the social good.
To some modern treat enjoyers, having villains actually just be willingly evil assholes would be "cookie cutter" and make the story seem "one dimensional."
Why though? Magnificent bastards who act entirely out of self interest, but then do things that make you think "damn, that was smart/devious" are fun to watch.
My favorite villain of all time is Lorne Malvo in Fargo season one.
The Fargo villain from season 3 was also great. I loved how slimy, creepy and possibly full of shit he was.
Like, he can apparently brick your computer if you search his name, but his operation is apparently formed by him and two guys.
Oh yeah he was great too, but nowhere near the level of Malvo
All the villains in Fargo are great and none of them have a point. Jon Hamm's character in season 5 is completely selfish and petty and self-aggrandizing and he's a terrifying villain.
It's possible to add depth without making them activists.