Christian Filmmakers

I’ve been thinking that there are times in films when the screenwriter and director try to create a sympathetic villain (I’m thinking like the one in Star Trek Generations) or other films and it totally doesn’t work.  I certainly have always loved the way the villain in ST2 Wrath of Kahn is portrayed and it works great for that film.

Many times I like having a villain that you just want to see defeated or stopped by the end of the movie.  There’s a sense of justice in that.

But other times, like in The Prince of Egypt, the character of Pharaoh is portrayed with sympathy, and yet the conflict still works.

So how do we balance that in caring about our villains so much as people and being tempted to create too much sympathy for them that they are not despised by the audience and thus their defeat doesn’t create any satisfaction in the end?

I love how George Lucas created Darth Vader and made him an excellent villain but then turned around by the end of the trilogy and made us sympathise with him and have compassion, but yet brought out the evil of the Emperor so that there was still that feeling of justice for the audience when he was defeated.  Would it have worked as well if the Emperor wasn’t in Star Wars and Darth Vader just turned good at the end or would that have made it a weaker story?

Marking.

I have some problems with that in one of my stories too.

Well you see, this is how it is with that. First you must ensure that the villain of the villain is villainous to a fault before the default villainy has a chance to kick in.  Once the villain is preempted by a disabling protag under the pretense of villainy, then the conjecture of villainy which was first foisted upon the villain protagonist, then ceases to starkly portray the light of that villainy in an extraordinary way. Once these critical steps are adhered to, then we must rewash the villain in a slaw of other story elements in order to recapitulate where the villain first departed from the forensic investigation, to wit, there then appears the light of sympathy and borderline pathological tendencies in the self investigation and introspective summit of the mind.

I hope this helped. 

Ang

All actors know it’s much more fun to play the villain than the hero.

There ain’t a huge number of people clamoring to dress up as Luke Skywalker at the cons.

(I suspect they do so for the same reason we always had to have kids willing to play “indian” and “cop” in our childhood games - without good to oppose, what’s the fun in villainy?)

Here’s what I think: I think there is no danger in making villainy look too attractive.

The audiences for Hollywood films are highly moralistic: audiences almost always reject movies in which the villain clearly wins, no matter how appealing that villain is.

Tom, can you give me an example in which a villain in a film was drawn so wonderfully that audiences were disappointed at their downfall?

Or one in which an obviously and intentionally malificant character wins in the end?

Curiously,
Calix

(...there’s the example of tragedy, of course, where the hero dies, but in those cases the classic point of tragedy is the destruction by the fatal flaw within, not the superiority of villainy without…)

I imagine a villain winning might be purposely done to stimulate outrage in an audience.  I think of the righteous Uncle Tom dying at the hand of an evil slavemaster is one such example.

There are times when a villain fails and you do feel compassion for the villain.  I think The Prince of Egypt did a great job of us feeling sad for Pharaoh.

I think Star Wars Episode 3 was intriguing because Anakin makes the choice to become Vader but we know how it ends in part 6.  If there was no part 6 and Star Wars ended in part 3 as a trilogy I think audiences would probably be more disappointed.

Don’t know of other examples, but I’m looking forward to hearing them if anyone can think of any.

Blessings,
Tom

Ang Ortiz wrote:

Well you see, this is how it is with that. First you must ensure that the villain of the villain is villainous to a fault before the default villainy has a chance to kick in.  Once the villain is preempted by a disabling protag under the pretense of villainy, then the conjecture of villainy which was first foisted upon the villain protagonist, then ceases to starkly portray the light of that villainy in an extraordinary way. Once these critical steps are adhered to, then we must rewash the villain in a slaw of other story elements in order to recapitulate where the villain first departed from the forensic investigation, to wit, there then appears the light of sympathy and borderline pathological tendencies in the self investigation and introspective summit of the mind.

I hope this helped. 

Ang

Good Morning
Just had breakfast and read this. Maybe the coffee hasn’t kicked in yet but “WHAT??????????” It didn’t register in my brain! I think I’ll have to re-read this a number of times.

I am sure this is great & I’m sure i’d agee with it but can i have it in layman terms, PLEASE!

Kev

Kev Hill wrote:

Good Morning
Just had breakfast and read this. Maybe the coffee hasn’t kicked in yet but “WHAT??????????” It didn’t register in my brain! I think I’ll have to re-read this a number of times.

I am sure this is great & I’m sure i’d agee with it but can i have it in layman terms, PLEASE!

Kev

Get used to it. I don’t know that I’ve made sense of more than a fraction of Ang’s posts yet. 

I’ve seen the last 1/3 of SW VI, and by that time Darth Vader almost didn’t seem like a villain at all.  He was just misguided.  But maybe that’s because we all know he’s going to come around.  The Emperor was the real “bad guy.”

Calix Lewis Reneau wrote:

Or one in which an obviously and intentionally malificant character wins in the end?

No Country For Old Men.

...Oscar winner… just sayin’...

I thought about NCFOM, but since you and I are pretty much the only folks around here who watched it, were challenged by it and will admit to both, I figured it wasn’t worth bringing up.

Plus, it’s an extremely unusual film for American audiences.

Cheers,
Calix

(...come up with four other examples that have done well at the box office and then you might have a point…)

No, I get your point, and agree entirely.  NCFOM just came to mind, so I thought I’d share. 

FWIW, a small (but notable) percentage of comedies end with the good guys thinking they’re out clean then getting duped one last time, or realizing they’ve been duped all along.

While I think it would be interesting to see another film that breaks the rules like NCFOM did, I have to say, I would absolutely have hated Watchmen if not for the last shot of his journal.

The Wrestler, which has no villain character, but pits Randy Robinson against his own self, kind of has an interesting ending - with Randy both winning and losing, or perhaps accepting that he can’t win.