What is the most overly-complicated villain's plan?

[Sgt. Sacrament]

Okay, I just got around to watching "Captain America: Civil War". I thoroughly enjoyed it, but was puzzled afterward when I started to try to understand the villain's plan. His goal was simple enough -- destroy or break up the Avengers -- but his plan to accomplish that goal... whoa, it was way too overly-complicated and dependent upon chance occurrences beyond his ability to control.

I haven't been able to get myself to care enough about "Batman v. Superman" to want to see it, but from what I've read, it sounds like villain Lex Luthor's plan in that film is similarly overly-complicated.

What are some other examples of overly-complicated plans that villains have in fiction that I've forgotten or missed? I thought it might be fun to ask.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Every Bond villain who instead of just shooting him takes Bond out to dinner and a movie before dropping him into a pool full of sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads and then leaving the room so Bond can escape, because suddenly they're squeamish about seeing someone die in person, I guess.

Silva's plan to let himself get caught in Skyfall, and then the precision of his followup and escape all so he could make an assassination attempt at what appeared to be either a publicly announced or well known to those in the intelligence community hearing to take a shot at M, when he could have just gone there to shoot her or blown the whole building up anyway.

Spoiler: Sherlock S4

Eurus Holmes' ludicrously complicated (even by Holmes standards) plan to torture her brothers and Watson that requires her to possess superpowers.

The Joker's elaborately non-planned plans in The Dark Knight which he insists are inexpensively improvised on the spot but which in reality would require millions of dollars in manpower and infrastructure, meticulous planning, inside help, and in some places (like filling the entire engine rooms of two active city ferries with gas canisters in a matter of hours without anyone noticing during a terrorist crisis of his making) teleportation. Hell, stacking all that money in a pyramid just so you could burn it would have taken a lot of time and personnel.

The whole gaslighting and murder plot in Flight Plan, just to blackmail the airline for money.

 

[Kemaiku]

^As for the spoilered point there.

You're dealing with a villain with superhuman intelligence that an entire generation of new security was developed for, an entire area of real estate set aside for, and no one in the 7.5 billion strong human race that could mentally equal. That's something beyond I'd say most villains ever portrayed with an intellect as astoundingly brilliant as it was both broken, and in need of something grandeously great to satisfy it. Average Joe can do something so hidious we all hurt for it, someone like that with a severely broken mind is going to do something just like that.

 

[Marc]

You're dealing with a villain with superhuman intelligence that an entire generation of new security was developed for, an entire area of real estate set aside for, and no one in the 7.5 billion strong human race that could mentally equal. That's something beyond I'd say most villains ever portrayed with an intellect as astoundingly brilliant as it was both broken, and in need of something grandeously great to satisfy it. Average Joe can do something so hidious we all hurt for it, someone like that with a severely broken mind is going to do something just like that.

So the smarter the villian, the more complex the plan?

 

[F. King Daniel]

So the smarter the villian, the more complex the plan?

They've never heard of Occam's razor.

 

[JeffinOakland]

Most James Bond villains have plans impossibly convoluted.

 

[Turtletrekker]

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[MacLeod]

Overly complex plans aren't limited villians, I'm sure the heros come up with them from time to time.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Joker's entire plan in Dark Knight relied on the assumption the guard guarding him was stupid enough to be goaded into attempting to beat him up, while there was no second person in the room.

 

[Kemaiku]

So the smarter the villian, the more complex the plan?

It nearly always is. The whole villainy thing is an ego stroking exercise anyway, they want to defeat the hero in such a way they can really boast and be proud of this amazing scheme they thought up that is in no way practical.

 

[Kai "the spy"]

Joker's entire plan in Dark Knight relied on the assumption the guard guarding him was stupid enough to be goaded into attempting to beat him up, while there was no second person in the room.

Really?! If I remember, all he needed for his plan to work was that phone call.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Really?! If I remember, all he needed for his plan to work was that phone call.

He needed to take over the room to get access to the phone, which he did by provoking a guard to enter the cell to beat him up.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Pretty much anything by Wile E. Coyote.

 

[Kai "the spy"]

He needed to take over the room to get access to the phone, which he did by provoking a guard to enter the cell to beat him up.

The way I see it, he needed the phone call, which he has a right to (if I have learned that correctly from US films and television). When the cop guarding him refused to give him that phone call, that's when he decided to goad him in order to take him hostage. The phone call was the plan, goading the cop was improvisation.

 

[Marc]

Pretty much anything by Wile E. Coyote.

he was just the victim of marketting from the Acme Corporation

 

[M.A.C.O.]

Okay, I just got around to watching "Captain America: Civil War". I thoroughly enjoyed it, but was puzzled afterward when I started to try to understand the villain's plan. His goal was simple enough -- destroy or break up the Avengers -- but his plan to accomplish that goal... whoa, it was way too overly-complicated and dependent upon chance occurrences beyond his ability to control.

I haven't been able to get myself to care enough about "Batman v. Superman" to want to see it, but from what I've read, it sounds like villain Lex Luthor's plan in that film is similarly overly-complicated.

What are some other examples of overly-complicated plans that villains have in fiction that I've forgotten or missed? I thought it might be fun to ask.

I've been saying it for the past year, but both Lex and Zemo's plans were extremely convoluted and carried out to near perfect success. Zemo and Lex somehow knowing how the heroes were going to react, knowing how the governments and intelligence agency's (SHIELD, US military, the UN, US Congress) were going react, Zemo and Lex seemingly uncanny (and off screen) deduction of who had what material, who they need to kidnap and who they would need to impersonate in order to further their agendas, and lastly Zemo somehow knowing that Cap, Bucky and Iron Man would all make it to Siberia at the same time and set up video footage to provoke Tony to fight Cap and Bucky.

It's like Zemo and Lex had the script on hand and had knew to plan their schemes accordingly. My theory as to why many people didn't paid attention to Zemo's overly complicated plan initially as they did to Lex's plan, was because of quantity of "moments of awesome" in Civil War, compared to BvS. So many Avengers, so many fight and chase scenes; the movie has you moving so far and so fast, that you forget someone is pulling the strings behind the scenes. Batting 1000 with every move, inconceivably.

 

[Snaploud]

http://www.dorkly.com/post/60524/voldemorts-assistant-kevin-and-the-goblet-of-dumb-plans
http://www.dorkly.com/post/59737/voldemorts-assistant-kevin-in-baby-blues
http://www.dorkly.com/post/58442/voldemorts-assistant-kevin

 

[Silvercrest]

Overly complex plans aren't limited villians, I'm sure the heros come up with them from time to time.

Pretty much anything by Jim Phelps or Colonel Robert E. Hogan.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

The way I see it, he needed the phone call, which he has a right to (if I have learned that correctly from US films and television). When the cop guarding him refused to give him that phone call, that's when he decided to goad him in order to take him hostage. The phone call was the plan, goading the cop was improvisation.

Fair enough, but that's still a variable that he was not in control of, and if the guard in his cell had been just a little more intelligent would have broken his entire plan.

Now I'm thinking of that South Park episode where 'Tad' challenges Stan to a ski race even though he's clearly a far superior skier, and then even though he could easily win without question without cheating, tries to cheat in ridiculous ways, even though in the time it would take for him to set up the traps he could probably just finish the race.

That's just how movie villains think. You can never just do the simple thing and use your overwhelming force to easily win. You have to properly twirl your mustache first. It's unacceptable to just win. You must win in a way that proves to the hero just how much of a bastard you are.

 

[theenglish]

I'm going to vote for Mxy's plan in Grant Morrison's 2011-12 Action Comics arc. I had to read the whole thing twice just to get it.