9 Famous Movie Villains Who Were Right All Along

[paudemge]

I pretty much agree with all of them except Sauron, probably because I know the 'backstory'. The EU to the Matrix does pretty much make the humans out to be the villains.I think it was better when we didn't know the details.

Of course it could have been just a small group of humans that tried to nuke the machines and they decided we all had to go.

 

[Skellington]

Someone should do the same for TV SF.

Scorpius is the top of my list!

Scorpius is just a big softie . A real challenge would be something like Doctor Who's The Master, Blake's Seven's Servalan or NuBSG's Cylon #1. Battle Of The Planets's Zoltar also comes to mind, not to mention The Hooded Claw from The Perils Of Penelope Pitstop ("Haylp! Haylp!") .

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Someone should do the same for TV SF.

Scorpius is the top of my list!

Scorpius is just a big softie . A real challenge would be something like Doctor Who's The Master, Blake's Seven's Servalan or NuBSG's Cylon #1. Battle Of The Planets's Zoltar also comes to mind, not to mention The Hooded Claw from The Perils Of Penelope Pitstop ("Haylp! Haylp!") .

Honestly, I can see a strong argument for Scorpius, The Master, Servalan, and the Cylons. Hell, I can even see one for Gul Dukat pre-Pah Wraiths bullshit (although he does come off pretty sadistic in the book Fearful Symmetry).

 

[Christopher]

Well, I don't think the idea of the exercise is to find a way to justify every villain's actions as morally right, just to point out those specific cases where the villains have a good point. So we shouldn't try to stretch the argument too far. Definitely not to someone like Dukat. He deluded himself into thinking he had the best interests of the Bajorans in mind, but the fact is, he was the mastermind of a brutal, decades-long occupation that needlessly cost the lives of millions. Maybe there were times post-Occupation when he was arguably on the right side, like when he was fighting the Klingon occupation of Cardassia or trying to protect his daughter, but certainly not during the Occupation and certainly not once he sold Cardassia out to the Dominion.

Same with Servalan -- a power-hungry representative of a brutal dictatorship. And the Master is quite simply pure evil, motivated only by the desire to conquer and/or destroy depending on his whim of the moment (and who's writing him). The now-known fact that he was driven mad as a child may explain his actions, but it sure as hell doesn't make him right.

It's hard to say Scorpius was right. It's understandable why he turned out the way he did, but his actions were motivated by monomaniacal hatred of the Scarrans, and he was willing to employ any methods necessary to pursue that agenda. Just becaue the Scarrans are bad guys doesn't mean that such fanatical hatred can ever be considered right. If he'd been acting to defend people from them, that would be a righteous goal, but he just wanted to punish them for hurting him.

As for the Cylons (of the new BSG), they basically wanted the right to exist as a free and self-sustaining species, and that can't be considered wrong. But the way they went about it was certainly wrong. And while Number One had a valid point about wanting the freedom to evolve in a distinctly cybernetic way rather than being trapped by human attributes, he certainly can't be said to be trying to do the right thing by exterminating humanity.

And there's no way to define the original series' Cylons as right; they were simply evil. Indeed, it was implied that Count Iblis, the show's Satan surrogate, had programmed them to destroy their creators and wage war on all other life.

 

[stj]

How very odd that Magneto didn't make the list.

After all, Xavier's idea that the most effective way to serve mutants is to keep fighting all the other mutants who haven't signed up is preposterous.

 

[Nerys Myk]

How very odd that Magneto didn't make the list.

After all, Xavier's idea that the most effective way to serve mutants is to keep fighting all the other mutants who haven't signed up is preposterous.

Magneto's a terrorist.

 

[Myasishchev]

^Mad old terrorist twat, if I remember correctly. Unlike the lovely Sir Ian MacKellan.

 

[JRoss]

Man I hate cracked.com. Some of those articles were good, but man have they declined. It seems like every one of Wong's articles has to plug his book, seanbaby is too preoccupied with martial arts and that guy who wrote that inane comparison of the Green Lantern trailer with Iron Man was the straw that broke the camel's back.

 

[saturn5]

How very odd that Magneto didn't make the list.

After all, Xavier's idea that the most effective way to serve mutants is to keep fighting all the other mutants who haven't signed up is preposterous.

Magneto's a terrorist.

Is he?

I remember in Secret Wars the Beyonder when he kidnaps Earth's heroes and villains actually puts Magneto with the good guys. Why? Because what Magneto wants is the same as them. This is a guy who's suffered under the Nazis and is terrified that the same thing will happen to the Mutants. What he wants is right, it's just his methods which are wrong.
Definition of a terrorist is someone who uses violence for political purposes in a free and democratic society. Irish Republicans, ETA, AQM, Hamas, Hezbollah, The Tamil Tigers etc are therefore all indisputably terrorists. The various anti-Nazi/anti-Communist resistance groups last century are therefore freedom fighters, they wish to replace tyranny with democracy. The various anti-colonial groups, the PLO, ANC, Sandanistas etc are more ambiguous, they want to remove an undemocratic system but what do they want to replace it with?
Magneto for me falls in the middle ground, he doesn't want a tyranny but he fears that even democratic societies will persecute mutants who they see as outside humanity. To judge by some of the actions of the US goverment in the X-men films we see he may have a point, he fears his people will be exploited or even destroyed using the 'mutant cure' we see in the third chapter. What he doesn't appreciate is that the cure is a matter of choice, mutants should have the option not to be mutants if they wish and that does tip towards the tyrannical.
But ask yourself, what if someone found a 'cure' for homsexuality? Would the goverment of Iran for instance leave it as a matter of choice for the individual?

As for little Bill i see it more as a question of the old west vs the new, the hookers want the cowboys lynched, old west style justice. Little Bill doesn't, he's building a house, he's the progressive, , he flogs the cowboys but doesn't kill them, he beats English Bob up but sends him on his way when he could have killed him, even knowing what a dangerous character he is, he tells the truth about the old west to Bob's biographer. You could argue these merciful acts cost him his life?

 

[Myasishchev]

Man I hate cracked.com. Some of those articles were good, but man have they declined. It seems like every one of Wong's articles has to plug his book, seanbaby is too preoccupied with martial arts and that guy who wrote that inane comparison of the Green Lantern trailer with Iron Man was the straw that broke the camel's back.

I have never, really, liked cracked.com very much. It is the lowest form of humor or education or anything to bullet point a bunch of items and then comment on them superficially. It's like reading a slightly funny law school outline. My girlfriend loves 'em, as they--and she's said this, so I'm not being a dick, at least not trying to--cater to her preferred attention span. Which is, I guess, what some people desire.

Now, I tended to like the actual magazine, back when it was around. Out of Mad? Then Cracked.

 

[Trekker4747]

Well maybe, but only because their day off took place in some sort of amazing time warp where Sloane started off the day in school, got called out of class for a phone call that her grandmother had died, waited for her "Dad" to pick her up, drove into Chicago from the north shore, parked the car in a garage, went out for lunch at a classy restaurant, visited the top of the Sears Tower, toured the Stock Exchange and the Art Institute of Chicago, went to a Cubs game, marched in a parade, drove back to the suburbs and Cameron's house, destroyed the Ferrari, and hung out at the pool all before dinner.

Not just before dinner but within a school day! (Rooney catches the afternoon bus back to the school.)

How long is a school day? Seven, Eight hours? And the kids on the bus don't look like they were on the later afternoon "activity bus" either as they don't seem the type to have been into sports or on the paper, etc.

So, yeah, Cameron and all crammed a lot into their day.

I love cracked.com as often there's an article on there that just cracks me up but I admit the quality sort of wavers a lot. And, yeah, if I see one more goddamn article from Seanbaby about mixed-martial arts or one more lame Cody article I'm going to scream.

My thoughts on the article. (Which is a repeat, although a fancy one as some of the characters in it weren't in the first edition of the article.)

Ferris Beuller: I think is correct. No matter what the movie might be "trying to say" about the pre-No Child Left Behind Act educational system, Ferris' antics during the day were hardly ones that'd be conductive to his education and his future. He's supposed to get-off on skipping school because he visited a museum and the stock exchange?! What does that teach him about math and history? Rooney was simply doing his job and while he may have gone a bit out of line Ferris did skip school and not because he thought he could learn better on his own but because he was an egotistical asshole.

X-Men: Disagree. "Mutant Registration" is hardly an acceptable idea and there were more sinister motives behind what was wanted to be done, too.

The Lion King: Mostly agree but at the same time the hyenas were likely exiled for a reason (not being able to conform to societies laws?) so defending them is sort-of like defending a prison riot.

2012: Agree. What the "evil government" was trying to do here was save the species. That people had to die was sort-of a given. Yeah the guy was a bit of an ass about it but he was kind of right. Chewtill Effetor (or whatever the fuck) give some speech where we're supposed to say "You're right! We should sacrifice the entire future of the species because some people are going to die!" but at the end of the movie I was kind of like, "The villain was right."

Wizard of Oz: (Ignoring that the movie was a dream (in the book it was reality) as it maybe was presented as one but for all we know it really happened) Eh, disagree. Dorthy didn't exactly take the shoes they mere magically given to her. And for all we know giving the WWW the shoes would be like giving Al Quedia the keys to a missile base.

The Rock: Agree. The lead villain was "righting a wrong" executed by our government when all legit attempts has apparently failed. Maybe he went about it in the wrong way but he was right.

Short Circuit: Agree. If a predator drone lost its shit and went flying around the country doing whatever it wanted I'd want the government doing whatever to capture it and stop it too. I don't care how "alive" it thought it was. But he's another man who went a bit too far when the Guttenberg guy claimed to have a handle on things.

The Matrix: Disagree. Yeah humanity was a dick to the machines but at the same time they're machines.

LOTR: No opinion. Never saw the movies. I get enough sleep as it is.

 

[Switch]

Man I hate cracked.com. Some of those articles were good, but man have they declined. It seems like every one of Wong's articles has to plug his book, seanbaby is too preoccupied with martial arts and that guy who wrote that inane comparison of the Green Lantern trailer with Iron Man was the straw that broke the camel's back.

I'm thinking about asking for my money back.

 

[JediKnightButler]

I've never heard of the Yuuzhan Vong, but I assume that it would be easier to protect the galaxy with the jedi remaining alive.

You would think that Palps would want the Jedi around to help fight the Yuuzhan Vong (if that was his motivating purpose) but, of course, the only "good jedi" to him was a dead one or at least one serving his purposes, however, of course, his plan as far as we can tell from the movies and other sources all along was to completely destroy the Jedi Order (and all of the Jedi with it) and dominate the galaxy himself, which he ultimately achieved if only for a (relatively) short while. According to some of the EU stories, he had some force-sensitive "adepts" that served him in various ways but they were, of course, never as highly trained and/or considered to be as important as Darth Vader- his *official* apprentice- was.

You've never read any of the New Jedi Order series- set approx. 25 years post-ANH- involving the Yuuzhan Vong? Others might disagree with me but if you haven't read any of the NJO series (and if you enjoy reading the EU novels), you should read it, starting with "Vector Prime". The series shakes up and reshuffles the Star Wars universe in some pretty significant ways plus it will be harder to read the later series without at least some of the knowledge of earlier events. It is a very long series and I've only read a handful of the books so far but IMHO is rather exciting (and dark).

 

[JediKnightButler]

How very odd that Magneto didn't make the list.

After all, Xavier's idea that the most effective way to serve mutants is to keep fighting all the other mutants who haven't signed up is preposterous.

Good point. Magneto was more a sympathetic vilian, although I would point out that, at least insofar as what we see in the movies (my only real exposure to the series) Xavier wasn't necessarily out to take out Magneto and his followers but rather to stop them from harming "normals". In the first movie, the X-Men were preventing Magneto and his followers from "mutating" everybody which, as the Senator's own exposure proved, was fatal. The second movie was about all of the X-Men being hunted/captured by Stryker to being used for his own ends. The third movie was about the X-Men and Magneto's followers fighting over the mutant "cure", which, philosophically, which made for a really interesting storyline IMHO. Xavier and Magneto differed (philosophically) primarily in terms of dominating the "inferior" humans (Magneto) versus peacefully co-existing with humans (Xavier). AFAIK Xavier's X-Men didn't seek to hunt down and eliminate Magneto's followers per se but tried to at least keep them from harming normals.

 

[the G-man]

Little Bill in Unforgiven-he punishes the cowboys who cut up the hooker with a sound whipping and then tries to stop hired assassins from killing them

I think the whole point of the movie is that Little Bill wasn't really a villain... more of an antagonist. Eastwood's and Freeman's characters weren't heroes either.

Yeah. The whole point of "Unforgiven" was the moral ambiguity and that no one was a hero or a villain. Clint and Morgan weren't there out of a sense of altruism. They were just hired guns. In fact, Clint's whole speech was to drive that point home.

 

[Alex1939]

Really funny, thanks for posting link!

 

[JoeZhang]

You've never read any of the New Jedi Order series- set approx. 25 years post-ANH- involving the Yuuzhan Vong? Others might disagree with me but if you haven't read any of the NJO series (and if you enjoy reading the EU novels), you should read it, starting with "Vector Prime". The series shakes up and reshuffles the Star Wars universe in some pretty significant ways plus it will be harder to read the later series without at least some of the knowledge of earlier events. It is a very long series and I've only read a handful of the books so far but IMHO is rather exciting (and dark).

God no, go out and read some real books instead.

 

[JRoss]

You've never read any of the New Jedi Order series- set approx. 25 years post-ANH- involving the Yuuzhan Vong? Others might disagree with me but if you haven't read any of the NJO series (and if you enjoy reading the EU novels), you should read it, starting with "Vector Prime". The series shakes up and reshuffles the Star Wars universe in some pretty significant ways plus it will be harder to read the later series without at least some of the knowledge of earlier events. It is a very long series and I've only read a handful of the books so far but IMHO is rather exciting (and dark).

God no, go out and read some real books instead.

Win, JoeZhang.

 

[the G-man]

How very odd that Magneto didn't make the list.

After all, Xavier's idea that the most effective way to serve mutants is to keep fighting all the other mutants who haven't signed up is preposterous.

The third movie was about the X-Men and Magneto's followers fighting over the mutant "cure", which, philosophically, which made for a really interesting storyline

If anything, the "villain" in X3 who wanted people to have the choice to take the serum should be on the list moreso than Sen. Kelly.

 

[Anwar]

Magneto tried to destroy the entire Human race at the end of X2, and was willing to kill Xavier in the process of doing so. How that makes him more "right" than Stryker or Kelly, I don't know...

The Dominion in DS9 were always planning to invade and destroy the entire Alpha Quadrant, even before the Federation explored the Gamma Quadrant Wormhole. So they're not in the "good" either.

Scorpius was sensed as "pure evil" by Zhaan, and plus the Peacekeepers are just as xenophobic and Imperialist as the Scarrans. It's just that we sympathize with Scorpius more because the Scarrans are ugly reptiles who had no likable characters while the Peacekeepers are human-types given more depth than Scarrans.