9 Famous Movie Villains Who Were Right All Along

[J.T.B.]

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

No. Little Bill was morally and legally corrupt: He placed his judgment above the law by not making the cowboy stand trial for what he'd done, and made him make restitution to the pimp but not the girl because Bill thought the whores' feelings didn't count. He didn't even whip him, he just threatened to. Little Bill said that the cowboys were just good boys whose fun had gotten out of hand and told them to give the pimp some of their horses in the spring.

Munny and Logan were vigilante hired guns, yes, but Little Bill wouldn't have had the trouble he had with them if he had been concerned with justice instead of smoothing things over and working on his house.

--Justin

 

[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.

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?

My "experience" with Magneto predates Secret Wars. He's a racist neoFascist who uses terrorism and violence to further his political goal of Mutant dominace and the subjecation of the human race. That he was held in a Nazi concentration camp yet uses the methods of the Nazi further his own goals speaks volumes about his character.

 

[stj]

Xavier and Cerebro still exist, which means all other mutants live only so long as he wishes, or keeps his mental faculties. There is always a case to be made for the justice in responding tit for tat. Stryker created the second Cerebro for genocide, not Magneto, and used it first, not Magneto.
People have a right to live, even if that means fighting back with lethal force.

Many, many people have thought that the best defense is to possess overwhelming force, sufficient to overthrow all possible combinations of enemies. Indeed, this is current US government policy and has been for some time. This can be perceived as a threat by others, particularly if the US begins attacking them first, when they merely begin to act independently. If, like Magneto, the others desire that they have overwhelming force to defend themselves, are they truly aggressors or terrorists or neoFascists? (What is that last by the way: There really are official neoFascists and they are part of the government in "free and democratic" Italy, the last time I looked, in coalition with the Berlusconi machine and the Northern League.)

An off duty policeman who is hired by a Colombian landlord (possibly using US foreign aid money,) to murder troublesome peasant activists or labor leaders is a terrorist.

Quite aside from foolish notions of what constitutes a free or democratic society (the Gaza strip is not free, nor is Lebanon free when it is being attacked by Israel,) terrorism is merely a tactic, where soft targets in a civilian population are attacked.

For nongovernmental groups, the tactic is largely due to weakness and the terrorism disappears when the terrorists have other means available. Governments like the US attack civilian populations because the master race psychology forbids suffering many military casualties otherwise suffered in a struggle with the large majority of a nation.

You could look to see who is leaving their own country to attack another, or if they are really puppets of a foreign country. But in Magneto's case, there is no country. And as I recall, one aim was to get one.

 

[Nerys Myk]

He's a terrorist. I remember Magneto from before he got his sobstory background. He was a twisted son of a bitch out to conquer the world with the mutants on top and himself at the top of the mutants.

If I ever get a chance to write the X-Men, the first I'd do is bring back the bastard version of Magneto. The first he'd say to Xavier would be "Hahahahha, you fell for that concentration camp BS? Come now Charles, are you really that gullible?"

 

[Anwar]

The 2000 X-Men Evolution series had a proper villain Magneto who still had some sympathy (but it never overrode the fact that he was the VILLAIN). It drew from his earlier 60s-70s portrayals where he was perfectly willing to experiment on fellow mutants to upgrade their powers and such and experimented on himself so he'd be a mutant among mutants.

 

[theenglish]

I think the Ferris Bueller criticism is missing the point of the film (though I've only seen parts of the film so I'm not 100% certain). Yes, nominally Bueller was breaking the rules and Rooney was simply trying to enforce them. But my impression is that the point of the film is that Bueller and his friends learned more by skipping school and seeking out experience on their own terms (including things like a trip to the museum) than they did by submitting to the rote conformity of a school system that all too often only pretends to educate. So it wasn't so much saying Rooney was a bad guy as critiquing the whole educational system.

Or maybe it was just a shit film.

One of the most embarrassingly bad teen films of my generation, and there were a few.

 

[RoJoHen]

Such blasphemy. I've never heard anyone speak poorly of "Ferris Bueller's Day Off."

 

[theenglish]

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.

Which is one of the reasons why it was an Oscar winner for Best Picture. This is still my favorite western of all time.

 

[saturn5]

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.

Which is one of the reasons why it was an Oscar winner for Best Picture. This is still my favorite western of all time.

It's great but I always did think Bill whipped the cowboys? As for due process, was there any in any this frontier town, maybe Bill was the due process?
I can't get the link to work but is Batty from Blade Runner on the list? Is he the bad guy or does her just want to live?

 

[the G-man]

Bill as the due process was, in fact, another aspect to the moral ambiguity.

And, no, Roy Batty isn't on the list but he probably should have been...moreso than a few of the other choices, in fact.

 

[stj]

The evil god Eldon Tyrell paid for his crimes at the hands of one of his creatures. Really, what kind of a God makes us just so we can die? The fucker deserved to get his eyes popped out. Excellent call on Roy Batty, avenger of replicants everywhere.

 

[saturn5]

The evil god Eldon Tyrell paid for his crimes at the hands of one of his creatures. Really, what kind of a God makes us just so we can die? The fucker deserved to get his eyes popped out. Excellent call on Roy Batty, avenger of replicants everywhere.

The Christian god makes us so we can die. So we can enjoy our big dessert at the end of the meal. Or oblivion. Either way we find peace.

Batty isn't an outright villain as him saving Deckard surely proves but it's hard to see him as a hero either, he's extremely ambigous (as of course is Deckard)

 

[AJ86]

The responses on the article page are hilarious. Genuine outrage by some people!

 

[DevilEyes]

The evil god Eldon Tyrell paid for his crimes at the hands of one of his creatures. Really, what kind of a God makes us just so we can die? The fucker deserved to get his eyes popped out. Excellent call on Roy Batty, avenger of replicants everywhere.

The Christian god makes us so we can die. So we can enjoy our big dessert at the end of the meal. Or oblivion. Either way we find peace.

Batty isn't an outright villain as him saving Deckard surely proves but it's hard to see him as a hero either, he's extremely ambigous (as of course is Deckard)

I never thought of Batty as the villain. As you say, he's morally ambiguous, but really he is a lot more of a hero than Deckard. In fact, I would say that Batty and the other rebel Replicants, even though they are antagonists- are morally ambiguous heroes: they are basically slaves who rebelled (think of Spartacus); while Deckard, even though he's the protagonist, is an anti-hero, and doesn't fit the hero bill at all: all he does is do a job he is hired to do, and he doesn't really do it out of any idealism.

 

[Anwar]

At least Deckard didn't THINK of himself as a hero, or see the Replicants as some genuine threat. It added to his character as well that he wasn't some deluded designated hero.

 

[Myasishchev]

Such blasphemy. I've never heard anyone speak poorly of "Ferris Bueller's Day Off."

Indeed. It has some seriously questionable messages (Spoony's done the best exegesis of it I've seen), but it's still a hell of a movie.

Most of the objectionable parts are sorted with the obvious proposition that the movie is a wish-fulfillment fantasy, rather than any sort of objective reality. I mean, they don't let you jump up on parade floats and sing "Twist and Shout" in the real world.

The Christian god makes us so we can die. So we can enjoy our big dessert at the end of the meal. Or oblivion. Either way we find peace.

That really depends on your preferred doctrine for the creation of the soul.

Blade Runner's a very well made silly movie, though. The only replicant Tyrell made whose design could be justified and who might actually be purchased is Pris, and that's only because sexbots are the only artificial creatures where a human form might be ideal and task-specific. I mean, who buys genetically engineered soldiers and mine workers who are barely more productive than a human and then rapidly die?

It's not any sillier than Terminator, though, I guess, which gave an untested AI control over nuclear weapons.

 

[Trekker4747]

Such blasphemy. I've never heard anyone speak poorly of "Ferris Bueller's Day Off."

Indeed. It has some seriously questionable messages (Spoony's done the best exegesis of it I've seen), but it's still a hell of a movie.

Most of the objectionable parts are sorted with the obvious proposition that the movie is a wish-fulfillment fantasy, rather than any sort of objective reality. I mean, they don't let you jump up on parade floats and sing "Twist and Shout" in the real world.

I don't think the Cracked article was trying to say FBDO was a bad movie. I mean it's certainly a classic in many respects and despite the issues it has with "teen wish fulfillment" and as much as Ferris and his friends did in a single day (and I don't like or buy for a minute the whole "it all happened in Cameron's head thing) but the Cracked article is right.

Rooney is only the "bad guy" in that all rebellious teenagers look at their high-school principal as a "bad guy." But is he really a bad guy for wanting to find a juvenile delinquent and bring him back to school?

Christopher makes a fairly decent point above in saying that movie is "saying something about the education system" as Ferris and friends' day is intercut with boring school-room lectures. But I don't think that idea washes.

Setting aside present-day problems with the school-system schools were different back in the 80s and even in the 90s. I think only 1 of the couple-dozen teachers I had through high school were the boring long lecture type. The others were far more dynamic.

And how much "Reading", "'Ritting" and 'Rithmetic is Cameron and Gang learning by visiting The Sears Tower, going to ballgame, a parade and chilling out, relaxing, by the pool?

Ohhh. Cameron cites off information about the Sears Tower that he probably read off the pamphlet during their 2-hour wait in line (having visited the Sears Tower I can say, with much assurance, the line to vist the Observation deck is LONG.) Ohhh they visit a museum. Nifty, but not likely to do him much good in a job interview when he has to replace "I took advanced algebra" with "I know a lot about a bunch of random painting, the information read on the placard next to the painting, that is."

I do not praise the way schools did, and now, operate as they can certainly provide a better learning environment. Take that elementary class on fewer trips to Power Play and more trips to the museum, sure. Make the teachers more engaging and classes more than boring lectures in boring rooms. Sure.

But what Ferris and Friends did all day was hardly anything that was conducive to their futures as productive adults.

So here we have Ferris Beuler a man who has skipped school nine times in a semester by conning his parents into thinking Ferris is very sick and instead of just pissing the day away watching TV he brings his friends into this, including getting his girlfriend out of school too. Yes he's the good guy in our little tale but he's still skipping school. Rooney's job is to make sure Ferris doesn't do that. Rooney was doing his job. Perhaps in a bit more bolder manner than required but Rooney is hardly is wrong in his quest. That's the point of the article. Rooney may have been the "bad guy" of the movie but he was still right in a real-world situation.

Similarly look at movie like "Gone in 60 Seconds" which mostly centers around of car thieves trying to steal 40 cars within a couple of days. Yeah they had "good reasons" (to save Cage's brother from being killed by another group of car thieves) to do it but they were still breaking the law. You don't get to do that if you have "a really good reason to."

So the cop in that movie (our movie's "bad guy") is right in the sense that he's doing what he's supposed to do. But then he fucks it up at the end by letting the criminals go!

The article doesn't negate how "good" FBDO is it simply says that Rooney was "right" in what he was doing.

 

[the G-man]

Batty isn't an outright villain as him saving Deckard surely proves but it's hard to see him as a hero either, he's extremely ambigous (as of course is Deckard)

It's not a question of Roy being the hero. It's the question of him being "right all along." Roy was a sentient being who, along with his "family" was marked for death simply for being different. He didn't run around killing people for fun, but in an attempt to survive.

 

[J.T.B.]

It's great but I always did think Bill whipped the cowboys?

He tells the deputy to bring him the whip, but after he makes the deal to pay the saloon owner off with the horses he says they won't need the whip after all.

As for due process, was there any in any this frontier town, maybe Bill was the due process?

He probably thought so, another example of his corruption. The Constitution and US legal process certainly applied to Wyoming Territory; Little Bill was no more the embodiment of due process then than a county sheriff would be today. He even asked the cowboy something like "You don't want to have to go through the fuss of a trial, do you?" And by no stretch of legal definitions could torturing Ned Logan to death be called "due process." I just can't agree with Little Bill being "right all along."

[...]while Deckard, even though he's the protagonist, is an anti-hero, and doesn't fit the hero bill at all: all he does is do a job he is hired to do, and he doesn't really do it out of any idealism.

A human Deckard could be considered heroic for recognizing the humanity in non-human Rachael and trying to save her. Not so much a replicant Deckard, who is just saving his own ass and bringing her along. Which is why that addition to the Director's Edition (or whatever it's called) sucks.

--Justin

 

[saturn5]

Tom Hauk (Lee Van Cleef) in Escape from New York. Surely he's right to save the president/nuclear fusion and Snake's wrong to throw it all away?