Adria vs Anna! Who the better Villain
- Thread starter Snick27
- Start date
Yeah but Adria was hot. Odd that she is playing similar role but yet so different in her approach. Must be the hair cut.
I was never really convinced by Baccarin as Adria, but she's really elevated her game as Anna. Unfortunately, the writing for Anna seems to have deteriorated. The first four episodes of the new V were unfocused and unsatisfying, but Anna was an intriguingly ambiguous figure -- she clearly had a hidden agenda that was probably bad, but she remained cool and subtle and intriguing. Lately, though, post-retool, it seems they're trying to make her more openly malevolent like Diana in the original, and it feels cornier, not as good a fit to Baccarin's performance.
As uninspired as V may be in its approach, it's not nearly as bland as Stargate. Anna is a much more interesting villain than Adria. Baccarin has been pretty successful in conveying the inhuman-ness of Anna.
Compare her with the guy who plays Ryan in that scene where he tried to portray "unemotional, lizard-like" Ryan - he just came off as boring and flat. So yeah, it does take a bit of acting talent to portray a character who is lacking in human emotions, in a way that still conveys that there's a personality present.
I would hope the directors, producers or writers would also have more to do with it than the hairdressing department! The character of Anna isn't Baccarin's invention. She may have only minor input into who Anna is (but is taking direction well).
Compare her with the guy who plays Ryan in that scene where he tried to portray "unemotional, lizard-like" Ryan - he just came off as boring and flat. So yeah, it does take a bit of acting talent to portray a character who is lacking in human emotions, in a way that still conveys that there's a personality present.
You people are cruel.
I would hope the directors, producers or writers would also have more to do with it than the hairdressing department! The character of Anna isn't Baccarin's invention. She may have only minor input into who Anna is (but is taking direction well).
You people are cruel.
It's just gonna be disappointing when they make Serenity II (
) that Inara is gonna have such short hair.
You people are cruel.
It's just gonna be disappointing when they make Serenity II (
I wouldn't worry about it too much.
I agree Adria's hair cut gave her a softer hotter look,
Anna's is amore military look, even “butchy” but it works for her harder line.
yep and those teeth ouch!
You people are cruel.
Don't underestimate the impact that appearance can have on an actor's performance. Many actors who wear prosthetic alien makeup comment on how much it helps them define their characters and adopt a different persona. I can imagine that hairstyle could help an actor get into character in the same way. Anna's hairstyle definitely suggests a more mature, cooler, more professional woman than the more glamorous Adria, so I can see Baccarin taking it as inspiration to help her shape how she plays the character.
And yes, I was talking about the actress's contribution, not the writers'. Adria was a much better-written character in a much better-written series, but Baccarin plays Anna better. And really, they're very similar characters -- both ruthless leaders and aspiring conquerors who use personal allure and religion (the "Bliss" in Anna's case) to persuade people of their benevolence. So it is more a difference in performance than anything else, and Baccarin seems to inhabit the character of Anna better and more convincingly than she did Adria. And maybe the radical change in her look did help her change her performance, as it often does for actors. That doesn't mean that the hairdresser deserves credit instead of the actress, because the hairstyle is merely the inspiration. The achievement is still Baccarin's.
I found Adria corny, but then I found the whole Ori thing to be painfully corny. Maybe the V's aren't much better. I would prefer a more serious attempt at creating a plausible, multifaceted (but still villanous) alien species. They are a social species, obviously, but without emotions as their social glue, I guess Bliss is how they manage to have a society. Then why the assumption that human emotions are "good" and Bliss is drug-like and "bad"?
V is poorly thought through. Then again, Stargate has never been well thought through either. I call it a draw.
Why does sci fi have to suck so much.Or the director or producers are giving her better direction about the character. Just the notion that "she's a lizard!" gives Baccarin something to work with. We really have no idea about the collaborative process on the set.
Anyway, I'm not one of the people who thinks she's a lousy actress. She's better at being a V than the guy who plays Ryan. That shows the seemingly simply role requires talent to pull off.
How is that an "or" rather than an "and?" It's a team effort. A good director can bring something new out of an actor, but the actor has to have the talent to begin with, and surely it doesn't make sense to deny her credit for her own performance.
As it happens, I give Andrea Romano a lot of credit for Baccarin's improved performance as Anna. Romano is the voice director for Warner Bros. Animation (and others), and she directed Baccarin for three years as Black Canary on Justice League Unlimited. I feel that Baccarin's use of her voice on V is much better than it was on Firefly or Stargate. Particularly, her Bliss speech at the end of episode 4 was the highlight of the entire series (although that's faint praise, because the series hasn't really had any other highlights). That was a superb use of her voice as a performance instrument, richer and more effective than I've ever known her to achieve before. I'm sure that her years working with Romano, who's truly a superb voice director, helped her refine her vocal skills considerably. But Baccarin is still the one giving the performance. Others may have taught her to use her talent better, but she's the one using it. So she deserves as least as much credit as anyone else.
Besides, I really don't think the producers on V have a bloody clue what they're doing. And the directors aren't doing any good at all at getting Morris Chestnut to use his voice competently rather than just lazily slurring his speech, or getting Scott Wolf to give a credible performance as a trusted news anchor rather than being so shifty and whiny and off-putting that you wouldn't believe him if he reported the Sun rose in the east, or at getting any of the other regulars to be at all interesting. Baccarin's the one really engaging thing about this entire mess of a show, and so yes, I think she's the one who deserves credit for that.
Anna is basically a Wolf in Sheep's clothing is just attacking Earth. Adria makes no pretense of what she wants. She has a whole fleet of ships attacking the galaxy and doing basic 'submit or be destroyed'. I haven't seen the new corny V, but if it is anything like the old one, Anna is keeping her lizard form a secret.
I think she's a better performer, but she was hotter as Adria. Stargate may have had a layer of cheese, but those guys had a better handle on what they were doing than those in charge of V do.
Voice and movement have a lot to do with Anna seeming convincingly alien. The costuming for all the V's have been great (looking like high-end human business-wear but with something off-kilter about it) and of course, the prosthetics department.
He hasn't been remotely convincing as a V. I hope that it does turn out that it's really John May in Ryan's skin, and that the producers can use that as an excuse to recast the role when John May's cover is blown and he hops into yet another skin. Or bring back Michael Trucco. For John May to be a credible leader, the other Fifth Column V's need to recognize who he is.
He needs to convey more unconscious arrogance, so we can believe this is a guy who has been famous in his own right.
It's called acting...
Baccarin in Firefly- Hot and an interesting character.
Baccarin in SG1- fairly hot but looks like jailbait, and a rubbish character
Baccarin in V (first two episodes, anyway, which I saw last night) - not hot, but wonderfully nasty character. She seems to be going a bit Servalan on us this time, even down to the hair...
