Why do super hero movie villains have to die at the end?

[Too Much Fun]

Me too. Although one of the challenges of using that character is trying to make sure he doesn't seem too similar to The Joker. If Nolan does use The Riddler, I hope he figures out how to do that. In "Batman Forever", both villains were at times like lesser versions of The Joker. I had this Harley Quinn comic book where Harley Quinn calls The Riddler "a poor man's Joker" and he gets pissed off and goes on this rant explaining why she's wrong and he's much smarter and more mature. It was pretty funny.

 

[JarodRussell]

The Riddler is someone who likes puzzles and riddles, and not someone who's totally nuts. I think Nolan is the guy to know that.

 

[Shazam!]

Since Tim Burton's Batman, almost every single super hero movie the villain or villains die in the end. Why is that? Why would they paint themselves into a corner like that. Is it poor and unimaginative screenwriting? Also every single time the hero has nothing to do with the death, except be there when it happens or facilitate it in some small way. I'm tired of it, one of the best things about Superman the movie, was Superman delivering Lex Luthor to prison at the end.

Why did Khan die? And Nero? And Kruge? Or Hans Gruber? Or Emperor Palpatine?

It's not just superhero movies, y'know.

 

[Captaindemotion]

^ I think the difference is that most of the comic villains have lived on in the comics and continue to plague our heroes time and again. People therefore expect them to be similarly unkillable in the movie versions.

I must admit, when I first saw Batman 1989, I was quite surprised that they offed The Joker in it.

 

[Christopher]

The Joker says at the end of the movie, "You and I are going to keep doing this forever, aren't we?" Doesn't that at least imply they were planning to bring him back at some point?

The thing about serial fiction is that you can't assume everything is planned in advance to be specifically one way or another. Usually it's more about keeping your options open, giving yourself the freedom to go either way depending on how things develop later on. It's not so much that they specifically intended to use the Joker again as that they didn't want to rule out the possibility.

A theory I heard (no evidence) was that when Joker says that madness is like gravity, he was going to cut the rope and kill himself. But they changed it when Heath died and inserted the "forever" part.

Whaaaa...?? How do these theorists explain how it was possible to shoot new Heath Ledger material after Ledger died? That just doesn't make a lick of sense.

Besides, it was established in the first movie that Batman isn't a killer, although they blurred the lines somewhat with Ra's. So there doesn't need to be any specific explanation for why Batman didn't kill the Joker or whatever. It's just not this Batman's MO to kill, as a rule.

I want to see the bad guys get their comeuppance and that can't happen if they die. When they die, it feels like they got away.

I like that. It's a refreshing alternative to the usual Hollywood view that death is comeuppance.

Me too. Although one of the challenges of using that character is trying to make sure he doesn't seem too similar to The Joker. If Nolan does use The Riddler, I hope he figures out how to do that. In "Batman Forever", both villains were at times like lesser versions of The Joker. I had this Harley Quinn comic book where Harley Quinn calls The Riddler "a poor man's Joker" and he gets pissed off and goes on this rant explaining why she's wrong and he's much smarter and more mature. It was pretty funny.

Oh, I think it's definitely a mistake to treat the Riddler as anything like the Joker. That worked in the Adam West series, where all the villains were pretty much interchangeably flamboyant and goofy and inordinately fond of cryptic joke clues, because that's what comic book villains were like in the '50s and '60s. But the modern Joker and Riddler have evolved in very different directions. The Joker is a homicidal psychopath who's all about anarchy and sadistic humor. The Riddler is sane, calculating, and driven by the intellectual challenge of outwitting the authorities and Batman. They're as different as the things they're named for. Jokes are about making people laugh (or about laughing at the expense of others), while riddles are about confounding people and challenging their minds.

 

[barnaclelapse]

Nolan had plans to use Heath in Batman 3? Do you have a source for that comment because I don't ever recall reading any interview from Nolan saying that. I think that has been a fan myth since Heath's death.

The Joker says at the end of the movie, "You and I are going to keep doing this forever, aren't we?" Doesn't that at least imply they were planning to bring him back at some point?

That made sense to me, and it was one of my favorite aspects of TDK. It's not impossible that they couldn't use The Joker again. Most likely it would just be too much of an uphill battle for the actor taking over the mantle.

As for the bad guys dying it's a little less common than it was in the past, but it's still the ruling sentiment of the studios. And that's always been a shame to me.

 

[Gojira]

Lex Luthor is a bad guy and he has never died in a Superman film.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

The Joker says at the end of the movie, "You and I are going to keep doing this forever, aren't we?" Doesn't that at least imply they were planning to bring him back at some point?

The thing about serial fiction is that you can't assume everything is planned in advance to be specifically one way or another. Usually it's more about keeping your options open, giving yourself the freedom to go either way depending on how things develop later on. It's not so much that they specifically intended to use the Joker again as that they didn't want to rule out the possibility.

Good point, Christopher. I should have written that they were at least considering bringing him back.

Besides, it was established in the first movie that Batman isn't a killer, although they blurred the lines somewhat with Ra's.

Oh, they did more than that. They stretched Batman's code against killing to the breaking point. I hated that "I don't have to save you" crap. Letting someone die through your own neglect is still negligent homicide.

The Joker is a homicidal psychopath who's all about anarchy and sadistic humor. The Riddler is sane, calculating, and driven by the intellectual challenge of outwitting the authorities and Batman. They're as different as the things they're named for. Jokes are about making people laugh (or about laughing at the expense of others), while riddles are about confounding people and challenging their minds.

Exactly! I'm wishing you were writing the movie now, Christopher.

Funny story: Last year I dressed up as the Riddler for Halloween and marched in the Village Halloween parade in NYC. About 30% of the people who greeted me called me the Joker.

 

[Set Harth]

Nolan had plans to use Heath in Batman 3? Do you have a source for that comment because I don't ever recall reading any interview from Nolan saying that. I think that has been a fan myth since Heath's death.

Supposedly Goyer had said in past interviews that they sketched out a trilogy in which the third film featured the trial of the Joker.

 

[JacksonArcher]

Nolan had plans to use Heath in Batman 3? Do you have a source for that comment because I don't ever recall reading any interview from Nolan saying that. I think that has been a fan myth since Heath's death.

Supposedly Goyer had said in past interviews that they sketched out a trilogy in which the third film featured the trial of the Joker.

I remember this. It was in an old Empire Magazine article before Batman Begins came out. I still have the issue. The Joker would go on trial in the third film, and scar Dent and then he would become Two-Face. Obviously things changed since Nolan and Goyer originally sketched out their plans for the trilogy.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Supposedly Goyer had said in past interviews that they sketched out a trilogy in which the third film featured the trial of the Joker.

I remember this. It was in an old Empire Magazine article before Batman Begins came out. I still have the issue. The Joker would go on trial in the third film, and scar Dent and then he would become Two-Face. Obviously things changed since Nolan and Goyer originally sketched out their plans for the trilogy.

Always loved the idea of the Joker's squirting acid flower scarring Harvey Dent. Too bad they won't get to do it now.

 

[Trekker4747]

I suspect the reason why we often don't see the movie villains in sequels that often is that there's no "good way" to get rid of them enough to make it reasonable why they're still not a problem in the next movie. Even when they're captured there's still the "idea" that they're in prison and likely to escape. So why hasn't it happened?

So you kill them and now they're not a problem anymore.

 

[Christopher]

^I don't see that. There's no reason a movie universe has to have the same kind of cardboard prison that ongoing comic series have. You could throw the villains in prison and have them actually stay there, like most prisoners do in reality.

 

[Trekker4747]

Yeah, but you're talking about a movie universe where The Joker managed to orchestrate a very complex criminal plan that, frankly, would be impossible for anyone to orchestrate without massive help. Granted, now Heath Ledger is dead so we're not likely to see The Joker again in the current Batman movie series of films but it seems implausible that the man who could managed to pull off The Great Gotham Ferryboat Scheme of 2008 could be kept in an insane asylum for any length of time.

In comic books its even worse where the prisons and mental hospitals (esp. Arkham) have a revovling door to keep the bad guys in the rotation. So in your movie universe you have to use your bad guy and then get rid of them or explain why they're not still a problem for our hero.

(Batman's The Dark Knight actually does this nicely by having Batman wrap up the first movie's plot-hole by starting off with him capturing The Sandman.)

So the movie people have two choices, either let them get captured and jailed and just cope with people wondering how it is a criminal mastermind from the previous movie is stalled by bars and a routine imprisonment schedule or you kill them. If you're never going to use them again killing them seems like an okay option and now we have to kill them "in the best way."

I think Spider-man 2 does it best by having Doc Ock overcome the machines controlling his body and mind and sacrificing himself in the name of saving the city from and oddly dim miniature sun.

 

[JacksonArcher]

(Batman's The Dark Knight actually does this nicely by having Batman wrap up the first movie's plot-hole by starting off with him capturing The Sandman.)

That's who that was? I swear I thought it was the Scarecrow. I feel bad for the Sandman, though. Batman is a lot nastier and more gruesome than Spider-Man. Batman obviously didn't let him just float away.

 

[Trekker4747]

Bah! Sandman, Scarecrow, whatever.

 

[Christopher]

Yeah, but you're talking about a movie universe where The Joker managed to orchestrate a very complex criminal plan that, frankly, would be impossible for anyone to orchestrate without massive help.

No, I'm talking about comic-book movie universes in general, just as you were in your previous post. I'm saying that, in any given hypothetical comic-book film series, it doesn't necessarily have to follow that imprisoning a villain in one film would guarantee their escape and involvement in the next. Indeed, since the people who tell a story have control over what happens in it, whether a given villain escaped would be contingent entirely on whether the writers wanted them to escape. So it isn't true that killing off supervillains is the only way to keep them from escaping. If the filmmakers want them to stay in jail, then they'll stay in jail.

So the movie people have two choices, either let them get captured and jailed and just cope with people wondering how it is a criminal mastermind from the previous movie is stalled by bars and a routine imprisonment schedule or you kill them.

But you're assuming that the audience for a given movie is going to expect it to play by the rules of comic books. That may be true of the dedicated comic geeks, but they're the minority of the filmgoing audience. My point is that a movie adaptation is free to create its own interpretation of the premise, to set its own rules and parameters. And it is therefore not required to make prisons easy to escape. It's a matter of story structure, you see. Prisons in ongoing series are easy to escape from because you need to keep telling new stories over and over, a dozen times a year for a comic or two dozen for a TV series, so there's a lot of pressure to keep bringing the effective villains back fairly frequently. But the pacing of a movie series is completely different, because you only have an installment every 2-3 years, typically. So there's not as much structural or dramatic incentive to employ the contrivance of prisons that are easy to escape from.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

So the movie people have two choices, either let them get captured and jailed and just cope with people wondering how it is a criminal mastermind from the previous movie is stalled by bars and a routine imprisonment schedule or you kill them.

Or you could just accept that the frequent if unlikely prison escapes are just a convenient convention of the superhero genre. That works too.

 

[JacksonArcher]

It's also called suspension of disbelief. I have no problem with the Joker locked up in Arkham Asylum in Batman 3, secretly plotting his next scheme off-screen. Opens the doors to your imagination.

 

[JarodRussell]

Yeah, but you're talking about a movie universe where The Joker managed to orchestrate a very complex criminal plan that, frankly, would be impossible for anyone to orchestrate without massive help. Granted, now Heath Ledger is dead so we're not likely to see The Joker again in the current Batman movie series of films but it seems implausible that the man who could managed to pull off The Great Gotham Ferryboat Scheme of 2008 could be kept in an insane asylum for any length of time.

But how many Joker movies where the Joker has yet another insane plan would you actually really want to see? Only one, right? Because the second one just wouldn't be as good as the first. We all know that, I think. So the Joker is either killed or put in prison. Either way, he's gone.