No, not a typo, just a thought that occurred to me while watching my daughter watch one of the Iron Man movies.
It’s simply this: Corporate “bad guys” are boring. There’s no sense of danger there. They have limited resources compared to the governments they are fighting (no armies, no standing police forces, no ability to print money, I can go on and on), they don’t actually do any of the fighting themselves*, no way to inspire loyalty… hell, they really don’t have the means to effectively threaten people. “IF YOU DON’T DO MY BIDDING, HR WILL REQUIRE YOU TO SIT THROUGH 6 HOURS OF SENSITIVITY TRAINING!” “uh… OK. My union contract requires that I earn time-and-a-half for unnecessary training, so I really appreciate it, guy!”
I mean, really: Once I find out the bad guy is Evil Corp (or its CEO), that pretty much takes any suspense out of the film. For me at least.
But surely there are lamer bad guys out there. Either singularly (like a Triffid - “OH, LOOK! A CARNIVOROUS PLANT THAT MOVES REALLY SLOW! HOW CAN WE EVER AVOID IT?”) or a group (like my EvilCo CEO’s), tell us who (or what) makes your eyes roll because they are just bad at being bad.
*… tapping foot expectantly, waiting for counter-examples…
Almost every Bond-styled bad guy. Its one thing to have an overly-convoluted plot but its another to explain it several times (or have it explained several times) for no good reason.
Emperor What’s-his-name from “Return of the Jedi.” Maybe it was just the actor or the direction, but he was about as menacing as a plush bear, but not as cute.
The Evil Nemiseses from Season 6 of BtVS. Face it, the only one that was really Bad was Warren. And even he was an incompetent jerk rather than a Force of Evil.
The evil corporate CEO’s who do have private armies…or assassins…or who are willing to commit some pretty awful crimes – whether real-life or fictional – are kinda scary. The “Cyberpunk” milieu is rich with them: they actually do have the power, and willingness, to do hideous things.
You could argue they aren’t really believable, and I’d agree. Real-life evil CEOs are mostly interesting in feathering their own nests.
But, holy geeze, the Volkswagen guys who put in deceitful software in their car’s on-board computers: that’s pretty damn high-level evil!
My nomination for not-all-that-scary monsters were the dinosaurs that were supposed to be rampaging through San Diego in the second Jurassic Park flick. Oh, yeah? Do you have any idea how many hunting rifles there are in San Diego? Sure, a lot of people would get hurt…but the dinos are toast.
And he’s boring not because the character was boring, or Jeff Bridges did a bad job… he’s boring because he’s extremely limited in his options. And the problem is that he’s a CEO of a publicly traded corporation - he has a board of directors to answer to, he has to sign off on SEC filings, he has to make sure the company is profitable and in a way that’s pleasing to investors, and everything he does leaves a record.
I mean… you can be evil as a CEO. But you can’t be evil in the way of a Marvel villain where you kill people with your bare hands and divert billions of dollars of shareholder funds for secret projects with no repercussions (must make for some very thick and convoluted 10k’s). I mean, Jim Chanos would have Odebiah’s ass for lunch - “The New Enron: Where does Stark’s cash go?”
Again… this is just me. Others may find that CEO’s make for effective bad guys in action movies.
Yes, but it’s not “I’m going to kill my assistant and divert billions of cash flow so I can build a secret lair to take over the world, resulting in the deaths of millions” evil.
Zombies are another. I remember one movie where somebody said “there are more zombies than bullets”. Uh… yeah, maybe on the Isle of Man (maybe). But not in Texas.
Darth Maul. He has no personality, no background, and is a complete cipher. He looks cool, but that’s the entirety of his character.
And it doesn’t help that the final showdown with Obi-Wan Kenobi has no suspense whatsoever. Yes, I know the good guy usually wins these fights, but since we saw Obi-Wan alive in the original trilogy, it’s pretty hard to get worried about his death (and I find the fight scene – like 90% of all fight scenes I’ve seen – to be utterly boring).
Daleks. They’re evil, because they kill everything which is not a Dalek. And why? Because they’re evil. They’re evil Macguffins, and boring as hell.
Granted, The Witch’s Familiar gave some interesting insights into why they are as they are, but it was literally the first episode of Doctor Who I’ve ever seen in which Daleks were interesting baddies.
Yeah, for all we could tell, maybe Darth Maul had a legitimate grievance against the Jedi. The only villainous thing he did in the whole movie was fight against the people who called themselves the heroes. And what if Maul called himself a hero, too? How were we supposed to tell the difference? He doesn’t order any planets destroyed, he doesn’t torture anyone for information, he doesn’t kill any of his underlings por encourager les autres.
