Are we definately counting “Minions” as “henchmen,” for this discussion?
If so, I’m going to nominate…Skeletor’s troops from the live action Masters of the Universe.
No, really, hear me out…
[spoiler]
First off, in the beggining of the movie…they’d smashed Eternia’s defenses, and taken the capitol. They’d won. Dolph Lundgren’s He-Man and his buddies then blindly flee to Earth through a teleporter.
In an odd turnabout from supervillain protocol, Skeletor sends his specially-picked band of hired goons after He-Man, rather than sending in the minions first. When the goons (unsurprisingly) fail to capture Dolph, then Skesy sends in the regular infantry.
And it works.
Granted, it took an entire battalion of combined-arms troops, and a little creative hostage taking on bonesy’s part…but, by god, the ground-pounders succeeded where the henchmen failed.
Moreover, during a few laser-battles, even a casual observer will notice that more than a few times, when Skeletor’s troops get hit by laser fire, the blasts flash up against their full-body plastic body armor…but the minion inside keeps fighting. Some people might say that that’s evidence of a lazy optical-printer operator over at Lucasfilm, but I say…these “stormtroopers” wear armor that actually protects against laser fire. A technological innovation currently unmatched by the evil hordes of any other movie supervillain, as far as I know.[/spoiler]
I should point out here that Sauron is, for all intents and purposes, himself a henchman. Just because his boss (Morgoth/Melkor, a Lucifer-to-Satan figure) is incommunicado out in “the great void” doesn’t change the fact that’s Sauron’s just keeping the cause going.
I think we need to distinguish henchmen from Assistants, or Lead Henchmen.
I’m thinking of the old 1960s BATMAN TV show, where the bad guy has several flunkies, henchmen, go-fers, hangers on, whatever you call them. Or STAR WARS stormtroopers, or hordes of enemy soldiers. Think of the orcs fighting Aragorn at end of FELLOWSHIP. They’re nameless and faceless, and the heros can easily dispatch dozens of 'em.
That’s different from a “Lead Henchman” – basically, a second-level or assistant bad guy. Someone with a name or identifying face. Thus, Saruman may not be the Big Baddie, but he’s a second level bad guy, he’s not just a nameless follower. Similarly, although lower down the chain of command, the big hulking Uruk who kills Boromir: we may not know his name, but he’s an identifiable bad guy. That doesn’t count (to me) as nameless henchmen. Oddjob in GOLDFINGER isn’t just a nameless flunkie: he’s a second-level bad guy. He’s got a name and identifying characteristics.
I read the OP as being concerned about how the hero can easily fight off dozens of the bad guy’s soldiers – the Errol Flynn ROBIN HOOD example cited before is a perfect example. I think Alessan, in Post #3 above, nailed it by distinguishing flunkies from henchmen. I agree there’s a distinction, but I’m not sure what the words are. The Lead Henchmen or Assistant Bad Guy is usually named or clearly identified by special characteristics.
The second-level assistant bad guys are usually named in the credits (at least for modern films); the henchmen soldiers aren’t named in older films, and in modern films, they’re in the credits as “soldier #2” ordon’t even have an individual credit line but are part of a group of “fighters” or even “stunts”
THE GREAT ESCAPE. Granted the escape does take place, but then the germans quite efficently capture all but three of the hundred plus escapees. Not useless.
CK, I see the distinction (as in the old AD&D game) as the difference between henchmen, who serve the main character out of loyalty & friendship, and hirelings (who serve only for pay), with an additional category of “mook”, one who serves out of fear/mental control a la orcs in LOTR.
I’d second the X-MEN hechman Mystique as being pretty effective, but the others (Sabretooth, Toad, Deathstrike)? Too variable in their effectiveness, IMO.
Oh, and** Evil Captor**? Boba Fett was a chump, and he went down like a chump. There’s no-where in the movies that shows him being anything but a clever tracker. Tough, not so much … except as a little kid, I suppose, he did take out that one Jedi.
Isn’t a lot of the difference explainable by motivation? Sullen or scared henchmen need to be mobilised in great numbers to match the effectiveness of desperate heroes fighting for their lives.
When you are worrying about whether you are going to get whipped/how to escape/whether that madman with the metal teeth is going to take out another of your buddies/how is your family that was taken hostage as a guarantee of good behaviour, you don’t have as much mental and physical energy to spare for the fight as when you know you have your team behind you (even if there aren’t as many of them).
It’s also worth remembering that Cohan the Barbarian (from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld for anyone whose puzzled) claims that it’s much easier for a hero to fight off two dozen enemy soldiers than just one, assuming you’re well positioned (like in a narrow passageway where they can’t get behind you.) When there’ two dozen of them and only one of you, they can still only come at you one or two at a time, however wide the passageway is, and even then they’ll get in each other’s way, bumping and pushing.
Well, in the chain of villainous command it goes arch-villain, henchman, minions. The guards in The Incredibles were very effective minions: smart and resourceful {Violet’s invisible in the water? Throw in a stick to muddy it} as well as tough and ruthless {Incoming stray plane? No “What’s your ID?” chatter, just take it out with a missile. And check for survivors}. Pretty good shots, too, and not shy about shooting - and punching - kids. Indeed, despite their losses they pretty much gained the upper hand over Dash and Violet, before Mirage tipped the scales by releasing Mr Incredible to team up with Elastigirl.
I think of it as like not taking watches and boots off of corpses on a battlefield. I mean, they have big enough problems already, and there’s no reason to take what little they have left.
Another point in Jaws’ favor: he survives. He goes up against Bond several times, and while he never beats Bond, he does live to tell the tale. How many people can make that claim?
Not really. There were at least five AT-ATs on Hoth, and two were destroyed. Of those, one was destroyed by Luke himself, using his lightsaber, so I’m not sure if you can really count that one. There’s no doubt that the Imperials steamrollered over the Rebel defenses pretty easily: the gun turrets were ineffective, the speeders were shot down (although they did some damage), and the Rebel ground troops were basically just bonus targets.
