Well as an American… where this issue actually came up fairly recently (okay 150 years ago… ) I think they might have been justified.
I thought I’d be lucky if one person caught the reference.
In Colossus: The Forbin Project:
[spoiler]My father was in braces when this one came out. Do I really need a spoiler box?
Well, anyway…in the end, you might argue that all the humans did was fail to stop the computers from saving the world, and ushering in a new era of peace, plenty, and content.
(To coin a couple of phrases.)[/spoiler]
They don’t even know that in episode 2 do they? And besides, what kind of a reason is that?
Well, you can’t tell from the flick, but if you read Jones’ book and its two sequels (The Fall of Colossus and Colossusand the Crab), you see that Colossus is intelligent but amoral, and does some pretty nasty things in trying to find out what makes humans tick. It’s clearly a dystopia.
I suppose the same things could be said about the lead characters in The Godfather.
We are persuaded to view Vito and Michael Corleone as champions of justice for the underpriviledged masses; but in reality, they are really nothing more than criminals hiding behind a legions of thugs. Granted, those that receive the sharp end of the stick from the Corleones are far from blameless (i.e. the two rapists, the movie producer, the police chief). But the Corleone family seems to default to violence much more often than trying to work things out reasonably.
The only time we see a Corleone attempt a sensible end to violence is after Sonny is killed. Only then does Don Vito attempt to come to a compromise without violence. Even then, Michael goes over his father’s head at the end of the film in a blood soaked conclusion.
While I’m thinking about Al Pacino, I might as well offer Scarface as another protagonist who is ultimately villianous. It’s harder to find sympathy for Tony Montana; he was a real asshole throughout the whole movie. He is motivated solely by self-interest and forsakes his family, friends, and traditional morals in order to pursue his dreams of becoming a powerful and influential drug kingpin. I suppose the entire point of the movie is to despise Tony for the things he does, but he is the protagonist nonetheless.
Well, movies where criminals and killers are the protagonists are very common: Goodfellas, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Leon/The Professional, The Usual Suspects, and Fight Club are some extremely popular examples. I think the OP was trying to narrow it down to movies where you think the protagonist is a “good guy” (noble/heroic/upstanding), but a reveal shows he’s really the bad guy when all is said and done.
You’re exactly right; that’s what I was looking for: either cases where it’s revealed explicitly that the putative hero is the villain of the piece, or when the narrative never admits it but it’s obvious upon close examination.
But since when do threads stay on topic on the SMDB? :rolleyes:
I hope somebody will come oup with some more good examples, though.
I don’t think the motives of the separtists was particularly pure. In the first film, it’s apparent that the Trade Federation’s main problem with the Republic was that it wouldn’t let them invade Naboo.
Totalitarianism is not foreign to Western philosophy, more’s the pity. Hero was essentially propaganda for the Chinese government. “It’s okay if your leaders kill some of you, so long as it benefits most of you.” A very pretty film, but morally repugnant.
Something like this happens in The Nightmare Before Christmas. Jack, even though his intentions were good, completely disrupts Christmas without notifying anyone in Christmas town, and organizes the kidnapping of Santa. In the end he realizes his mistake though.
The movie *Doom[i/].
You start out thinking that the Sarge is the good guy who will have the show down with the big bad. In the end though Sarge turns out top be the big bad and the second in command turns out to be the hero.
The movie *Doom[i/].
You start out thinking that the Sarge is the good guy who will have the show down with the big bad. In the end though Sarge turns out to be the big bad and the second in command turns out to be the hero.
The movie Doom.
You start out thinking that the Sarge is the good guy who will have the show down with the big bad. In the end though Sarge turns out to be the big bad and the second in command turns out to be the hero.
Do we mean movies where the good guy turnes out to be the villain? If so, I nominate
Flightplan.
There’s also Psycho – Norman seems a pretty nice person until the end. Hitchcock’s Secret Agent also has something similar.
If you mean heroes who do nasty things, Dr. Who once committed genocide, killing an entire enemy race in “The Terror of the Vervoids.”
Jody Foster in Flightplan starts screwing around with a plane’s avionics while in flight – she knows what she’s doing, but it does put the rest of the passengers in jeopardy.
Captain Kirk once abandoned a couple of crewmembers on a planet while he went off the save the universe.
Gary Sinise seems to be the king of the good guy/bad guy switch. I can think of two movies where he fools everyone up until the very end:
Ransom[/spoiler] and [spoiler]Snake Eyes.
That’s certainly what I mean.
I don’t recall her doing such damage that the plane was in jeopardy of crashing; she would not do that, as her daughter was on board.
I don’t remember that one…what episode? (Not that it fits the OP.)
Either Roger Ebert or some other film critic called this the “Designated Hero”. The character we’re supposed to support, but who’s only claim to actual heroism is that their name appears first in the credits. Also characters who do immoral, selfish or irresponsible things that are just waved away by the writer or director on the grounds that it’s ok because he’s the hero. The converse would of course be the “Designated Villain.”
And yeah, Jurrassic Park II is a perfect example. Now that I think of it, Julianne Moore seems to always give off “Designated Hero” vibes in everything she does. You just know that everyone that starts out on her side is going to get killed or treated like shit.
Superman!
Not that he isn’t a genuine hero in the latest movie. But my WORD, what a dick he was.
Can I get some examples? Because I don’t really see it for her in JPII. True, she participated in the incident with the baby T-Rex, but that was only after Nick had stupidly already committed her to it; I think she just thought that abandoning the baby was even a worse option than treating it, since they had irrevocably changed the parent Rexes perceived territory by moving it and placed human scent on it as well.
I nominate the following movies:
What Lies Beneath
and
Memento
and
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Is that what you mean?
And, on the flipside, there’s
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
It seems to be from Jabootu. One of their prime examples of this was…you guessed it…in their review of The Lost World.