Who, or what, is your favorite villain?

Cafe Society
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  1. Darth Sidious/Emperor Palpatine. I really Ian mcDiarnid’s performance as the character. It made the Prequel Trilogy enjoyable for me,

  2. Terry Funk. His promo work as a heel in pro wrestling is one of the most entertaining things I have ever watched.

  3. Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs.

  4. Norman Stansfield from Leon: The Professional. A great performance from Gary Oldman

  5. Clarence Boddicker from Robocop

  6. “Rowdy” Roddy Piper. Ditto here for what I said about Terry Funk.

  7. Dr Doom from the Fantastic Four comics.

  8. The Thing from the 1983 movie The Thing

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You sure toyed with my expectations.

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Agent Smith from The Matrix.

The Kurgan from The Highlander.

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Another favorite of mine is Robert Patrick’s performance as The T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgement Day

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Some of you listed villains I would have picked, so I’m going way back:
The gunslinger Jack Wilson in the movie Shane.

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Lex Luthor. Very specifically, the Silver Age version who became a criminal mastermind because Superman (Superboy to be exact) accidentally made him bald.

Luthor had a single reason for being a supervillain and a single target. I particularly remember one story where he stymied Superman and robbed Fort Knox. When Luthor discovered he had actually battled a Superman robot, he gave back the gold, because the robot was not a real opponent. His motive was vengeance, not greed.

I didn’t like it when they turned Luthor into a supercorrupt businessman. He was much better as a mad scientist.

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This is a good one. Pharmacist-looking dude who was just Bad-Ass Evil.

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Does R. Lee Emery’s performance as The Drill Sergeant in Full Metal Jacket count as a villain? Because he was hilarious.

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Mornelithe Falconsbane, from the Mercedes Lackey “Valdemar” series. I know Michael Longcor wrote a song about him titled (I think) “Falconsbane” from his “Kitchen Junk Drawer” album, but for the life of me I can’t find a link to it.

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I saw the thread title and immediately flashed on Smallville’s Lex Luthor.

Michael Rosenberg brought so much malice bubbling below the surface to the role.
And the writers did an excellent job of giving him a backstory where his father (brilliantly played by John Glover) belittled him, while he grew up watching Clark’s father caring like a parent should.

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Gunnery Sgt. Hartman. I was thinking of nominating him, too.

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Given the imminent AI-precipitated collapse of civilization, I’ve got to go with HAL. More realistic.

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Emilio Lizardo

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Lord Vetinari starts out as kind of villainous but changes over the course of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels. He’s more of a conniving Machiavellian dictator who constantly outwits everyone around him.

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Coming late to this party: Jade Fox from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The reason I mention her is that in this movie she’s clearly malevolent and then there’s one tiny line hidden in the middle that explains why she’s so hateful. You can find the plot on Wikipedia. Having been a female in martial arts I can definitely relate.

I also kinda dug Achren from Lloyd Alexander’s books, The Chronicles of Prydain. The books, not movies. Just the way she’s described. Bleached hair and power-mad. She goes through some changes in that book series, too.

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Lots of good entries. So I’ll add one I haven’t seen yet.

The Skeksis from the Dark Crystal. (The giant bird guys)

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T-1000. Smart (it’s a robot), near indestructible (it’s “liquid metal”), and is singular-minded and purpose built. It literally has no conscience. If not for the extraordinary intervention of Uncle Bob, Sarah and John had absolutely zero chance.

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And the reason I’m torn between the two is because I’m not sure whether “Absolutely definitely evil, but with really good reasons for it” or “Just plain murderous” makes for a better villain.

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David Warner in Time Bandits; IMDb lists his character as “Evil Genius”.

Warner played so many villains he has to be in this thread, somewhere.

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Glaring omission that I only noticed (by their absence) after perusing the thread.

NOBODY has voted for any villian from any of the Avenger movies, unless I missed any. Were they THAT forgettable?

Magneto from X-Men would be my nomination for today tho, as anti-villianish as he could often get. Also a bit surprised that Saruman is also MIA.