The Battle Bar, Our Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy

Originally posted by Gideon
Agreed. He was more intelligent than Quarich and had that combination of both charm and menace, but Quarich was much more badass.

I'm not saying he's the better villain, just giving credit where it's due.

After I rewatched it, I couldn't reconcile how he was able to convince Two-Face to go after Batman and Gordon instead of killing him. Ledger's delivery was excellent and I was impressed, but I don't think he was the best ever. Just my opinion.

Who would be better? I can't think of anyone.

I think that the joker's kamikaze style of destroying gotham using psychology and physical determination is far superior to Quarich's hell-bent meat-fisted attempt to commit genocide.

Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
They were different villians, I agree. While Quarich was all military no brain, Hans Landa was a psychotic genius, sort of like the joker but funnier. He actually got a kick out of his enemies trying to squirm away even when he knew who they were.

there's an obvious parallel. Kind of like colonel klink gone right. That's why i love landa.

Neph, thank you for posting that review. His Star Wars ones are hilarious.

"Although the reason for them going down to the planet was to warn the Naboo about the army, they decide to follow a cartoon rabbit underwater."

Comic gold.

Off topic, Toto's live DVD "Falling in Between" is cosmic in its awesomeness.

Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
They were different villians, I agree. While Quarich was all military no brain, Hans Landa was a psychotic genius, sort of like the joker but funnier. He actually got a kick out of his enemies trying to squirm away even when he knew who they were.

The scene where Brad Pitt and his two sidekicks trying to act like Italians in the cinema was certainly priceless. I didn't enjoy Quarich too much on the other side - he was too one-dimensional as a character. The Joker and Landa both were pretty much unpredictable.

Who would be better? I can't think of anyone.

Ian McDiarmid as "Darth Sidious" of course.

Originally posted by Borbarad
The scene where Brad Pitt and his two sidekicks trying to act like Italians in the cinema was certainly priceless. I didn't enjoy Quarich too much on the other side - he was too one-dimensional as a character. The Joker and Landa both were pretty much unpredictable.

Ian McDiarmid as "Darth Sidious" of course. [/B]

I would rate him #2. I thought Joker was better. Joker brought an entire city to its knees. Sidious worked the system, inside the system to bring the galaxy to its knees.

Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
Oh yea, "bonjourno", hilarious. The funny part is, it always seems like Landa knows exactly who the people he talks to are, yet he enjoys the hunt.

He does know exactly. The only thing that I find hard to get is wether he just likes the hunt or if he simply doesn't give a crap about people not belonging to his current task.

When he meets the jewish girl that owns the cinema for the first time, he orders her a glass of milk, pointing towards the first scene of the movie, meaning he exactly knew who she was. Yet he doesn't do anything.

Maybe it's just like he said: He was good in finding people so it was natural to him to do that work for the Nazis. Besides being a psychotic genious of course...

I would rate him #2. I thought Joker was better. Joker brought an entire city to its knees. Sidious worked the system, inside the system to bring the galaxy to its knees.

Well...to me a villain needs a convicing motive to do something wrong. Sidious, ultimately, wanted to bring order to the Galaxy which isn't essentially bad. Landa probably viewed himself as some kind of "tool" who just did what he did best. The Joker is simply insane or, as he puts it, "ahead of the curve" - but his motive is proven wrong when the people on the two boats refuse to activate the bombs.

Originally posted by Borbarad
He does know exactly. The only thing that I find hard to get is wether he just likes the hunt or if he simply doesn't give a crap about people not belonging to his current task.

When he meets the jewish girl that owns the cinema for the first time, he orders her a glass of milk, pointing towards the first scene of the movie, meaning he exactly knew who she was. Yet he doesn't do anything.

Maybe it's just like he said: He was good in finding people so it was natural to him to do that work for the Nazis. Besides being a psychotic genious of course...

Well...to me a villain needs a convicing motive to do something wrong. Sidious, ultimately, wanted to bring order to the Galaxy which isn't essentially bad. Landa probably viewed himself as some kind of "tool" who just did what he did best. The Joker is simply insane or, as he puts it, "ahead of the curve" - but his motive is proven wrong when the people on the two boats refuse to activate the bombs.

Wait, Sidious ultimately wanted to bring order to the galaxy? Is that why he orchestrated a Galactic War and controlled both sides? If you recall, it was the Golden Age of the Jedi, relative peace. Sidious wanted to control the galaxy, place it in the hands of the sith, nothing more.

Joker's motives are more sinister. He wanted to prove that scheming is retarded, and the ultimate goal wasn't money or power, etc.

Frank Booth from Blue Velvet has either of them beat.

Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
Wait, Sidious ultimately wanted to bring order to the galaxy? Is that why he orchestrated a Galactic War and controlled both sides? If you recall, it was the Golden Age of the Jedi, relative peace. Sidious wanted to control the galaxy, place it in the hands of the sith, nothing more.

It was "relative" peace, but Sidious pretty much turned it into "total peace" once the Empire was installed (before the Rebellion started to act). And I merely said that this was his ultimate goal: an ordered Galaxy that he could rule for eternity. Hell. Stalin did also kill millions because he dreamed of a better world (apparently) under the rule of Communism.

Joker's motives are more sinister. He wanted to prove that scheming is retarded, and the ultimate goal wasn't money or power, etc.

Well. Joker was one of the most entertaining villains I've seen (probably the most entertaining) and Ledger did a great job without a doubt. Yet, to me, he lacks the absolute confidence in his agenda that Sidious has and that has caused genocide in fictional and non-fictional realms. On the other handside he also lacks the almost sadistic cruelty that Landa shows towards almost everybody - with the exception of the scene in which he made Batman chose between his love and the cities hero.

DS
Who would be better? I can't think of anyone.

Movie villains or villains in general?

Movie

DS
Movie

Palpatine would be one. Tarkin, Landa, Hannibal Lector, Amon Goeth (Schindler's List), Magneto, Agent Smith, Cutler Beckett, Viktor (Underworld).

They rank up there, for me, with the Joker.

I would definitely disagree but its an opinion. Meanwhile did you hear the good news? It was Stalin's hatred for religion that resulted in 50 million deaths, it was dogmatism!!!!

Sylar.... that character had a lot of depth when considering the other characters.

“The Russian civil religion includes saints (Lenin entombed), sacred feasts (May Day), and the crucial belief in Russia's special role in unfolding world history as the spearhead of socialist revolution. In all important ways, this secular nationalism is a civil religion.”

“The first such ritual to be standardized on a national scale was the cult of Lenin. As the Russian Revolution progressed, the Communist Party recognized the need for new symbols to confer meaning on the political chaos. Increasingly, the Party centered its claims to legitimate rule on the figure of Lenin who, as the revolution's author and guiding force, provided a fit subject for idealization. The Lenin cult was an organized system of rituals and symbols whose collective function was to arouse in the cult's participators and spectators the reverential mood necessary to create an emotional bond between them and the Party – the symbolic Lenin personified.”

"In sociology, there are several stages of religious development. The earliest is considered a cult, a small organization of fanatical members lead by a charismatic figurehead. We can see this similar situation with the developing Soviet Union and Lenin. The Bolsheviks did not represent the majority; they were a small but motivated sect of a much larger revolution that included the Petrograd Soviets, Mensheviks and liberal intelligentsia. "

"The irony is that Communism sees it self as an intellectual enterprise. Indeed, Communism's foundations began in the university as the creation of Marx, a student and intellectual. It would be intuitive to assume that Communism would be a rational and “enlightened” enterprise. Except, as history has clearly demonstrated, the reverse is true. Communism has shown to have all the qualities of an evangelical religious system."

I was waiting for you to find something that claims Stalin's secularism is considered civil religion. I wonder how long secularists thought of that justification. I'm pretty sure out of all your research this is all you found. A very weak rationalization indeed, geneticists.

Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
I was waiting for you to find something that claims Stalin's secularism is considered civil religion. I wonder how long secularists thought of that justification. I'm pretty sure out of all your research this is all you found. A very weak rationalization indeed, geneticists.

My argument has nothing to do with genetics and I have no idea what you mean by that. Anyways, do you really think I would be allowed to write a paper without sufficient sources to back up my point? Here are just a few...

Coleman, John A. "Civil Religion." Sociological Analysis 32.2 (1970): 67-77. JSTOR. Web. 8 Apr. 2010. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/3710057>

Tumarkin, Nina. "Political Ritual and the Cult of Lenin." Human Rights Quarterly 5.2 (1983): 203-06. JSTORE. Web. 8 Apr. 2010. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/762257>.

Tumarkin, Nina. "Religion, Bolshevism, and the Origins of the Lenin Cult." Russian Review 40.1 (1981): 35-46. JSTOR. Web. 8 Apr. 2010. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/128733>.

Fitzpatrick, Sheila. The Russian Revolution: 1917-1932. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1982. Print.

Fallding, Harold. "Secularization and the Sacred and Profane." The Sociological Quarterly 8.3 (1967): 349-64. JSTOR. Web. 10 May 2010. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/4105225>.

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It doesn't really matter. I'll be posting the complete paper up soon. I have to thank you DS. You were my inspiration.