Nazis make better villains than Soviets.

Originally posted by exanda kane
Cate Blanchett was great (as per usual) but I have to say, Nazis make more menacing villains than Soviets.

Y'know, Nazis were just bad - makes you appreciate how Alison Doody managed to make Elsa sympathetic - but with the Soviets, you reach a grey area, because the USA weren't quite the golden heroes they made themselves out to be either.

Pretty much. There's a line by Amanda Waller in the fourth season of JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED, speaking about the goverment's fear of metahumans compared with the old days with the Russians - "Our enemy is never as evil as we make them to be. And maybe we're not quite as good as we like to think we are."

The best thing about Nazis as villains, is that you can go as far over the top as you want to, because their evil was so great, and people will accept it. The Russians were intimidating & mysterious, but it never did come to war with them. Plus, they had many socialist sympathizers in North America & abroad; locking such people up just made the U.S. look as heavy handed.

I guess people should read up on the Stalin days.

Originally posted by queeq
I guess people should read up on the Stalin days.

Stalin did terrible things, but his legacy in Russia is mixed, to this day.
Just like Mao in China, where even more people died. The people in both countries were grateful for how they were transformed from backward, rural nations with a small ruling class, into world superpowers. Both suffered the worst during the Second World War - Russia by the Germans, China by the Japanese - and became far stronger against any future invasions after the war. It was just the draconian, unforgiving process of reform & change in both countries that made them wonder why so much suffering was needed.
They're even talked about renaming Volgograd back to Stalingrad in the past few years. Though by his last days, he had become so despotic & paranoid he may have been poisoned to prevent starting war against the West (similar conspiracy theories still float about Gen. George Patton - stationed in Germany after the war, constantly blowing off about the Russian threat - dying in a bizarre traffic accident.)
Winston Churchill was always suspicious of Stalin & Russian motives, but he had no problem siding with him against Hitler & the Axis. They did need Russia to occupy the Nazis for most of the fighting while they prepared to re-enter Europe; it cost 25 million Russian lives by the end, nearly half of the wars total.
The interesting thing in the film is, Stalin had been dead for four years by 1957. I thought they're could have been a line joking about Premier Khrushchev in there.

Hehehe

Nazi do make for better villians they bring an attitude of we're going to destroye you all and rule the world kind of feel, they were more willing to do horrific things toward people witch makes you want to see Henry Jones kick some ass a little more then against a communist. Now im not saying that some of those communist governments around the world haven't done some mest up stuff to but come on now were talking about Nazis. Plus you feel more satisfied at the end of the movie when the bad guys head shrivels up and explodes all over the screen. either way I still liked the movie.

I like the Soviets.

nazi and american black and white good and evil whereas with russians the americans wernt the good guys either so its hard to reach a conclusion.

Why? Once you replace the word nazi by German we have the same thing.

Originally posted by queeq
I like the Soviets.

Yep thats the problem.

Just not as hateable as the Nazis.

Its like having Jaws the shark as your villian for Jaws and Jaws two, then having that little Hitler monkey from Raiders be the villian in the 3rd. And the monkey wears little armbands/waterwings.

Nah, I meant liking them as evil. They were for a long time ya know.

But not in this movie, regardless of their past credits in the world of evil.

They were the villian equivalent of Star Trek redshirts.

"The diet coke of evil, the margarin of evil" as Mike Myers would say.

The 'Raiders' Nazis and the 'Crusade' nazis rested on no laurels and spent a good amount of screentime being genuinely evil, convincing and assuring the audience of their evil crudentials.
You didn't have to be a student of world history to see that those were some serious bad mofos, as the evil was there to see, and by the end of the movie, you were ready to see them get exploded and melted and stuff which was a fantastic popcorn moment.

Ah yes, I agree about teh way teh Russians were depicted. They could have been worse. Guess political correctness set in somewhere.

And nazi's can always politically incorrect be made evil. In their case the reverse is what gets people on their seats (see Die Untergang)

Very true. ✅

So, I state mty case for truly evil Soviets, Stalin-style.

the Soviets could have made good villains, but unfortunately lucas and whomever else decided to make this film geared more towards kids then people who could handle guys getting their hearts ripped out/faces melted off.

I love how the whole movie is all light hearted and then there's the randomly placed ant death scene from hell lol. The tone was just way off IMO

Another kiddie movie eh? Maybe Lucas is going a tad senile in his old age.

Originally posted by WrathfulDwarf
Saw it at midnight. Really good! I really had a blast seen Indy crack the whip and run from deadly traps and making great escapes.

The villains were really good for Kingdom of the Skull. However, it does not feel the same. See, it would make more sense that the villains for this film were Nazis and not Ruskies. The thing is...Soviets weren't really big fans of Mythology or treasure hunting. They were more interested in space travel and nuclear weapons.

The Nazis were more mythical. It makes more sense to have had the film use former Nazis as villains trying to get to the skull and revive the Nazi regime during the early days of the cold war. At least that's how I see it.

So what do you think? Nazis over Soviets?

Go see Indiana Jones...you'll like it. 🙂

It's like comparing Stifler (who's kind of a dick) to Emperor Palpatine (the manifestation of Evil).

Huh???

Stiffler: American Pie movies reference?

Yeah I got that... but I don't understand the comparison, or why's funny. Unless it has something to do with Emperor's mom.