KMC Movie Awards: Villain of the decade.

RJ
Oh well.

Rickman's performance in Robin Hood was seriously underwhelming, IMHO. I just watched it for the first time the other day.

Gruber was by far more menacing. I also rather liked Jeremy Irons' performance as Gruber's brother in the third one.

TDK Joker.

Sy from One Hour Photo (although not really a villain, he is a great character with a few screws loose)

Idi Amin from Last King of Scotland

Gonna go with Golum from Lord of the Rings for sure.

Maybe Palpatine after that.

Then... uh...

Voldemort, there I said it. Lex Luthor.

Originally posted by Gideon
But this is all utterly and completely subjective. Personally? I'm not wooed by blatantly insane and homocidal clowns, so I don't find Ledger's Joker (or Curry's Pennywise, for that matter) the least bit charismatic. Meanwhile, a calm, patient, and seemingly benign idealist is far more likely to impress me as a person.

...

But then again, I'm chemically balanced.

What? Did we watch the same movie, becuase personally, Palpatine came of as just as insane as the Joker. Maybe you missed the scene where he was screeching with insane laughter in the middle of a fight. Or those silly faces he made while he was fighting Mace. Or 'Hey watch as I melt my own face!'

First, I'm not interested in Ledger fanwankery. Ledger accomplished his objective, yes, but he certainly did not defeat Batman. They weren't battling over Dent's soul, they were battling over the damn boats. Ledger's gambit failed (just like Palpatine's initial scheme in the Phantom Menace), but he managed to accomplish another objective through other means.

Ledger made Batman kill Harvey Dent. Dude rugby-tackled him of a ledge. Batman broke his one rule, so Joker won the argument.

Suffice it to say that Palpatine was granted unlimited war powers while the Joker was taken into custody.

He still won and I'm right and your wrong so neh!

Second, Return of the Jedi was 1983. Reread the title of this thread.

I'm counting it becuase everone watching knows he dies in the end anyway. You can't be that chilling if everyone knows you get taken out like a punk.

The movie explained that Palpatine was clouding the Jedi's senses. There's your explanation. Avoid dishonesty in the future.

IIRC All that was said was that 'their ability to use teh Force had diminished.' Nothing about actual concealment.

This was explained in Attack of the Clones: Palpatine was arranging for the Trade Federation to remain operational and, in fact, enhance the size of its armies during the trials in the Supreme Court.

Again, IIRC you just see the federation with the Seperatists, its not explained what he said, who he said it to, what happened, how they got off or anything. I'm not even sure its the same people. Are you sure you aren't talkinga bout a deleted scene perhaps?

Because he wanted the treaty to be validated so he could continue to milk the sympathy from the invasion. Amidala escaped and he was forced to adapt.

That doesn't explain why they didn't just shoot her and forge the thing. Heck, he's get way more sympathy thet way. The senate can't ignore the death of a monarch. And elected monarch btw.

The treaty would have eventually been invalidated due to duress, but who said Palpatine wanted it to last forever?

Well he obviously didn't. Theres zero chance of that treaty being legal ever.
.

Stop quoting from RedLetterMedia, please.

But he makes such good points! Just becuase you know he's right.

I'm becoming bored with your dishonesty. That wasn't the sum of Palpatine's manipulation of Anakin and you very well know it.

It was the sum of what we were shown at that point. And it was obviously very persuasive as it made Annie kill an unarmed (LOL!) man but seriously Palpatines an alright man and totally not a Sith Lord at allllllllll!'

I appreciate your attempt to move the goalpost. And if you insist in being obtuse, I can point and say Palpatine won the spiritual war with Dooku, which nullifies any victory for the Joker.

Surely you can do better? [/B]

I'm not moving anything, that is seriously the measure of a true villain. Sam Jackson said so in Unbreakable, so its 100% garuanteed to be right and awesome. And Palps was never in a war with Dooku. Him screaming 'Do it!' proved no points whatsoever, except that Dooku was gullible. Howin Merlins saggy ballsack does that even begin to compare to what TDK Joker did. Becuase I'm not seeing jack.

I'm just getting warmed up. I havn't even quoted Master Crimzon yet.

Edit: Yeah, Gollum was pretty damn good.

N
What? Did we watch the same movie, becuase personally, Palpatine came of as just as insane as the Joker. Maybe you missed the scene where he was screeching with insane laughter in the middle of a fight. Or those silly faces he made while he was fighting Mace. Or 'Hey watch as I melt my own face!'

If you'd been paying attention, you'll notice I never denied that Palpatine had moments of absolute malice and sadism, but in fact mentioned that McDiarmid had scenes in which he was undeniably hammy.

The difference, of course, is that Palpatine was not acting in such a manner the entire time. He only unleashed his megalomania the moment he had no reason not to, which is why he is far more charismatic, charming, or what have you than the hideously blatant insanity of the Joker.

But again, I'm chemically balanced.

N
Ledger made Batman kill Harvey Dent. Dude rugby-tackled him of a ledge. Batman broke his one rule, so Joker won the argument.

The only question here, of course, is which of the three (Batman, the Joker, or Nolan) is more inept: if any of them had been aware of the events of the first film, they would have realized that Batman had and would kill when necessary -- Liam Neeson, anyone?

N
He still won and I'm right and your wrong so neh![

He achieved a single objective while being placed in police custody; Palpatine achieved all of his objectives while claiming his place as ruler of the galaxy.

Palpatine's victory was many order of magnitudes greater than the Joker's single moment of triumph.

N
I'm counting it becuase everone watching knows he dies in the end anyway. You can't be that chilling if everyone knows you get taken out like a punk.

Unfortunately, it has no bearing on the actual thread or its contents, especially since you're inclined to disregard the EU. Do me a favor and at least try to curb your dishonesty and double standards, please.

N
IIRC All that was said was that 'their ability to use teh Force had diminished.' Nothing about actual concealment.

...Which would include their superhuman senses afforded by the Force, yes?

N
Again, IIRC you just see the federation with the Seperatists, its not explained what he said, who he said it to, what happened, how they got off or anything. I'm not even sure its the same people. Are you sure you aren't talkinga bout a deleted scene perhaps?

It was said that Gunray was basically let off with a slap on the wrist after four trials in the Supreme Court, but you're correct: it wasn't explicitly mentioned within the movie that Palpatine had arranged the affair (it was later confirmed in Labyrinth of Evil).

I'm not even going to begin to discuss your selective lack of imagination or ability to infer, but I am thinking rather mean thoughts about it.

N
That doesn't explain why they didn't just shoot her and forge the thing. Heck, he's get way more sympathy thet way. The senate can't ignore the death of a monarch. And elected monarch btw.

One can assume that it's a little more complicated than a mere signature.

N
Well he obviously didn't. Theres zero chance of that treaty being legal ever.

Only if the circumstances surrounding its signing were released; presumably, Palpatine would delay that.

N
But he makes such good points! Just becuase you know he's right.

He's funny; but he's not right.

N
It was the sum of what we were shown at that point. And it was obviously very persuasive as it made Annie kill an unarmed (LOL!) man but seriously Palpatines an alright man and totally not a Sith Lord at allllllllll!'

That's an outright lie: Palpatine fostered a lust for power in Anakin during several scenes throughout the last two movies. Pretending otherwise is pointless, most of us have seen them.

N
Becuase I'm not seeing jack.

What you see and what is there are apparently two separate things. Let's recap: you've been completely dishonest, horribly biased, and transparent as hell.

With all due respect. 😉

Long posts damn!

Frank Booth from Blue Velvet.......by a longshot!

A few top competitors imo
Joker (TDK)
Chigurh (No Country for Old Men)
Ozymandias (Watchmen)
Mr. Creedy (V for Vendetta)
Also if you include animated films:
Vincent (Cowboy Bebop)

Originally posted by the ninjak
Long posts damn!

Frank Booth from Blue Velvet.......by a longshot!

Again, the 80s isn't... now.

TDK- Joker
Kick-Ass- Frank D'Amico
Inglorious Basterds- Col. Hans Landa

Originally posted by SnakeEyes
Again, the 80s isn't... now.

Joker then this decade sucks in villains.

As far as deep and intruiging motivations, detailed backstories, and great character exploration goes, I'd probably give it to Jigsaw.

Palpatine probably wouldn't even qualify for the top 100 in all honesty. Little emotive quality in the character, unoriginal motivations lacking in depth, complexity and intruige, no visual merit, little presence, mediocre dialogue, and of course he acted as villain within the confines of a mediocre story. He was smart and achieved a lot but that matters little when judging his merit from a storytelling perspective.

Now if we were to consider all of the events in the PT as an extension of Darth Bane's character and the long term effects of his planning and manipulation (including the set of instructions he left for his employee, Darth Palpatine), then he would quite possibly make the top 5.

Originally posted by the ninjak
Long posts damn!

Frank Booth from Blue Velvet.......by a longshot!

Best villain of all time right there!

Originally posted by the ninjak
Joker then this decade sucks in villains.

Then i guess you have'nt seen many movies this decade.

Originally posted by Kazenji
Then i guess you have'nt seen many movies this decade.

Seeing films with villians on the calibre of Frank Booth.....no.

Maybe the Red Dragon, but we didn't see enough of him.

Nebaris
As far as deep and intruiging motivations, detailed backstories, and great character exploration goes, I'd probably give it to Jigsaw.

I've only seen the first movie and half the second, but from what little I saw I was very impressed. Alas, I heard the sequels sucked.

Nebaris
Palpatine probably wouldn't even qualify for the top 100 in all honesty.

😂 😂 😂

You're crazy. In all honesty.

😐

Nebaris
Little emotive quality in the character,

That depends on what you mean. He doesn't tear up at the sight of flowers or get butterflies when watching romance movies, but that's not the point. Palpatine, in Lucas's own words, is meant to represent Satan: basic emotions are meant to be artificial, a guise that enables him to achieve his true goals. He's meant to represent the absolute worst in people and be the dark end of a moral spectrum.

Pretty compelling, if you ask me.

Nebaris
unoriginal motivations lacking in depth,

What motivations are original, then? Palpatine's motivation is a lust for dominance and authority, which is as realistic as it gets.

Nebaris
complexity and intruige,

This is utterly subjective: Palpatine not only sought ultimate power, but also (initially) sought an apprentice who would eventually succeed him to perpetuate the Sith legacy. This is a complex set of objectives, since they clash: Palpatine simultaneously wants to be the galactic ruler, but acknowledges (again, initially) that he is mortal and thus seeks an individual who can eventually replace him. Not to mention his methods provide any complexity that his motivation may lack.

Nebaris
no visual merit,

This sounds an awful lot like pulling criteria out of your ass. 😐

Nebaris
little presence,

Again, this is utterly subjective: as Darth Sidious, he is commanding and imposing. As Palpatine? He's meant to provide little presence: he's unassuming, remember?

Nebaris
mediocre dialogue,

For the most part, Palpatine's dialogue was satisfactory within the movies. (Probably because he didn't have a love interest.)

Nebaris
and of course he acted as villain within the confines of a mediocre story.

The story is superb; it's execution is what's shakey.

Nebaris
He was smart and achieved a lot but that matters little when judging his merit from a storytelling perspective.

That matters quite a bit, actually. Palpatine is the embodiment of an archetype: the single manifestation of pure evil, the physical incarnation of temptation, a lust for power, and manipulation. He exists as an idea and force of nature. I agree, he's not, as I say, a villain who cries during the Notebook. He is the ultimate representation of villainy because he's thoroughly evil.

Palpatine's triumphs are critical to his role as a successful villain, and serve to emphasize how very dangerous he is.

It's a sad day when an ideal villain is neither successful, intelligent, or dangerous: this seems to defy the very purpose of a villain.

But, as mentioned before, no criteria was listed, so I go by what I value in cinema characters.

The Nazi in the movie "Basterds" is the best and deserves an award.along with Brad Pit for that same movie.

ADarksideJedi
The Nazi in the movie "Basterds" is the best and deserves an award.

To my knowledge, Christoph Waltz won quite a few of them.

Originally posted by Gideon
If you'd been paying attention, you'll notice I never denied that Palpatine had moments of absolute malice and sadism, but in fact mentioned that McDiarmid had scenes in which he was undeniably hammy.

The difference, of course, is that Palpatine was not acting in such a manner the entire time. He only unleashed his megalomania the moment he had no reason not to, which is why he is far more charismatic, charming, or what have you than the hideously blatant insanity of the Joker.

But again, I'm chemically balanced.

Whilst imo TDK Joker was far more powerful in his scenes becuase he was so blatantly insane. And he still cake-walked through the movie despite that. He was so charismatic that even when acting butt**** crazy he had absolute command of the situation. And thats interesting. Its unique. Palpatine on the other hand came of as more of a lame characature of a villian. A complete stereotype through and through. Crazy Hitler-expy lying through his teeth with transparent plans of universal dominence. Yawn.

And you're way biased.

The only question here, of course, is which of the three (Batman, the Joker, or Nolan) is more inept: if any of them had been aware of the events of the first film, they would have realized that Batman had and would kill when necessary -- Liam Neeson, anyone?

Its neither. Its you. Batman didn't kill Ra's, he just didn't save him from the mess he'd gotten himself into. Batman doesn't kill anyone directly in the movies. Except when he tackles Dent off a ledge becuase he had to.

He achieved a single objective while being placed in police custody; Palpatine achieved all of his objectives while claiming his place as ruler of the galaxy.

Palpatine's victory was many order of magnitudes greater than the Joker's single moment of triumph.

Joker didn't care about petty things like galactic dominance, so I really don't care about that either. He achieved one thing: prove that even the best of men can be corrupted. Dent went insane and homicidal, Batman broke his One Rule.

Palpatine on the other hand? You say he achieved all his objectives. This is blatantly false. Palpatine tried to eliminate the Jedi, which he failed miserably (sp?) at, which directly lead to his defeat him Ep6. Palpatine tried to secure himself an Empire, which again, he failed at. Organa and crew immediately began plotting his downfall, which lead to the Rebel Alliance, which lead to his defeat in Ep6.

So personally I'd rank Jokers achievement in one movie, over Palpatines achievement in 3.

Unfortunately, it has no bearing on the actual thread or its contents, especially since you're inclined to disregard the EU. Do me a favor and at least try to curb your dishonesty and double standards, please.

I'm disregarding it becuase this is about movie Villains. I'm judging him on what the movie shows us of him, which is a transparent Smug Snake douche with a poor performance backing him up. He only has one decent scene in the whole trilogy (you know the one). 🙄

...Which would include their superhuman senses afforded by the Force, yes?

Thats a real stretch. I highly doubt most viewers would connect the two. One throwaway line that 'merely implies that there might be a connection perhaps' doesn't cut it.

It was said that Gunray was basically let off with a slap on the wrist after four trials in the Supreme Court, but you're correct: it wasn't explicitly mentioned within the movie that Palpatine had arranged the affair (it was later confirmed in Labyrinth of Evil).

So I was right. Movie only please btw.

I'm not even going to begin to discuss your selective lack of imagination or ability to infer, but I am thinking rather mean thoughts about it.

Ha, good luck maintaining your anger at adorable me for any length of time.

One can assume that it's a little more complicated than a mere signature.

Only if the circumstances surrounding its signing were released; presumably, Palpatine would delay that.

When you assume you make an ass out of u and me. Plus its always just mentioned as a signiture 'I want that treaty signed!'

He's funny; but he's not right.

He is right actually. A lot.

That's an outright lie: Palpatine fostered a lust for power in Anakin during several scenes throughout the last two movies. Pretending otherwise is pointless, most of us have seen them.

You mean his one scene of 'You're the most powerful Jedi I've ever met and I would know, being MostdefinatelynotaSithLord yet able to tell for some reason even though I don't have Force senses of any kind.' Yeah, fantastic manipulation. And yeah the opera scene is decent, and merely decent.

What you see and what is there are apparently two separate things. Let's recap: you've been completely dishonest, horribly biased, and transparent as hell.

With all due respect. 😉

You know, I don't believe that you meant that last part. And as for the first, well then you should be bowing before my 'awesomeness', becuase I'm apparantly an amalgamation of you and Palpatine.

Originally posted by Gideon
I've only seen the first movie and half the second, but from what little I saw I was very impressed. Alas, I heard the sequels sucked.

The sequels are quite possibly the most underrated films out there. The fourth in particular was pretty amazing and my personal favorite of the series (you actually get to see Jigsaw's methods at recruitment first hand, and it has one of my personal favorite movie plot twists of all time as well as the most thrilling sequence of events in the series). 5 and 6 did see a pretty large drop in quality however but are still decent films.

That depends on what you mean. He doesn't tear up at the sight of flowers or get butterflies when watching romance movies, but that's not the point. Palpatine, in Lucas's own words, is meant to represent Satan: basic emotions are meant to be artificial, a guise that enables him to achieve his true goals. He's meant to represent the absolute worst in people and be the dark end of a moral spectrum.

Pretty compelling, if you ask me.

😂 😂

By little emotive quality what I meant was that there is little quality in his character that inspires genuine emotion in the audience. He is not written/performed in such a way that strikes genuine fear into the heart of the audience, or genuinely inspires hatred of his character or anger towards his actions (at least to the extent that storyline escapism reasonably allows).

What motivations are original, then?

Well, Jigsaw's, for one. The idea that defines his motivations: that people who take life for granted don't deserve to live at all, and his desire to test people by placing them in extreme situations where they're in a position to save themselves but only through such extreme measures that Jigsaw determines that they really do cherish their lives.

Another example would be (don't read if you plan on watching the incredible Memento (one of the best films ever made); in fact, watch Memento and then go read this 😄)

Spoiler:
Leanord in Memento (probably a bit of a stretch to refer to him as a villain but he does technically count), who suffers from short term memory loss (after a certain amount of time his memory always reverts back to how it was the moment of the accident that caused the memory problem; he can no longer store new memories into his long term memory) and is after the man who raped and murdered his wife, and uses notes and photographs and tatoos on his body to record information for every time his memory would revert back to its original state. Upon being informed at one point that he had already found and killed the man he was after years before, he realises that he wants to continue hunting this man down, that it's all he really wants to live for, and so he tricks and manipulates himself by recording false information into going on a hunt that would lead to the false revelation that "Teddy" (someone who had been helping him) was the guy he was after.

Palpatine's motivations are essentially the destruction of his enemies (The Jedi Order) and his own rise to power (ruling the Galaxy). They're generic and simplistic, and don't really possess an element that's at all intruiging. That doesn't necessarily break him as a character; Frank Booth who I'd rate as the greatest movie villain of all time didn't have especially original or intruiging motivations either, but the emotive quality in his character was second to none. Palpatine doesn't excel in either area. His achievements as a villain only matter to the extent that they add to the emotive qulity of his character or what it means in the context of the story, which in both cases are quite mediocre regardless.

This is utterly subjective: Palpatine not only sought ultimate power, but also (initially) sought an apprentice who would eventually succeed him to perpetuate the Sith legacy. This is a complex set of objectives, since they clash: Palpatine simultaneously wants to be the galactic ruler, but acknowledges (again, initially) that he is mortal and thus seeks an individual who can eventually replace him.

To what extent is this explored within the film? At best, we can add another dimension to his motivations in that he wants the continued survival and success of the order he belonged to regardless of his involvement in it, but again I fail to see the complexity in that, relatively speaking of course. There are numerous characters, the above two I mentioned as examples, that possess a far greater number of layers and dimensions to their motivations.

Not to mention his methods provide any complexity that his motivation may lack.

Not to the extent that they are explored within the films. His methods are presented in an entirely simplistic fashion and any real complexity there is is entirely assumed rather than demonstrated.