Evil Overlord’s List #71 If I decide to test a lieutenant's loyalty and see if he/she should be made a trusted lieutenant, I will have a crack squad of marksmen standing by in case the answer is no.
I’ll admit it; I had absolutely no desire to see Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. This is probably mostly due to the fact that I hate Michael Cera’s face. I don’t know why, it‘s just true. I was dragged to the theater kicking and screaming, but when the lights went down and the 8-bit Universal Studios theme started blaring, I fell in love. In a summer bereft of good films Scott Pilgrim stands out as a shining beacon of snappy dialogue, intriguing characters and epic cinematography. It is quirky and weird and fun and awesome and completely and totally flawed. I also take issue with the villains. There were, you see, far too many of them: seven to be exact.
Here there be spoilers.
Scott Pilgrim is a twenty-three-year-old lazy dude who likes to play videogames and bass guitar. Enter, Ramona Flowers. Scott falls instantly in love only to learn that to be with her, he must defeat her seven evil exes. Now, I do in fact; realize that Scott Pilgrim based on a comic series. (No, I’ve never read it, I’m nerdy, but not that nerdy). And in the comics, there are indeed seven villains, these seven personages forming the League of Evil Exes. This is fine for a series of comic books where you have one or two villains per volume, but in a two-hour film, cramming in all seven exes is a bit of an issue. For it has the effect of completely destroying the film’s hierarchy of villainy.
To begin with, there are virtually no henchmen. With the exception of a few who are attached to various villains and a couple that Scott dispatches at the very end of the film in G-Man’s lair there is basically zilch in the henchman department. This is not generally an issue other than that it casts a glaring on the fact that there are six villains. Count’em SIX. Okay, maybe five and a half. (Even with their dragons the Katayanagi twins are kind of a let down).
Skip the fact that these villains have virtually no motivation for doing as they do and making Scott’s life a mess. They’re not fighting for Ramona, they are simply battling to make sure no one other than the uber villain can have her. It’s made even more ridiculous by the fact that half of them were dated back in grade school and the other half were dated for a grand total of like 9.2 second. So, these presumably successful rock stars, movie stars and music moguls should be long over their infatuation with the girl with rainbow hair. But, no apparently they cannot rip themselves away from Ramona’s gravitational pull and so these villains zip on and off the screen with bright colors, crashes and bangs, but little emotional motivation.
As for the uber villain, he was to be quite frank, not nearly uber enough. A smarmy, smirking, charmer who himself had little enough motivation to go after Ramona when she was obsessed with him, but who has now formed the League of Evil Exes in order to brow beat Ramona back to him in order to slake his own obsession. He is not a compelling character and frankly, having him played by Jason Schwartzman did not help matters at all. When you have the future Captain America in Chris Evans, and the former Man of Steel in Brandon Routh as mere precursors to your uber villain, you seriously need to step up your game. In short, though charming, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World just can’t get over the suck of its villains.
Despite of all this and over my strenuous objections, I still love this film. Go figure.
When writing your villains, please, please, please! Make sure your villains and uber villain have sound emotional reasons for making your hero’s life a living hell, or else it all just seems silly. Also, be sure that your hierarchy of villainy is sound. Don’t make your villains more intriguing than your uber villain and leave some henchmen lying about for the hero to beat up on, it does so boost his ego.
Yes, me and Michael Cera have still got beef. It’s his face.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Henchmen, Villains and Uber Villains: What Videogames Can Teach Us about Drama
SIDEBAR - Greetings to the folks visiting from justeffing today! It was very cool of Julie to send you on over to check out my humble beginnings. I’m pretty new at this whole blogging endeavor so things may be moving around and resettling some, but feel free to stick around and to add your two cents.
Evil Overlord List # 75 I will instruct my Legions of Terror to attack the hero en masse, instead of standing around waiting while members break off and attack one or two at a time.
Poor Mario, it’s a good thing he’s so super, because he has the worst luck. If it’s not his girl getting kidnapped, it’s his castle being overrun or his brother disappearing. And as any child given any variation of a Nintendo gaming system in the last thirty years knows, he’s going to have to fight through Goombas, Koopas and Chomps before taking on Kammy Koopa and then finally, his arch-nemesis Bowser.
A good action film is set up very much like a good videogame. The larger and more varied the force of villains arrayed against your hero, the more he has to overcome, the stronger both your hero and your story will grow.
In videogames villainy is broken down into three categories: henchmen, villains and uber villains. Henchmen are on the lowest level they generally don’t have names, are terrible shots and rack up body counts like no other. These are the stormtroopers in Star Wars, the orcs in The Lord of the Rings and the Nazis in… well most any movie involving Nazis.
Villains are usually the hired muscle of the big bad; they do have names and can get personal with the hero, but are not the main event. Think Count Rugen (aka the six-fingered man) in The Princess Bride, Frederick Sykes (aka the one-armed man) in The Fugitive and Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi. They are usually defeated in a prolonged physical struggle that weakens the hero before his battle with his ultimate nemesis: the uber villain.
The uber villain is an entirely different kettle of fish. He is the puppet master, the perpetrator of some great evil against the world at large and (hopefully) the hero in particular. He is smart and cunning and usually his confrontation with the hero involves some sort of chicanery. Theirs can be a physical fight, but it can also be a battle of wits and not infrequently the hero is, at the last minute, saved by some kind of outside help or piece of hidden knowledge. Entering at stage right we have Commodus from Gladiator, Agent Smith from The Matrix and The Joker in The Dark Knight. One film that utilizes all three categories with verve and panache is Die Hard.
Die Hard is the story of our hero, John McClane, who is in the wrong place, at the wrong time, who faces one of the great villains in action film history. The stage is set, Christmas Eve, an unhappy couple, a mostly empty skyscraper and a truckload of villains intent on robbery and mayhem.
Our henchmen are the nameless and numerous bank robbers, these are the ones toting machine guns and looking tough, but not doing much else. Karl moves from nameless tough to the role of villain when McClane kills his brother, Tony making the conflict quite personal. Their fight rages throughout the film, Karl becoming further and further enraged by McClane’s antics. The final conflict between Karl and McClane is an epic, bare-knuckled brawl from which, McClane barely escapes; whereupon he goes after Hans Gruber, who is of course, the uber villain.
The relationship between McClane and Gruber in this film is truly marvelous for they are in constant contact through the use of a pilfered two-way radio. Midway through the story they have their meet-epic cementing their mutual wish for the other’s destruction. Their final clash comes at the climax of the film when Gruber has finally figured out that one of his hostages is McClane’s wife. Broken, bloody and very near the end of his rope, McClane confronts Gruber in the building’s vault. McClane is forced to throw down his machine gun, but distracts Gruber and pulls a handgun from where he’d taped it to his back. Gruber’s not dead yet though and drags McClane’s wife with him as he goes out a window. Fortunately, McClane manages to grab his wife and cheerfully drops Gruber ten stories; thereby, assuring all the Die Hard sequels are that much more lame.
When building your story, look at the world, who are the henchmen? Where is the villain? And what are the personal motivations of your uber villain to kill your hero. Figure those things out and you’re well on your way to a decent action franchise.
Evil Overlord List # 75 I will instruct my Legions of Terror to attack the hero en masse, instead of standing around waiting while members break off and attack one or two at a time.
Poor Mario, it’s a good thing he’s so super, because he has the worst luck. If it’s not his girl getting kidnapped, it’s his castle being overrun or his brother disappearing. And as any child given any variation of a Nintendo gaming system in the last thirty years knows, he’s going to have to fight through Goombas, Koopas and Chomps before taking on Kammy Koopa and then finally, his arch-nemesis Bowser.
A good action film is set up very much like a good videogame. The larger and more varied the force of villains arrayed against your hero, the more he has to overcome, the stronger both your hero and your story will grow.
In videogames villainy is broken down into three categories: henchmen, villains and uber villains. Henchmen are on the lowest level they generally don’t have names, are terrible shots and rack up body counts like no other. These are the stormtroopers in Star Wars, the orcs in The Lord of the Rings and the Nazis in… well most any movie involving Nazis.
Villains are usually the hired muscle of the big bad; they do have names and can get personal with the hero, but are not the main event. Think Count Rugen (aka the six-fingered man) in The Princess Bride, Frederick Sykes (aka the one-armed man) in The Fugitive and Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi. They are usually defeated in a prolonged physical struggle that weakens the hero before his battle with his ultimate nemesis: the uber villain.
The uber villain is an entirely different kettle of fish. He is the puppet master, the perpetrator of some great evil against the world at large and (hopefully) the hero in particular. He is smart and cunning and usually his confrontation with the hero involves some sort of chicanery. Theirs can be a physical fight, but it can also be a battle of wits and not infrequently the hero is, at the last minute, saved by some kind of outside help or piece of hidden knowledge. Entering at stage right we have Commodus from Gladiator, Agent Smith from The Matrix and The Joker in The Dark Knight. One film that utilizes all three categories with verve and panache is Die Hard.
Die Hard is the story of our hero, John McClane, who is in the wrong place, at the wrong time, who faces one of the great villains in action film history. The stage is set, Christmas Eve, an unhappy couple, a mostly empty skyscraper and a truckload of villains intent on robbery and mayhem.
Our henchmen are the nameless and numerous bank robbers, these are the ones toting machine guns and looking tough, but not doing much else. Karl moves from nameless tough to the role of villain when McClane kills his brother, Tony making the conflict quite personal. Their fight rages throughout the film, Karl becoming further and further enraged by McClane’s antics. The final conflict between Karl and McClane is an epic, bare-knuckled brawl from which, McClane barely escapes; whereupon he goes after Hans Gruber, who is of course, the uber villain.
The relationship between McClane and Gruber in this film is truly marvelous for they are in constant contact through the use of a pilfered two-way radio. Midway through the story they have their meet-epic cementing their mutual wish for the other’s destruction. Their final clash comes at the climax of the film when Gruber has finally figured out that one of his hostages is McClane’s wife. Broken, bloody and very near the end of his rope, McClane confronts Gruber in the building’s vault. McClane is forced to throw down his machine gun, but distracts Gruber and pulls a handgun from where he’d taped it to his back. Gruber’s not dead yet though and drags McClane’s wife with him as he goes out a window. Fortunately, McClane manages to grab his wife and cheerfully drops Gruber ten stories; thereby, assuring all the Die Hard sequels are that much more lame.
When building your story, look at the world, who are the henchmen? Where is the villain? And what are the personal motivations of your uber villain to kill your hero. Figure those things out and you’re well on your way to a decent action franchise.
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