Villains Who Really Should Have Won When You Think About It...

Jcomp · Jul 25, 2009

I don't mean in the same sense of James Bond villain sense where they should "just shoot him" but instead start monologue-ing and give the hero time to escape. I mean situations where the bad guy has pretty blatant advantages and opportunities and just somehow screws up anyway.

I'm watching Terminator 2 on tv today, and it's less than halfway through the movie and I've seen about 5 things that the T-1000 does wrong. If he can imitate a floor, why not just do something similar some time in the future--imitating a simple, inanimate and seemingly innocuous object--to gain the element of surprise? Why didn't it just go to John's house and instead of killing the foster parents and blowing its cover, turn itself into the kitchen floor or a wall in John's bedroom and wait for him to get home then get him in his sleep? Why didn't it just destroy the elevator's controls or cables when it jumped onto the roof, either to send it plummeting to the ground or trap them all inside with nowhere to go?

It was too overzealous, and apparently Skynet didn't program its brilliant prototype with any critical thinking skills. It reminds me of upsets in sports where a clearly superior team blows the championship because they're overly reliant on their standard gameplan instead of making a basic adjustment.

Any others?

alleycat · Jul 25, 2009

I'm assuming you mean something more subtle than the typical action movie where there are two dozen bad guys firing machine guns (and sometimes lasers and rockets) at the hero but none of them can hit him at a distance of twenty yards. You're wanting to primarily consider those where there is a basic flaw in the logic, right?

Jcomp · Jul 25, 2009

alleycat said:
I'm assuming you mean something more subtle than the typical action movie where there are two dozen bad guys firing machine guns (and sometimes lasers and rockets) at the hero but none of them can hit him at a distance of twenty yards. You're wanting to primarily consider those where there is a basic flaw in the logic, right?

Right. Not just where they're apparently a bunch of lousy goons with the worst aim this side of a Storm Trooper, or a bunch of easily disposable ninjas, but situations where the hero is clearly overmatched, but the villain takes an angle to kill him/her that isn't the best approach given their skill set. Like it all just came down to bad coaching...

alleycat · Jul 25, 2009

I know what you mean. It's funny, but I can forgive it more in a movie than in a book; maybe because it's more typically used in movies, or maybe because it happens in a quicker time period. It can get really annoying in a book when the heretofore intelligent protagonist can't see the obvious coming, or when the antagonist can't seem to do the one single thing that would enable him to win.

Kurtz · Jul 25, 2009

I was going to say the Joker, but he does win in the end.

katiemac · Jul 25, 2009

I see stuff like this all the time in movies, but I'm oddly blanking right now.

The only things I can come up with at the moment are about twelve different things Voldemort coulda/shoulda/woulda done to kick Harry Potter's ass. Moreso movie Voldemort than book Voldemort but they're both offenders.

SPMiller · Jul 25, 2009

Most movies and books love villains whose stupid mistakes lead directly to their defeat.

I, on the other hand, prefer to write protagonists who use their intellect and skill to defeat worthy opponents.

robeiae · Jul 25, 2009

In the first Star Wars movie (A New Hope), why wait for the Death Star to "clear the planet"? Friggin blow the planet away and the moon with the rebel base would go bye-bye, as well. Duh.

katiemac · Jul 25, 2009

Cracked.com: 7 Badass Cartoon Villains Who Lost to Idiot Heroes

wyntermoon · Jul 25, 2009

robeiae said:
In the first Star Wars movie (A New Hope), why wait for the Death Star to "clear the planet"? Friggin blow the planet away and the moon with the rebel base would go bye-bye, as well. Duh.

I'm with Sparky. Though now I'm embarrassed to say that in public. :gone:

katiemac · Jul 25, 2009

Spider-man!

The Green Goblin uses a sleep/paralyzing gas to capture Spider-man and convince Spidey to join him.

... So why doesn't the Goblin ever use that sleep/paralyzing gas again and kill him when he's down?

At least Batman creates an antidote for crap like that before fighting the villain again.

ChunkyC · Jul 25, 2009

robeiae said:
In the first Star Wars movie (A New Hope), why wait for the Death Star to "clear the planet"? Friggin blow the planet away and the moon with the rebel base would go bye-bye, as well. Duh.

Or jump into the system on the same side of the planet as the moon in the first place. No wonder Vader kept killing the crew, they were completely incompetent.

childeroland · Jul 25, 2009

In Terminator 3, the T-800 has a power cell or whatever that can blow the bejesus out of everything within, like, a million-block radius. Why not have the lady Terminator sent back with a frayed power cell or some type of explosive, find John Connor on Google, and sidle up to him before blowing herself sky high?

katiemac · Jul 25, 2009

childeroland said:
In Terminator 3, the T-800 has a power cell or whatever that can blow the bejesus out of everything within, like, a million-block radius. Why not have the lady Terminator sent back with a frayed power cell or some type of explosive, find John Connor on Google, and sidle up to him before blowing herself sky high?

Cracked.com also features this lovely article: 5 Reasons Why the Terminator Franchise Makes No Goddamn Sense.

10er · Jul 25, 2009

This review of Nemesis contains "should have won" scenes by the boatload. Some of my favorites:

Shinzon's first rule of space combat: if you have an invisible ship, stay so close to the enemy that he can fire blind and still hit your dumb ass.

WORF: Why are the lights so fucking dark?
RIKER: Dim red light makes everything look more foreboding.
WORF: But didn't they say that the Remans see really well in the dark and can't stand bright lights? Why don't we crank up the lights to fullbright and blind 'em?
RIKER: Shut up and just try to look dramatic.

PICARD: Oh, fuck it. I'm just going to beam over there myself so we can end this miserable abortion of a movie.
DATA: Shouldn't I go? Or a commando team? What's up with this "mano a mano", "I must face him alone" shit? You're not a Jedi Knight, you know.
PICARD: I know. But this is what happens when you let fanboys write scripts.

Wow, you can destroy this whole ship by shooting a handgun into this funky green lightshow. You'd think they would have at least put walls or plexiglass around it, for fuck's sake. Good thing there are no guards. Hmm, I wonder why the entire crew didn't come rushing to this room once the fighting started.

childeroland · Jul 25, 2009

katiemac said:
Cracked.com also features this lovely article: 5 Reasons Why the Terminator Franchise Makes No Goddamn Sense.

Yeah, it definitely seems to come down to lack of imagination concerning how to make a story dramatic.

MattW · Jul 25, 2009

What's worse - heroes who succeed only through blatant flaws in the villain's plans, or villains who fail only because the hero finds the least probable way of defeating them?

DavidZahir · Jul 26, 2009

You know, when you consider just how fast vampires are in most movies, isn't it amazing they don't just sneak up on every single vampire hunter and snap their neck?

Celia Cyanide · Jul 26, 2009

Kurtz said:
I was going to say the Joker, but he does win in the end.

He is on the list of villains who should have won because they are just cooler.

Zoombie · Jul 26, 2009

The villain in my novel should have just killed those meddling kids when he had the chance.

But he decided to monologue. At one point, I think he says, "When I first came up with this plan, I swore I would never do this...BUT ITS SO MUCH FUN!"

Its a comedy, so I think I can get away with it...

Kurtz · Jul 26, 2009

Celia Cyanide said:
He is on the list of villains who should have won because they are just cooler.

Think about it though:

The whole thing with the boats and the 'social experiment' was a little bit of extra-curricular fun on the Jokers part. His real aim was to either take out Batman or ruin Harvey Dent. Both of which he suceeded in doing. The good guys could be said to 'win' at the end of the film, but Batman's relationship with Gotham has been destroyed, and they were only able to make a martyr out of Dent by Batman taking the fall.

If anyone wins in that film its the Joker.

Celia Cyanide · Jul 26, 2009

Kurtz said:
Think about it though:

The whole thing with the boats and the 'social experiment' was a little bit of extra-curricular fun on the Jokers part. His real aim was to either take out Batman or ruin Harvey Dent. Both of which he suceeded in doing. The good guys could be said to 'win' at the end of the film, but Batman's relationship with Gotham has been destroyed, and they were only able to make a martyr out of Dent by Batman taking the fall.

If anyone wins in that film its the Joker.

I think that is probably right. But I think it's probably more of a stalemate. What he really wanted was not just to ruin Harvey Dent, but to kill the hope of everyone in Gotham by doing so. And he realized along the way they he didn't really want to be rid of Batman. So in the end, he got the opposite of what he really wanted--Batman was gone, and Harvey Dent's reputation was salvaged.

robeiae · Jul 26, 2009

And here I thought he was just looking to have a few laughs...

dgiharris · Jul 26, 2009

In Independence day,

the Aliens should have completely kicked our asses. So we managed to turn off their shields. Big freaking deal, their spaceships are freaking 5 - 10 miles in Diameter, and they've got more fighter space craft than we got bullets. Oh, lets not forget the fact that their space craft can out fly, out climb, out last, out maneuver, and out shoot our planes, planes that can only last a few hours in the air without refueling and are being flown by civilians with little to no training. Wait, they did have that one night 'crash course' in flying.

Aliens, here's an idea. So your shields are down. how about retreating back up to outer space until you figure out what went wrong?

dgiharris · Jul 26, 2009

In the movie Heat

The biggest thing that annoyed me is that throughout the whole movie they are soo smart, then towards the end, when the 'Heat' is on them, they couldn't just wait a few weeks.

Here's an idea. Why not take a vacation, leave town for a few weeks or months, come back when things cool down and THEN rob that bank. Or, if you are worried about the super hot detective, why not send a hitman to kill him or at least put him in the hospital so that you can be worry free when you rob the bank.

They should have totally gotten away with that robbery.

Mel...

Villains Who Really Should Have Won When You Think About It...

Still around

Still around

Fix up, look sharp.

Five by Five

Prodigiously Hanged

Touch and go

Five by Five

Five by Five

It's hard being green

What happened to my LIFE?!

Five by Five

What happened to my LIFE?!

Company Man

Malkavian Primogen

Joker Groupie

Dragon of the Multiverse

Fix up, look sharp.

Joker Groupie

Touch and go

Disgruntled Scientist

Disgruntled Scientist