Has the 'Villains Problem' been solved?

[jaqua99]

Excuse you. It seems that many disagree seeing as Hela easily won polls of the best MCU villain of 2017 and the best villain of 2017 right here on the Hype. Well, I think she ended up drawing in the latter with Pennywise, but still.

Anyway, there's already a recent thread about this topic.

The thing with Hela, that people don't seem to get, is that it isn't personal, well it is, but it's bigger than that, which is how it should be. Loki was an exception, a relateable brother turned psychopath. But with Hela, you don't feel for her. And you don't HAVE to.

You are dealing with gods and mythology and the norse apocalpyse. She got her back story, and her familial tie to the protagonisr, but that was all that's needed. It's an epic of a movie. It isnt a human based movie. It doesnt reflect human nature, as massive godly type stories dont. They moreso symbolism abstract human concepts and philosophies on an unimaginable scale.

It's a story about the norse gods. Family tragic drama, and the symbol of greed (Hela), the symbol of hope/heroism (Thor), the symbol of the jester's obigatory rightousness (Banner), and the symbol of destruction (Surtur). It is bigger than black panther's killmonger story, or Zemo trying to tear the avengers appart. Hela doesn't NEED to be relatable, to have a human based motive or any of that because she serves the story in the context I just described. In fact, fleshing her out more, figuring what went wrong, why she turned bad, similar to Loki, WOULD make her a worse villain. She is a symbol of lust/lust for power. Ties to the heroes but evil because the plot needs her to be. It works out.

Look at the goddamn Emporer Palpatine lolol. What do you know about him? Nothing! What about him is relatable? Nothing? Do you want him fleshed out? Hell no! He is evil just for the hell of it. And he is absolutely awesome. On stories like this where it's large scale, the villains don't NEED to be very human. They just don't and they may suffer if they are

 

[Visualiza]

I'm going with option 2. There's been more than enough examples of good superhero movies (and actioners in general) that also happened to have average or forgettable villains for this idea to have ever held any water. There's only a villain problem when said villain plays an indispensable role in driving the plot & themes, and demands most of the protagonist's attention - but fails at it. Not all of these movies need to fit into that archetype and so many of them have done well otherwise. I'll also point out that a lot of people seem to be of the attitude that if a villain isn't on the level of Ledger's Joker, then they suck. Even though that isn't often verbalized, I say this because we didn't hear this type of talk before 2008, and while I do think there's something to be said about raising the bar, I the years since then have proven to us that the Joker was the exception, not the rule. I honestly believe that this villain thing is just low-hanging fruit. That is to say, when people can't adequately express why they didn't enjoy a particular movie, it's easier to just go after the more obvious, surface-level details. It's easy to armchair expert the whole affair - "if there was more focus on the villain, the movie would be better!" - but it's not that simple, nor would it necessarily be true in many cases.

Some of the very best genre movies have lackluster villains. The most celebrated cbm of last year had an awful villain(s), yet that didn't stop the hugely infectious level of enthusiasm surrounding the movie. The truth of the matter is that most good action movies are good in spite of their villains, while in rare cases, they benefit from an exceptional one. Bad villains are simply easier to pick at in bad or even average movies. I'll also add that Marvel has clearly stepped up their game re: villains, but I still don't think it was ever a problem per se.

 

[Finarfiniel]

The thing with Hela, that people don't seem to get, is that it isn't personal, well it is, but it's bigger than that, which is how it should be. Loki was an exception, a relateable brother turned psychopath. But with Hela, you don't feel for her. And you don't HAVE to.

You are dealing with gods and mythology and the norse apocalpyse. She got her back story, and her familial tie to the protagonisr, but that was all that's needed. It's an epic of a movie. It isnt a human based movie. It doesnt reflect human nature, as massive godly type stories dont. They moreso symbolism abstract human concepts and philosophies on an unimaginable scale.

It's a story about the norse gods. Family tragic drama, and the symbol of greed (Hela), the symbol of hope/heroism (Thor), the symbol of the jester's obigatory rightousness (Banner), and the symbol of destruction (Surtur). It is bigger than black panther's killmonger story, or Zemo trying to tear the avengers appart. Hela doesn't NEED to be relatable, to have a human based motive or any of that because she serves the story in the context I just described. In fact, fleshing her out more, figuring what went wrong, why she turned bad, similar to Loki, WOULD make her a worse villain. She is a symbol of lust/lust for power. Ties to the heroes but evil because the plot needs her to be. It works out.

Look at the goddamn Emporer Palpatine lolol. What do you know about him? Nothing! What about him is relatable? Nothing? Do you want him fleshed out? Hell no! He is evil just for the hell of it. And he is absolutely awesome. On stories like this where it's large scale, the villains don't NEED to be very human. They just don't and they may suffer if they are

Damn, dude. I couldn't have put it better myself, totally agree. I'm a little tired of the narrative that a villain can only be deemed as good if they're 'relatable' and have super deep motivations. There are countless great villains throughout movie history that don't fit that criteria, as you've pointed out so well above. Hela as a villain fits the movie that she's in and is memorable by virtue of a charismatic, campy, fun performance by the wonderful actress that plays her.

 

[Bayne]

The thing with Hela, that people don't seem to get, is that it isn't personal, well it is, but it's bigger than that, which is how it should be. Loki was an exception, a relateable brother turned psychopath. But with Hela, you don't feel for her. And you don't HAVE to.

You are dealing with gods and mythology and the norse apocalpyse. She got her back story, and her familial tie to the protagonisr, but that was all that's needed. It's an epic of a movie. It isnt a human based movie. It doesnt reflect human nature, as massive godly type stories dont. They moreso symbolism abstract human concepts and philosophies on an unimaginable scale.

It's a story about the norse gods. Family tragic drama, and the symbol of greed (Hela), the symbol of hope/heroism (Thor), the symbol of the jester's obigatory rightousness (Banner), and the symbol of destruction (Surtur). It is bigger than black panther's killmonger story, or Zemo trying to tear the avengers appart. Hela doesn't NEED to be relatable, to have a human based motive or any of that because she serves the story in the context I just described. In fact, fleshing her out more, figuring what went wrong, why she turned bad, similar to Loki, WOULD make her a worse villain. She is a symbol of lust/lust for power. Ties to the heroes but evil because the plot needs her to be. It works out.

Look at the goddamn Emporer Palpatine lolol. What do you know about him? Nothing! What about him is relatable? Nothing? Do you want him fleshed out? Hell no! He is evil just for the hell of it. And he is absolutely awesome. On stories like this where it's large scale, the villains don't NEED to be very human. They just don't and they may suffer if they are

The issue with Hela isn't about relatability, though. It's about the story. Hela defeats Asgard in 5 (not very interesting) minutes, then has nothing left to do for the rest of the movie until Thor shows up to fight her. She doesn't even have any kind of plan to fulfill other than kill anyone who disagrees, which seems more like a hobby than anything else. Palpatine was a chess player. Hela is just frying ants with a magnifying glass.

 

[Finarfiniel]

The issue with Hela isn't about relatability, though. It's about the story. Hela defeats Asgard in 5 (not very interesting) minutes, then has nothing left to do for the rest of the movie until Thor shows up to fight her. She doesn't even have any kind of plan to fulfill other than kill anyone who disagrees, which seems more like a hobby than anything else. Palpatine was a chess player. Hela is just frying ants with a magnifying glass.

She clearly does have a plan though, which Heimdall scuppers by stealing the Bifrost Sword and therefore renders her unwilling to leave Asgard until she's retrieved it, which was Heimdall's plan all along. He was buying time whilst Thor found a way to escape Sakaar. Hela's plan was to revert Asgard back to it's past imperialistic and universal supremacist ways by conquering the Nine Realms and then the rest of the cosmos. War and subjugation is all that Hela lives for, she was raised as a living weapon by a father that would sooner imprison her then try and teach her the error of her ways. She knows nor cares for anything else but war and death.

You may not like the way that the movie presents or deals with it, but to say that she no plan or has nothing to do is false.

 

[TheVileOne]

It really hasn't for obvious reasons.

 

[Loki882]

The issue with Hela isn't about relatability, though. It's about the story. Hela defeats Asgard in 5 (not very interesting) minutes, then has nothing left to do for the rest of the movie until Thor shows up to fight her. She doesn't even have any kind of plan to fulfill other than kill anyone who disagrees, which seems more like a hobby than anything else. Palpatine was a chess player. Hela is just frying ants with a magnifying glass.

My bigger problem with her is that they give her this new backstory, that could have led to some interesting possibilities and interesting interactions with Thor and Loki. But they don't really do anything with it, it feels rather superfluous.

It's like they tease something better with her, but then don't go there. So as it stands, she's a kind of generic villain, that's elevated by a really entertaining performance.

Ego, Vulture, and Killmonger all had excellent performance, AND were more interesting as characters imo.

 

[Dasher10]

Villain problem has been fixed except for Kaecilius. He was still pretty bad.

 

[Loki882]

I'm also not nearly as fond of Zemo as so many others seem to be. He was just, alright, imo.

 

[Loki882]

I didn't think the problem was over exaggerated, but I always felt that it was weirdly aimed at Marvel simply because their superhero output is far greater than any other studio in Hollywood.

It's not like the competition has done any better. When your best villains are Zod or the cool guy with the sunglasses from Logan (who I did love but.... come on), it's clear there's a problem. I'd argue that Marvel is the only studio to give us a good villain since Bane in 2012, and they've done it several times over.

It's aimed at Marvel because they do so much else right. So when you're perceived as being so good as so much else, but there's this one weak spot that's an ongoing thing throughout your films, it stands out more to many.

It's a situation of "well you do all of this other stuff well, so why do you keep dropping the ball in this one area."

It's actually not that hard to understand I think.

 

[InfinityWar]

Ego (Kurt Russell)
Hela (Cate Blanchett)
Vulture (Michael Keaton)
Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan)

Four FANTASTIC villains, and all played by my favorite actors and best actors of Hollywood.

There really was no MCU villain issue. That is bs. Jeff Bridges, Mickey Rourke, Sam Rockwell, Tom Hiddleton..... The only ones that were meh was Ronin, IM 3 villain, and Dark World villain. Even Tim Roth was okay.

 

[CosmicSpider]

I’ve never really thought most of the villains were as awful as some do, and I’m not sure about this necessarily “solving” the problem, but I did connect with Erik Killmonger emotionally more than any other villain in a long time. So I think that’s a step in the right direction.

 

[Bayne]

She clearly does have a plan though, which Heimdall scuppers by stealing the Bifrost Sword and therefore renders her unwilling to leave Asgard until she's retrieved it, which was Heimdall's plan all along. He was buying time whilst Thor found a way to escape Sakaar. Hela's plan was to revert Asgard back to it's past imperialistic and universal supremacist ways by conquering the Nine Realms and then the rest of the cosmos. War and subjugation is all that Hela lives for, she was raised as a living weapon by a father that would sooner imprison her then try and teach her the error of her ways. She knows nor cares for anything else but war and death.

You may not like the way that the movie presents or deals with it, but to say that she no plan or has nothing to do is false.

I didn't mean to say she literally does nothing. She has (small) scenes. There is an idea of a plan in the movie. It is just so poorly fleshed out and so completely out of focus that it never amounts to anything. There is no sense of urgency about anything other than the handful of refugees Heimdall is hiding, so there is no sense that her ultimate plan actually means anything to anyone. And even in regards to her hunting the refugees: it's only used as a plot device to make Thor hurry back to Asgard to save them with the result that Hela isn't actually allowed to be a character during those scenes. She's just a looming shadow of death creeping mindlessly forward.

 

[Bayne]

My bigger problem with her is that they give her this new backstory, that could have led to some interesting possibilities and interesting interactions with Thor and Loki. But they don't really do anything with it, it feels rather superfluous.

It's like they tease something better with her, but then don't go there. So as it stands, she's a kind of generic villain, that's elevated by a really entertaining performance.

Ego, Vulture, and Killmonger all had excellent performance, AND were more interesting as characters imo.

That's basically what I mean, just with more specifics. Hela had no interaction on that level because she was barely connected to the bulk of the movie. If they had made more effort to tie her in story-wise, this would've been a very obvious thing to do with some of her extra screen time. The other obvious thing would've been to give her some real agency in the cat and mouse game with Heimdall, make that a bigger part of the movie and give some sense of what she intends to do after she wins and why it's a bad thing (possibly through some sort of confrontation between her and Heimdall).

 

[Loki882]

Or let her and Thor/Loki interact more and in more interesting ways. Really them running off to goof around on Sakaar for so long really undercuts the Hela/Ragnarok arc imo (which sadly is what I was afraid would happen going into the film).

Heck even her past history with Valkyrie doesn't lead to anything all that interesting either.

 

[Finarfiniel]

That's basically what I mean, just with more specifics. Hela had no interaction on that level because she was barely connected to the bulk of the movie. If they had made more effort to tie her in story-wise, this would've been a very obvious thing to do with some of her extra screen time. The other obvious thing would've been to give her some real agency in the cat and mouse game with Heimdall, make that a bigger part of the movie and give some sense of what she intends to do after she wins and why it's a bad thing (possibly through some sort of confrontation between her and Heimdall).

Or let her and Thor/Loki interact more and in more interesting ways. Really them running off to goof around on Sakaar for so long really undercuts the Hela/Ragnarok arc imo (which sadly is what I was afraid would happen going into the film).

Heck even her past history with Valkyrie doesn't lead to anything all that interesting either.

I actually agree with both of you. I love Ragnarok but my biggest complaints about the film have always been related to the above, that Hela isn't given enough screen time and that there is a clear imbalance between what is happening on Sakaar and what is happening on Asgard and the actual Ragnarok plot. I also agree that there should have been more interaction between Hela and Thor, Loki and Valkyrie. I also feel the film would have clearly benefitted from showing actual flashbacks of Hela and Odin's past conquests, e.t.c. So you'll get no disagreement from me there.

However, the above doesn't change the fact that, in my opinion, the scenes that we do get with Hela are hugely entertaining because of the interesting way that Cate Blanchett decided to portray her. I love how sassy, theatrical and entertainingly off-kilter Hela is, the way that she speaks and moves and carries herself. Many lesser actresses would have played Hela completely straight as your standard evil queen type, but Blanchett gives her so much more personality and swagger than that. The fact that so many people (including me) are desperately hoping to see her pop up in the MCU again somehow is testament to Blanchett's ability to overcome the lack of screen time and development through charisma and performance alone. If the audience don't care about Hela then they wouldn't be interested in seeing more of her, and she certainly wouldn't be winning best villain polls, e.t.c.

 

[Neptune]

I think the problem hasn't been solved and it's because of the way Marvel structures their movies. Kevin Feige said that the heroes are always the focus of the films and the villains are basicly secondary. Which is a shame because Marvel has some of the best comic villains. It could vastly improve their movies if they included better written villains with more screentime and motivation.

Which isn't to say that all their villains have been horrible but most have been underwhelming, some outright terrible and a few have been really good.

 

[Spiderine]

I would say most of the villain problems occurred early in the MCU. They are learning and getting better at fleshing them out and giving them better motivations for the most part. Thanos will be the ultimate test for me.

 

[DACrowe]

Killmonger is a great villain. The best villain to come out of a comic book movie since 2012. Yes, I will say that if Marvel can push things that well in future films, then there is no longer a villain problem.

 

[kedrell]

I liked Klaw as a villain more...more personality to him. Killmonger was rather dry to me. When it comes to dour villains with a brilliant plan that they execute on the hero(es), my fave is still Zemo. He's the villain who won. Killmonger is basically black Hitler conducting his version of the anschluss on the African diaspora.

 

[Bayne]

I actually agree with both of you. I love Ragnarok but my biggest complaints about the film have always been related to the above, that Hela isn't given enough screen time and that there is a clear imbalance between what is happening on Sakaar and what is happening on Asgard and the actual Ragnarok plot. I also agree that there should have been more interaction between Hela and Thor, Loki and Valkyrie. I also feel the film would have clearly benefitted from showing actual flashbacks of Hela and Odin's past conquests, e.t.c. So you'll get no disagreement from me there.

However, the above doesn't change the fact that, in my opinion, the scenes that we do get with Hela are hugely entertaining because of the interesting way that Cate Blanchett decided to portray her. I love how sassy, theatrical and entertainingly off-kilter Hela is, the way that she speaks and moves and carries herself. Many lesser actresses would have played Hela completely straight as your standard evil queen type, but Blanchett gives her so much more personality and swagger than that. The fact that so many people (including me) are desperately hoping to see her pop up in the MCU again somehow is testament to Blanchett's ability to overcome the lack of screen time and development through charisma and performance alone. If the audience don't care about Hela then they wouldn't be interested in seeing more of her, and she certainly wouldn't be winning best villain polls, e.t.c.

I don't really disagree with any of that, either. It's just that, for me, the writing of the character is too disappointing for the performance to balance it out. But i'm certainly glad that you and so many others enjoyed the performance so highly, and I'd be perfectly happy to see her come back in another film, too (though Zemo and Vulture are the two I'd desperately want to see return).

 

[StarLord]

I will say that MCU in 2017 had 2 great villains with Vulture and Hela, and 2018 is off to a brilliant start with Killmonger.

Thanos, don't let me down.

 

[kedrell]

Well considering the Russo's are the gold standard for MCU directors I'm not worried about Thanos. All they need to do is not lose the death-fetish angle Thanos has going for him(which makes him head and shoulders more interesting than similar types in Darkseid and Apocalyse).

 

[The_Manhunter]

I don't think the MCU ever had a villain problem to begin with. I think most of their films have had good villains.

 

[Aztec]

The "villain problem" was always exaggerated, especially compared to what the competition was putting out, but a series of really good villains in 2017-18 has really put an end to the argument having any teeth to it at all.

This.

Zemo, Ego, Vulture, Hela, and Killmonger show that the MCU knows how to do villains with depth. Oh and Klaue and Grandmaster were awesome as well.