Theorem: A movie within a good villain is not a good movie?

[sinsabahnur]

I place this theorem here, but it also fits into comic, cartoon and game sections...

I have a thought: A fictional story without a good/ loveable/ well thought villain is not a good story.

In my opinion every story -good vs bad related - needs to have a villain that has a good backstory, a good reason for his action, someone that you could admire if you were his friend, or servant or whatever.

Few examples of villains I thought were awesome to look at:
Alex Trevelyn, from James Bond Goldeneye, to name one of many bond Villains.
Se7en, the murderer (who's ID I keep a secret for those who still haven't seen it.)
Dracula from 1992 Dracula.

How about you? Can a story be interesting if the villain is not?

 

[childeroland]

I don't know about uninteresting villains, but plenty of good stories don't really have an antagonist: Black Swan, Groundhog Day (depending how you look at it), Into the Wild, Naked Prey (which has an antagonist but they're not that interesting), Juno, Mary Poppins, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Gravity, Her, WarGames (where the "villain" is humankind's stupidity more than anything else), Little Women, a lot of Asimov stories...

 

[KevanG]

Groundhog Day had Punxsutawney Phil. That SOB caused a man to go insane over the course of ten thousand years or so. His control of time was so powerful even death couldn't stop his vendetta.

 

[childeroland]

Yeah but he's more a villain protagonist and he's not particularly evil so much as he's just an enormously self-absorbed a**hole.

 

[DarkSovereignty]

Damned groundhog, he's up there with darth vader and the shark from jaws

As for the theory, it all depends on what kind of story is being told. There numerous kinds of protagonists, forces of nature, mirror reflections of the protagonist, sympathetic ones, ect. Those seem to the most popular.

 

[Spider-Aziz]

Red Corner is a very good movie, and the antagonist is not interesting

 

[weezerspider]

Conflict advances story. In most basic plot films, conflict is caused by the villain, so I get your point. However, it's not the villain that advances the story, its the conflict caused by the villain. Most character dramas have no 'villain', but they certainly have conflict. Using a film already mentioned in this thread, Spike Jonze's Her. Her has no villain, but it has tons of conflict. Theodore is struggling with a divorce. Samantha, as an AI, and Theodore, as a human being, have many differences which cause multitudes of conflict in the film. I could go on. The point is, almost all great films have great conflict. I say almost because there are plenty of great French New Wave films without much conflict at all.

 

[GremlinZilla89]

I don't think a movie with good guy and bad guy NEEDS to have the villain be great to be a good film, but it never hurts.

The best example of great films I can think of are the Indiana Jones films. Honestly, none of the villains leave much of an impression. The best is Mola Ram and the cult from Temple, but he doesn't have much screen time. Belloq? Who cares? Tote? Why is he so iconic? All he does is look creepy and get his hand burned.

Donovan is all but a non-existent and damn me to hell if you want, but Spalko is probably the second best villain of the series.

The series as a whole is my favorite ever, but the villains were never anything special.

 

[childeroland]

I forgot about WALL*E. No real villain so much as very misguided humans and their machinery.

 

[CyclopsWasRight]

Groundhog Day had Punxsutawney Phil. That SOB caused a man to go insane over the course of ten thousand years or so. His control of time was so powerful even death couldn't stop his vendetta.

Damned groundhog, he's up there with darth vader and the shark from jaws .

He had his Reasons. Phil did try to murder him

 

[Schlosser85]

A great villain can definitely do a lot to bump a movie up (The Dark Knight? The Silence of the Lambs?), but it's not absolutely necessary, and some great movies don't even have a villain or even really an antagonist.

 

[spider-neil]

You can have good movies without an antagonist but I definately think ALL movies needs 'some' sort of obstacle. What I will say is virtually all my favorite movies (top 20 at least) has a villain.

 

[DA_Champion]

That's a good query, are there good movies that don't have a conflict?

There must be a few ... ?

 

[weezerspider]

That's a good query, are there good movies that don't have a conflict?

There must be a few ... ?

Richard Linklater's Slacker doesn't really have much conflict. Linklater's Before Series has very little conflict. That's all I can think of.